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NOTES.

Page 3. "JOHN ANDERSON "--R. Burns. Line 1. "jo," sweetheart. L.4. brent, smooth, bright. L. 7. "pow” pole, or head.

Page 4. "OH, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST" Line 3. "airt" quarter of the heavens. L. 7. "bield" shelter.

Page 6. "MY JEAN"-Line 5. "row" roll. L. 6. Verse 2. "shaw," a small wood in a hollow, a copse. The four short songs by Burns with which the Second Part opens may be cited as almost faultless models of the class of poetry they represent.

Page 9. "HIGHLAND MARY"-R. Burns. Line 4. Verse 1. "Drumlie," muddy. L. 1. V. 2. "birk" birch.

Page 12. "THE PROMISE of Childhood." Ibid. Line 4. Verse 5. “tents" guards, tends.

Page 18. "NIGHT AND DEATH"-7. B. White. Coleridge pronounced this sonnet "the best in the English language," and L. Hunt adds that "in point of thought, it stands supreme, perhaps above all in any language." Our admiration is almost exceeded by our wonder when it is remembered that the author was born and brought up in Spain, was no longer young when he came to England, and then spoke English like a foreigner.

Page 20. "THE Ideal Hermitage"-W. Wordsworth. Line 13. "thorp" a hamlet. Ibid. "vill" village.

Page 22. "FOR A GROTTO." This little-known and seldom-quoted "Inscription for a grotto" is exquisitely Greek in sentiment, and might have been written by Theocritus.

Page 23. "ODE TO CONTEMPLATION"-H. K. White. An undeniable imitation of the "Penseroso" of Milton; but a charming poem. Line 2. "Lapponian" Laplandish. L. 29. "Singing of one that died for love" a delicious touch, that puts the whole ballad before us in a line.

Page 27. "KUBLA KHAN"-S. T. Coleridge. Of this poem, the writer himself narrates how it came to him in a dream, as he was sleeping one day in his chair. Waking, he seized the pen and wrote thus far from memory, when, being interrupted by a visitor, he lost the frail thread of recollection and never remembered the rest. The dream was suggested by a passage in Purchas's travels, over which he had fallen asleep.

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Page 29. "THE ISLES OF GREECE"-Lord Byron. Line 5. Verse 3. Persians' grave," ," the tumulus raised over the Persian slain. L. 1. Verse 4. king sat on the rocky brow" Xerxes. L. 1. Verse 10. "You have the Pyrrhic dance" Dodswell, in his Tour in Greece, relates that the Greek mountaineers still preserved a kind of Pyrrhic dance which they performed, armed with swords and muskets. L. 5. Verse 10. "the letters Cadmus gave" Cadmus, a Phoenician prince, said to have introduced into Greece an alphabet of 16 letters from either Phoenicia or Egypt. L. 6. Verse 13. "Heracleidan the descendants of Hercules. L. 1. Verse 16. "Sunium's marbled steep"-the promontory of Sunium forms the S. extremity of Attica, and is crowned by the marble ruins of a splendid temple to Athena. This poem and the two which follow it strike the same note of sympathy with the struggle for Greek liberty that possessed Europe from commencement of the war of independance in 1821 till the evacuation of the Morea by the Turks in 1828.

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Page 35. "THE BOWL OF LIBERTY"-Mrs. Hemans. The Platæans held an anniversary solemnity to the memory of those who fell fighting for their country's liberty. At break of day, on the 16th of the month called Mæmacterion, they went out in procession to the sepulchres-a trumpeter going first; then three chariots laden with garlands and myrrh; then a black bull for the sacrifice; then a body of free-born youth bearing jars of wine, oil, and precious ointments; lastly the chief magistrate of Platæa clothed in purple. Arrived at the sepulchres, the magistrate sprinkled and anointed them, sacrificed the bull, and in a loud voice invited the Souls of the Heroes to this funereal feast. He then filled a bowl of wine, and said "I drink to those who lost their lives for the liberty of Greece." Plutarch states that these august and ancient ceremonies were observed in his day.

Page 41. "LOVE LEFT SORROWING"-W. Wordsworth-a poem peculiarly Wordsworthian; abounding in characteristic beauties of feeling and style, and not without that touch of simplicity, almost approaching to grotesqueness, which stamps certain of the poet's rural pieces. We seem to see a sort of gentle modern Polyphemus in the big man, able to dance "equipped from head to foot in iron mail."

poem, and

Page 53. "HOPELESS AND ALONE"-J. A. Symonds. This "A Lost Love" (Page 104) are here published for the first time, by kind permission of the author.

Page 57.

"BANNOCKBURN"-R. Burns. The army of Edward II. was totally routed at Bannockburn near Stirling, by Robert Bruce, King of Scots, June 24th 1314.

Page 59. "The Battle of IVRY"-Lord Macaulay. Henry IV. defeated the League army at lvry, near Evreux, March 14th A.D. 1590.

Page 62. "HOHENLINDEN"-T. Campbell. The Austrians, commanded by the Archduke John, were defeated at Hohenlinden by the French and Bavarian army under Moreau, Dec. 3th A.D. 1800.

Page 63.

"PIBROCH OF DONALD DHU"-Sir W. Scott. Founded on a very ancient Pibroch supposed to relate to the expedition of Donald Balloch who, in 1431, at the head of a greatly inferior force defeated and routed the Earls of Mar and Caithness at Inverlochy.

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Page 65. "CORONACH." Ibid. The coronach of the Highlanders, like the ululatus of the Romans and the ululoo of the Irish, was a wild cry of lamentation raised over a dead body. Line 1. Verse 3. "correi" covert on the hill side. L. 2. ibid. "cumber" trouble. L. 3. ibid. "foray" fight.

Page 66. "THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE"-C. Wolfe. The battle of Corunna was fought (N. W. Spain) between 15000 English under Sir J. Moore and 20,000 French, Jan. 16th 1809. The English achieved a complete victory, but at the cost of immense losses, among which the greatest was that of Sir J. Moore. AFTER BLENHEIM"-R. Southey. A masterpiece of simple

Page 70.

and pathetic irony. Page 72. "OZYMANDIAS OF EGYPT"-P. B. Sheiley. Ozimandias and Sesostris are names erroneously given by the Greeks to Rameses II. surnamed the Great, the most illustrious conqueror, temple-builder and art-patron of Egyptian history. This fine sonnet could scarcely have been more beautiful or impressive if written under the influence of a Theban sky; but it would certainly have been more true to facts if the writer had ever visited in person the scene he so poetically describes. The great fallen statue (greatest of all known monolithic colossi) lies shattered out of form and recognition at the SW. side of the ruins of the Memnonium, on the edge of the cultivated land and close against the foot of the Theban mountains. The legs do not stand; they are split into innumerable fragments, and lie in heaped-up ruin. The desert-sands do not surround them. And the face of the statue is wholly gone, having been sawn away for millstones by the Arabs any time within the last two or three hundred years. Page 73. "THE NILE"-L. Hunt. Take is altogether, this is perhaps the finest poem that Hunt ever wrote; the second line is absolutely perfect. Line 8. "the laughing queen that caught the world's great hands." Cleopatra, who succeeded in captivating both Antony and Cæsar.

Page 75. "ROMAN ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED"-W Wordsworth. Line 12. "the Wolf, whose suckling Twins" &c. Romulus and Remus, fabled to have been suckled by a wolf.

Page 77. "FANCY IN NUBIBUS"-S. T. Coleridge. Line 11. "that blind bard" Homer was supposed by the ancient to have been born at Chios, though several other places claimed the honour of his birth.

Page 80. "THE MEMORY OF GREat Poets"-T. Hood. Might have been written by Charles Lamb, for the fine Elizabethan flavour of the style. Page 81. "THE World of Books"-W. Wordsworth.-Observe the little touch of personal information in the two last lines. It is pleasant to know that Desdemona and the Una of Spenser were his two favorite ideals.

Page 83. "ODE to the West WINI"-P. S. Shelley. Line 21. "Mænad” -a Bacchante, or wild Nymph attendant on Bacchus. Had Shelley left nothing but this magnificent Ode, it would have been enough to vindicate his claim to the rank of a great poet.

Page 92.

"CHORAL HYMN TO ARTEMIS"-A. C. Swinburne. Line 6. Verse 1. "Itylus" see note to Barnefield's "nightingale." Notes to ELDER ENGLISH POETs (First Series), p. 277. L. 6. Verse 5. "the oat is heard above the lyre" i. e. it is the season for the piping of shepherds, rather than for the singing of bards in palace-halls. L. 4. Verse 6. "Bassarid" a Bacchante.

Modern Poets.

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Page 94. "HYMN OF PAN"-P. B. Shelley. Line 11. "old Tmolus," famous mountain in Lydia. L. 26. "the dædal earth" i. e. the world in the mythic time of Dædalus; the archaic period, when architecture and the arts were in their infancy. L. 27. "the giant wars," the wars of the Titans against Zeus. L. 30. "Mænalus" a mountain in Arcadia, and the favorite

haunt of Pan.

Page 97. "PERSEPHONE"-J. Ingelow. Persephone in the Greek for Proserpina. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter (Ceres), was carried off by Pluto while gathering flowers with her maidens in the vale of Enna. Having obtained her dread lord's permission to visit her mother, she returned to the upper world; but having eaten the pomegranate seed in Hades, was constrained to return to the lower world again, where she reigns Queen of the shades.

Page 101. "THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES"-C. Lamb. One of the most simple, pathetic, and original poems in any language.

Page 107. "DIRGE"-T. Lovell Beddoes. A poet little known to general readers; born near Bristol A.D. 1803; died in Basle, Jan. 26th, 1849. His poems were published by Pickering, in two volumes, in 1851. This Dirge is from "Death's Jest Book," a wild dramatic poem full of strange quaint imagery, and rare beauty of thought. Beddoes was, so to say, saturated with the spirit of the Elizabethan Dramatists, and cast his poetry for the most part into Elizabethan forms.

Page 109. "THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS"-T. Hood. Westminster Bridge, whence many "unfortunates" used to commit suicide by throwing themselves into the Thames at the time this beautiful and pitiful poem was written. Page 114. "After DEATH"-E. A. Poe. A poem as subtle and tender in feeling as it is novel in conception.

Page 119.

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"INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY" W. Wordsworth. genius of Wordsworth never rose to a loftier height than in this noble Ode. Page 132. "THE DAFFODILS." Ibid. This poem and the one by Miss Ingelow which follows it, are delightful as showing the kind of pleasurable philosophy the poets derive from the contemplation of natural objects. Page 135. "TO A SKYLARK"-P. B. Shelley. Leigh Hunt, with admirable critical insight, says of this exquisite Ode, "it is like the bird it sings-enthusiastic, enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone-small, but filling the heavens."

Page 139. "ODE TO A Nightingale"-F. Keats. Line 6. Verse 2. "Hippocrene" a fountain in mount Helicon sacred to the muses, said to have been struck from the rock by a blow from the hoof of Pegasus. This poem was written at a time when the poet had his mortal illness upon him. "Never was the voice of Death sweeter." L. Hunt.

Page 142. "TO THE CUCKOO"-W. Wordsworth. Of this poem Mr. Palgrave says that it has "an exaltation and a glory, joined with an exquisiteness of expression, which place it in the highest rank among the many masterpieces of its illustrious author." Notes to Golden Treasury.

Page 145. "ITYLUS"-C. A. Swinburne. See note, as before, to Barnefield's poem on the Nightingale. Notes to Elder Poets, First Series, p. 277.

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Page 151. CHRISTMAS CAROL"-W. Morris. Line 3. Verse 5. “Hap" good fortune L. 1. Verse 6. "bent," a shed; literally a lean-to. L. 3. Verse 7. "teen" trouble. L. 3. Verse 12. "nowell" a cry of joy raised at Christmas in mediæval times, for the birth of the Saviour; the word is from the old Norman French, and survives in the modern Noel.

Page 155. "AFTER RAIN"-W. Wordsworth. Observe the extraordinary vivacity of this little poem, as of all things brightened, refreshed, and stirring. Page 156. "MENIE"-R. Burns. Line 2. Verse 3. "tentie" cautious. L. 1. Verse 5. "steeks" shuts. Ibid. "slap," gate. Page 157. "THE PRIDE OF YOUTH"-Sir W. Scott. "Scott has given us nothing more complete and lovely than this little song, which unites simplicity and dramatic power to a wild-wood music of the rarest quality." Palgrave. Line 1. Verse 1. "Maisie," Mary.

Page 158. "O WERE MY LOVE YON LILAC FAIR"-R. Burns. This delicious little love-song, and "The Miller's Daughter" which follows it, strike the same note of simple passion. It is hard to say which is the more lovely and natural. The first, for modernness, might have been written yesterday; and both, for universality, might be as old as love itself.

Page 166. "EVENING"-W. S. Landor. Though a great wit, a great thinker, a great Hellenist, rather than a great poet, Landor has written some verses distinguished by singular transparency of style and elevation of thought. This isolated fragment of English landscape-painting might, for clearness of observation, fidelity, and simplicity, have been written by Wordsworth.

Page 170. "HYMN TO The Night”—H. W. Longfellow. Line 1. Verse 6. "Orestes-like" Orestes was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Hounded on from land to land by the Erinnyes of his mother (whom he had slain in vengeance for her complicity in the murder of his father) he found "peace" and a refuge at last under the protection of Athena at Athens. Page 173. "IN THE STORM"-Hon. Mrs. Norton. This poem, privately printed, is here given by special permission of the late lamented author. Page 177. "AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN"-W. Allston. The writer of this hearty and spirited poem was a painter in the grand style, and greater as a painter than as a poet. Mrs. Jameson says in her memoir of him, that "in Washington Allston, America lost her third great man. What Washington was as a statesman and Channing as a moralist, that was Allston as an artist.” Page 179. "THE ARMADA"-Lord Macaulay printed among the author's poetical works as "a fragment." It commemorates the signal catastrophe that brought the second war of Elizabeth's reign to a summary conclusion, when the Invincible Armada, having been chased northwards by the English fleet which numbered about 30 ships to 136, was overtaken by terrific storms and wrecked off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland (A.D. 1588). Line 7. “Aurigny's isle” the isle of Alderney. L. 23. "the Picard field" the battle of Crécy; the site of this famous fight, now included in the Departement of the Somme, was then in the Province of Picardy.

Page 184. "THe Battle of the Baltic”—T. Campbell — known in history as the battle of Copenhagen; and fought off Copenhagen, April 2nd

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