“But soon,” he cried, with sad and solemn enthusiasm, “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly, and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.”

He sprung from the cabin window, as he said this, upon the ice-raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.

THE END.

Notes

^[1] . two persons … celebrity] Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97), author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and William Godwin (1756–1836), author of An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Caleb Williams. <<

^[2] . eyry] eyrie or aerie. <<

^[3] . Sanchean] like Sancho Panza in Don Quixote. <<

^[4] . Dr Darwin] Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin. <<

^[5] . preface] Percy Shelley had written the preface (signed “Marlow”) for the anonymous 1818 edition. <<

^[1] . ground sea] a swell of the ocean, which occurs in calm weather and without obvious cause, breaking on the shore in heavy rollers. <<

^[1] . syndics] municipal magistrates. <<

^[2] . schiavi ognor frementi] always restless slaves. <<

^[1] . campagne] country place. <<

^[2] . temperature] temperament. <<

^[3] . Cornelius Agrippa] Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535), author of De occulta philosophia, in which he claimed that the study of magic was the best means to know God and nature. <<

^[4] . Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus] Paracelsus (1493–1541), or Theophrastus Bombastus Hohenheim, was a Swiss alchemist and physician; Albertus Magnus (1193?—1280) was a philosopher and natural scientist. <<

^[1] . the Arabian … dead] a reference to Sinbad the Sailor’s Fourth Voyage in The Thousand and One Nights. <<

^[*] Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner [author’s footnote]. <<

^[1] . Ariosto … Angelica] Angelica is one of the chief heroines of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. <<

^[1] . “the palaces of nature”] from Canto III, line lxii, of Byron’s Childe Harolďs Pilgrimage. <<

^[1] . The end of Chapter VIII marked the end of Volume I of the first edition of 1818. <<

^[1] . aiguilles] sharp-pointed pinnacles of rock. <<

^[1] . We rest … mutability!] last lines of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Mutability.” <<

^[*] The moon [author’s footnote]. <<

^[1] . discover] reveal. <<

^[2] . the ass and the lap-dog] in the fable, the ass tries to gain his master’s affection by imitating the lap-dog, but is beaten for his behavior. <<

^[1] . Volney’s Ruins of Empires] an essay on the philosophy of history written by the Comte de Volney in 1791. <<

^[1] . “The path … free”] perhaps based on line 14 of Shelley’s “Mutability” (“The path of its departure still is free”). <<

^[1] . siroc] sirocco; a hot, oppressive wind. <<