—in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell; Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. —_Par. Lost_, _I. 261–3_. {85b} _Revenge is sweet_.—Cp.: Revenge, at first though sweet Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils. —_Par. Lost_, _IX. 171–2_. {87} _This enterprize_.—Cp.: —this enterprize None shall partake with me. —_Par. Lost_, _II. 465_. {95a} _Barristers_.—The word _cyfarthwyr_, here rendered “barristers,” really means “those who bark,” which is probably only a pun of the Bard’s on _cyfarchwyr_—“those who address (the court).” {95b} _Sir Edmundbury Godfrey_.—A London magistrate who took prominent part against the Catholics in the reign of Charles II. At the time the panic which the villainy of Titus Oates had fomented was at its height, Sir Edmundbury was found dead on Primrose Hill, with his sword through his body; his tragic end was attributed to the Papists, and many innocent persons suffered torture and death for their supposed complicity in his murder. {102} _Einion the son of Gwalchmai_.—This is a reference to a fable entitled “Einion and the Lady of the Greenwood,” where the bard is led astray by “a graceful, slender lady of elegant growth and delicate feature, her complexion surpassing every red and every white in early dawn, the snow-flake on the mountain-side, and every beauteous colour in the blossoms of wood, meadow, and hill.” (_v. Iolo MSS._) Einion was an Anglesey bard, flourishing in the twelfth century. {104} _Walking round the church_.—Referring to a superstitious custom in vogue in some parts of Wales as late as the beginning of the present century. On All Souls’ Night the women-folk gathered together at the parish church, each with a candle in her hand; the sexton then came round and lit the candies, and as these burnt brightly or fitfully, so would the coming year prove prosperous or adverse. When the last candle died out, they solemnly march round the church twice or thrice, then home in silence, and in their dreams that night, their fated husbands would appear to them. {106} _Cerberus_, _et seq._—Compare the seven deadly sins in Langland’s _Vision of Piers Plowman_, Pride, Luxury (_lecherie_), Envy, Wrath, Covetousness, Gluttony, and Sloth. See also Chaucer’s Persones Tale, _passim_. A description of these seven sins occurs very frequently in old authors. {107} _What brought you here_.—Pride is the greatest of all the deadly sins. Compare Spenser’s _Faery Queen I. c. IV_, where “proud Lucifera, as men did call her,” was attended by “her six sage counsellors”—the other sins. Shakespere names this sin Ambition: Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition, For by this sin fell the angels. {108} _Sarah_.—v. Apocrypha, the book of Tobit, c. VI.