Page 173. "A VISION OF THE FAERY QUEEN'"-Sir W. Raleigh. Line 12. perse-pierce. L. 13. sprighte-spirit. Leigh Hunt says-"Two persons,' I have no doubt, were included in the magnificent flattery of this sonnet-Queen Elizabeth as well as Spenser; for it was she whom the poet expressly imaged in his Queen of Fairyland; and Sir W. Raleigh was not the man to let the occasion pass for extolling that great woman, their joint mistress. His abolition of Laura, Petrarch, and Homer all in a lump, in honour of his friend Spenser is in the highest style of his wilful and somewhat domineering genius: but everything in the poem is as grandly as it is summarily done."

Page 175. "TO HIS LOVE"-W. Shakespeare. This sonnet is introduced here in the above connection, inasmuch as it evidently conveys a complimentary allusion to Spenser.

"TRUTH THE SOUL OF BEAUTY"-Ibid.

Line 9. But for

Page 179. their virtue only is their show, another inversion, as in the last line of Sir P. Sidney's sonnet to the Moon. It means—" but that their show only is their virtuc."

Page 180. "THE PAINS OF MEMORY"-W. Drummond. One of the richest and tenderest of Elizabethan sonnets. The Alexis to whom it is addressed was probably the poet's friend William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. Line 14. sith-since.

Page 182. "To MR. LAWRENCE"-J. Milton. This Mr. Lawrence was the son of the President of Cromwell's Council. Line 6. Favonius-the spring wind. This sonnet, a model of neat and elegant classicism, might have been written by Horace to Mæcenas.

Page 203.

"A RURAL PICTURE"-O. Goldsmith. To give complete poems and eschew extracts, has been a leading principle of construction throughout this volume. In the present instance, however, the Editor feels that some apology is due for the liberty taken in cutting and adapting certain passages from the "Deserted Village." Not a word, however, has been altered, and the extract thus arranged presents, it is believed, a fair representative specimen of Goldsmith's manner.

Page 205. "ODE TO EVENING"-W. Collins. Verse 2. Line 3. Brede ethereal-braid; used by Keats in the sense of chain, or procession, See Ode to a Grecian Urn-" with brede of marble men and maidens overwrought." Page 207. "ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD”—T. Gray. "Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher. It is the corner-stone of his glory."-Lord Byron. "Perhaps the noblest stanzas in our language"-F. T. Palgrave.

Page 213. "THE BIRKS OF INVERMAY"-D. Mallet. Birks-i. e. birches. Page 215. "THE BIRD"-H. Vaughan. A most tender and touching picture of the life of a bird; at once the most innocent and spiritual of created existences.

Page 217. "THE TIGER"-W. Blake. There are two versions of this noble poem. The one here given is that printed by Blake in his Songs of Experience. The other, containing some unimportant variations from a MS. authority, may be found in Gilchrist's 'Life of Blake.

286

Page 229.

NOTES.

"CUPID'S MISTAKE"-M. Prior. This poem and the one by which it is followed, are given, not for their poetical merit, which is slender, but as specimens of the vers d'occasion of the time, and as necessary links in the chain of English verse.

Page 230. "LOVE'S PATIENCE." Verse 5. Line 4. ure-custom, habit used here to signify that spring follows winter according to custom. Page 232. "LOVE'S MIGHT"-Beaumont and Fletcher. From a play by Beaumont and Fletcher called The Little French Lawyer. To assign the exact authorship of this delightful lyric would not be easy. Leigh Hunt especially admired the third line of the 2d verse-Fear the fierceness of the boy-than which, he writes, "nothing can be finer. Wonder and earnestness conspire to stamp the iteration of the sound." Vide Imagination and Fancy.

Page 235. "LOVE'S PRISONER"-W. Blake. "This lovely lyric is affirmed to have been written by Blake before he was fourteen years of age.”—W. M. Rossetti. Notes to The Poetical Works of W. Blake.

Page 236. "TO NANCY"-Bishop Percy of Dromore. Robert Burns pronounced this song to be the most beautiful composition of its kind in the English language.

Page 237. "SALLY IN OUR ALLEY”—Henry Carey. "A little masterpiece in a very difficult style. Catullus himself could hardly have bettered it. In grace, tenderness, simplicity and humour, it is worthy of the Ancients; and even more so, from the completeness and unity of the picture presented." W. G. Palgrave. Notes to The Golden Treasury. H. Carey was a musician and song-writer, and author of some minor dramatic works, published in 1743. He wrote, among other things, a farce called Hanging and Marriage, and some Verses on Gulliver's Travels.

Page 241. "YE Gentlemen of ENGLAND"-Martyn Parker. It is said of Campbell that he used frequently to repeat this poem, and that he warmly admired it. It undoubtedly suggested to him that noblest of sea-songs, Ye Mariners of England.

In

Page 242. "TO ALL YOU LADIES NOW ON LAND"-Lord Dorset. 1665, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, attended the Duke of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war, and was in the battle of June 3d when eighteen Dutch ships were taken, fourteen others destroyed, and Opdam the Admiral, who engaged the Duke, was blown up beside him, with all his crew. On the day before the battle, he is said to have composed the celebrated song To all you Ladies now on Land, with equal tranquillity of mind and promptitude of wit. Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. "I have heard from the late Earl of Orrery, who was likely to have had good hereditary intelligence, that Lord Buckhurst had been a week employed upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memorable evening. But even this, whatever it may subtract from his facility, leaves him his courage." Dr. Johnson.

Page 245. "THE LOSS OF the Royal GEORGE"- W. Cowper. The Royal George, of 108 guns, whilst undergoing a partial careening in Portsmouth Harbour, was overset about 10A.M. Aug. 29, 1782. The total loss was believed to be near 1000 souls.

Page 247. "A DIRGE"-T. Chatterton. Verse 2. Line 1. cryne-hair. Ibid. L. 2. Rode-complexion. Verse 6. L. 4. calness-coldness. Verse 7. L. 1. dent-fix. Ibid. L. 2. gree-grew. Ibid. L. 3. ouphant-elfin. Verse 9. L. 1. rey tes-water-flags.

Page 249. "YARROW STREAM"-J. Logan. Founded on an old Scottish legend, also versified anonymously in a ballad called "Willy drowned in Yarrow." See Golden Treasury, Book III. No. CXXVIII.

Page 251. "BONNIE GEOrge Campbell"—Anonymous. This ballad is founded on a common incident of border life in the wild days of old.

Page 252. "LOVE'S LAMENTATION "-Anonymous. Line 1. O Waly, waly-a cry of lamentation; see King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 6.: "the first time that we smell the ayre, we wawle and cry" Ed. 1623. Verse 1. L. 2. Brae-hillside. Ibid. L. 3. burn-side-brook-side. Verse 2. L. 5. busk-in the sense of array, or adorn. Verse 3. L. 3. Saint Anton's well--a spring at the foot of Arthur's Seat. Verse 4. L. 8. cramasie-from the French cramoisie-crimson. "A very ancient song."-Bishop Percy.

Page 253. "AULD ROBIN GRAY"-Lady A. Barnard. "There can hardly exist a poem more truly tragic in the highest sense than this; nor, except Sappho, has any poet known to the Editor equalled it in excellence." W. G. Palgrave. Notes to The Golden Treasury. Lady A. Barnard was the daughter of James Lindsay, 5th Earl of Balcarras, and wife of Sir Andrew Barnard, librarian to George III. Having kept the authorship of this celebrated ballad strictly secret for more than fifty years, Lady Anne Barnard acknowledged it for her own in a letter to Sir W. Scott in A.D. 1823. The story of the ballad was altogether a fiction. Robin Gray was her father's gardener, and no such persons as Jamie or the heroine ever existed, save in the imagination of the Lady Anne.

Page 255. "TO MARY UNWIN"-W. Cowper. The Mary Unwin of these purely pathetic and tragic lines, was the faithful friend whose solicitude soothed, while she lived, the clouded and declining years of the poet's unhappy life.

Page 258. "ALEXANDER'S FEAST"-7. Dryden. Line 1. 'Twas at the royal feast-Alexander is recorded to have held a great banquet on the occasion of his victory at Persepolis, and to have set fire to the palace in his mad revelry. An Athenian courtesan named Thais is said to have instigated him to the act. Timotheus was a famous flute-player of Thebes; but Dryden makes him a performer on the lyre. His music is said to have been so soul-stirring that the King is reputed to have started up and seized his arms on one occasion when Timotheus was performing an Orthian nome to Athena. L. 46. drinking is the soldier's pleasure-a fragment of Menander quoted by Athenæus describes the drunkenness of Alexander as proverbial. L. 130. divine CeciliaSaint Cecilia, a Roman lady of the 3d Century, who is said to have excelled so surpassingly in music that an angel was attracted down from heaven by the charms of her voice. It is a mistake to attribute the invention of the organ to St. Cecilia (who is nevertheless the patron saint of music and musicians); that honour belonging traditionally to Archimedes, about 220. B.C.

Page 262. "ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY"-A. Pope. Line 39. The

Thracian-Orpheus, who accompanied Jason when he departed in quest of the Golden Fleece. L. 40. Argo-the galley of Jason, the wood of which, according to Pope, recognised, and thrilled responsively towards, the trees that came down the mountain side to the sound of Orpheus' lyre; one of the most beautiful figures in the whole of Pope's poetry. L. 50. Phlegethon-a fiery river of the lower world. L. 99. Hebrus-see note to Lycidas. L. 109. Rhodopea range of mountains in Thrace. L. 111. Hamus-another mountain-range in Thrace. L. 133. His numbers rais'd a shade-the epigrammatic antithesis is curiously imitative of that which concludes the preceding poem.

Page 267. "ODE ON THE UNIVERSE"-7. Addison. The great essayist's strongest claim to a place among the British poets rests upon this noble ode, which for simple majesty, and breadth of both style and feeling, is unrivalled.

Page 268. "ODE ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY"-John Milton. Verse 4. Line 4. The hooked chariot-Chariots armed with scythes and hooks were in use as engines of war in ancient Syria and Persia, and, according to Cæsar, were a formidable weapon of the ancient Britons. Verse 5. L. 4. whist-silenced. Todd quotes, in illustration of this passage, the following line from Marlowe and Nash's Dido (1594.)

"The ayre is cleere and Southerne windes are whist" Verse 8. L. 5. Milton here uses the name of Pan, the Hellenic God of the Universe, in the sense of Christ, the Lord of All. Dante, no less daringly, addresses Christ as sommo Giove, high Jove. Verse 10. L. 3. Cynthia-the moon. Verse 13. L. 7. ninefold harmony-the harmony of the spheres, which Milton elsewhere describes as "nine-enfolded." Verse 20. L. 3. A voice of weeping heard and loud lament-Plutarch tells of a mighty voice that was heard in the air proclaiming "Great Pan is dead!" whereupon the oracles ceased, and there was universal lamentation. This story, as told by the early Christian commentators, is made to date from the hour of Christ's Nativity. Verse 21. L. 3. The Lars and Lemurés-the household Gods of the Romans. Ibid. L. 6. Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint-Flamen was a sacerdotal title pertaining to any Roman priest who was devoted to the service of one especial God. Quaint is probably here used in the sense of curious, or perhaps of fantastic. It has lately been suggested by a correspondent of The Academy that the word employed by Milton was quent, an early form of quenched. Verse 22. L. 1. Baalim is here used in the sense of Gods only; the true meaning of the word being the lesser Baals, or local minor Gods, who were emanations of Baal, the great God of the Phoenicians. Baal-Peor was one of these, and has by some commentators been identified with Priapus. Ibid. L. 3. twice-battered God of Palestine-Dagon. Ibid. L. 4. Moonéd Ashtoroth-Astarte, the local Goddess of Sidon, identified later with the Greek Aphrodite. Astarte was one of those Phoenician deities who were admitted into the Egyptian pantheon. She is represented at Edfoo in Upper Egypt with the head of a lioness, and crowned with the solar disk. Milton had evidently seen some representation of Astarte crowned in this manner, and had mistaken the disk for that of the moon. Ibid. L. 7. Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn-an allusion to the Egyptian Amen, the deity worshipped at the Oasis of Amen, now called the oasis of El Khargeh, which lies W. of the

Nile in N. Lat. 26°, and where there are considerable ruins. This deity, commonly called Jupiter Ammon, was in a measure identified with Kneph, the ram-headed and demiurgic type of the supreme Amen, and was represented horned. An inscription of the elder Darius still extant on the walls of the temple at El Khargeh says "thy horns are pointed, twisted are thy horns;" and describes the God as "horned in all his beauty." The fossils called Ammonites derive their name, curiously enough, from a fancied resemblance to the horns of this God. Ibid. L. 8. their wounded Thammuz-a Syrian mythological hero, son of a Syrian King, and beloved by Astarte (see preceding note). He was fabled as dying of a wound received from a wild boar, and as reviving for the six months of spring and summer in each year. Thammuz is better known as Adonis, under which name he came eventually to be worshipped in nearly all countries bordering upon the Mediterranean. The cult of Thammuz is in fact the worship of the revival of nature in spring and summer, and is of purely Phoenician origin. Verse 23. L. 1. Sullen Molocha brazen idol fashioned in the form of a man with the head of a calf, worshipped with sacrifices of living children by the Hebrews in the valley of Tophet. Verse 23. L. 8. Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis - Isis, the wife and sister of Osiris, is represented crowned with the sun-disk and horns, and is sometimes figured under the form of a cow. She was the mother of Horus, whose name Milton has spelt without the H. Horus is usually represented in the form of a hawk. Anubis was the God who presided over the offices of embalming and the rites of sepulture. He is represented with the head not of a dog, but a jackal. Verse 24. L. 1. Osiris - the God of the lower world, and judge of the dead. Mr. Palgrave says: “Osiris, the Egyptian God of Agriculture (here, perhaps by confusion with Apis, figured as a Bull), was torn to pieces by Typho and embalmed after death in a sacred chest."-See Notes to Page 47, Book II. Golden Treasury. This definition, however, is not altogether satisfactory. Osiris, in so far as he is identified with Dionysus, the friend, benefactor, and instructor of man, may certainly be described as the Egyptian God of Agriculture; but he is primarily and principally the Deity of the Lower World, the Judge of the Dead, the Great Spirit of the life to come, to whom the justified dead are re-united, and in whose essence they are absorbed. Apis could scarcely, from any point of view, be "confused" with Osiris. The bull Apis was, in fact, Osiris in the flesh. In other words, he was the outward and visible manifestation of Osiris upon earth; the temporary, but chosen, dwelling of the divinity. Philosophically defined, Osiris is the nocturnal sun; i. e. the sun below the horizon; he who dies each evening, descends into the shades, and rises again at morn. He plays in fact the chief part in the great Solar myth which underlies the whole religious system of ancient Egypt. Ibid. L. 2. Memphian grove-Every Egyptian Temple had its temenos, or consecrated enclosure, within which was planted the sacred grove. Ibid. L. 3. the unshowered grass-an aliusion to the dryness of the Egyptian climate. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that it does not rain in Lower and Middle Egypt. Showers are frequent in the Delta, and by no means rare at Cairo. It is probable, indeed, that when Memphis was a great city surrounded by gardens, groves, and cultivated lands, rain may have fallen even more frequently 19

Elder Poets.