A HAND-BOOK OF MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION INCLUDING THE NAMES OF CELEBRATED STATUES, PAINTINGS, BEGUN (BUT LEFT UNFINISHED) COMPLETED AND EDITED BY CHARLES G. WHEELER "He that undertakes to compile a Dictionary undertakes that which, "Les monuments sont les crampons qui unissent une génération à BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1900 HARVARD COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. All rights reserved. NINTH IMPRESSION The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 1 PREFACE. THIS Handbook of Miscellaneous Information was first announced by Mr. William A. Wheeler in the preface to his 66 Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction," to which it was designed to be a companion volume. Its design and scope are sufficiently indicated by the title it bears and by the words of the original announcement referred to above: viz., "the author has been urged to extend his plan so as to include . . . the names of celebrated statues, paintings, palaces, country-seats, churches, ships, streets, clubs, and the like; inasmuch as such names are of very common occurrence in books and newspapers, and, for the most part, are not alphabetically entered and explained in encyclopædias, dictionaries, or gazetteers." A large amount of notes and memoranda in a considerably advanced state (as well as completed MS.) was left by Mr. Wheeler at his death; and the present editor has endeavored to carry out the work in strict accordance with the original plan. One only needs to glance at the pages of any prominent writer, or at the citations here given, to see how full they are of allusions to buildings, pictures, statues, streets, and the like, for which the ordinary reader has no explanation at hand, and which this book aims so far as possible to explain. The same holds true of the columns of the magazines and daily newspapers, where there are repeated allusions to iii 1330 |