[Footnote P: When Plato visited Syracuse, in the reign of Dionysius, Dion became his disciple, and induced Dionysius to invite Plato a second time to Syracuse. But neither Plato nor Dion could succeed in their efforts to influence and elevate Dionysius. Dion withdrew to Athens, and lived in close intimacy with Plato, and with Speusippus. The latter urged him to return, and deliver Sicily from the tyrant Dionysius, who had become unpopular in the island. Dion got some of the Syracusan exiles in Greece to join him, and "sailed from Zacynthus," with two merchant ships, and about 800 troops. He took Syracuse, and became dictator of the district. But--as was the case with the tyrants of the French Revolution who took the place of those of the old regime (record later on in 'The Prelude')--the Syracusans found that they had only exchanged one form of rigour for another. It is thus that Plutarch refers to the occurrence. "Many statesmen and philosophers assisted him (_i. e._ Dion); "as for instance, Eudemus, the Cyprian, on whose death Aristotle wrote his dialogue of the Soul, and Timonides the Leucadian." (See Plutarch's 'Dion'.) Timonides wrote an account of Dion's campaign in Sicily in certain letters to Speusippus, which are referred to both by Plutarch and by Diogenes Laertius,--Ed.] [Footnote Q: See the previous note [Footnote P directly above].--Ed.] [Footnote R: See the 'Orlando Furioso' of Ariosto, canto i.: 'La donna il palafreno à dietro volta, E per la selva à tutta briglia il caccia; Ne per la rara più, che per la folta, La più sicura e miglior via procaccia. The lady turned her palfrey round, And through the forest drove him on amain; Nor did she choose the glade before the thickest wood, Riding the safest ever, and the better way.' Ed.] [Footnote S: See the 'Gerusalemme Liberata' of Tasso, canto vi. Erminia is the heroine of 'Jerusalem Delivered'. An account of her flight occurs at the opening of the seventh canto.--Ed.] [Footnote T: "_Rivus Romentini_, petite ville du Blaisois, et capitale de la Sologne, aujourd'hui sous-préfecture du départ. de Loir-et-Cher." It was taken in 1356 and in 1429 by the English, in 1562 by the Catholics, in 1567 by the Calvinists, and in 1589 by the Royalists. "Henri IV. l'érigea en comté pour sa maîtresse Charlotte des Essarts, 1560. François I. y rendit un édit célèbre qui attribuait aux prélats la connaissance du crime d'hérésie, et la répression des assemblées illicites." ('Dictionnaire Historique de la France', par Ludovic Lalaune. Paris, 1872.)--Ed.] [Footnote U: Blois, "Louis XII., qui était né à Blois, y séjourna souvent, et reconstruisit complétement le château, où la cour habita fréquemment au XVI'e. siècle." ('Dict. Histor. de la France', Lalaune.) The town is full of historical reminiscences of Louis XII., Francis I., Henry III., and Catherine and Mary de Medici. Wordsworth went from Orleans to Blois, in the spring of 1792.--Ed.]