265. 56. Ombre. A fashionable game of cards. 266. 127. The inferior priestess. The waiting maid, Betty (l. 148).

CANTO II

267. 3. The rival of his beams. Belinda.

CANTO III

269. 3. A structure of majestic frame. The royal palace of Hampton Court.

27. At ombre. The description of this game, which occupies ll. 30-100, may well be passed over in reading. Much of the terminology, perfectly familiar to Pope's audience, is to-day unintelligible unless accompanied by elaborate illustration and explanation.

270. 106. The berries crackle, and the mill turns round. Coffee berries were ground on the table.

271. 165. Atalantis. The New Atalantis, a romance of the day, by Mrs. Manley.

274. 5, 6. The Trojan . . . Anna. . . Dido. Eneas was commanded by Jupiter to leave Carthage, where he had fallen in love with Queen Dido. Anna was Dido's sister. (Eneid, iv. 416).

275. 53. Umbriel on a sconce's height. Minerva, in like manner, during the battle of Ulysses with the suitors, perches on a beam of the roof to behold it." (Pope.)

276. 125. Rome's great founder. Romulus. 129. Not Berenice's locks. Berenice was an Egyptian queen whose hair was transformed into a constellation. 136. Rosamonda's lake. In St. James's Park, as was the Mall (1. 133).

137. Partridge. "John Partridge was a ridiculous star-gazer, who in his almanacks every year never failed to predict the downfall of the Pope and the King of France, then at war with the English." (Pope.)

THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD

287. The essays in this collection appeared first in John Newberry's Public Ledger, between January 24, 1760, and August 14, 1761. They were published as "Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to his Friends in the East"; whence the generally used name, "The Chinese Letters." Beau Tibbs at Home is supposed to be "From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, first President of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China "; the second of the two here reprinted bears the same superscription. The first collected edition appeared May 1, 1762.

DRYDEN

297. 48. Tuned the numbers. Made the metre regular.

67. Every language. With the ideas in this and the two following paragraphs, should be compared Wordsworth's views, expressed in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, p. 389.

ADDISON

298. 30. Arbiter elegantiarum. Petronius, according to Tacitus, was "arbiter elegantia" at the court of Nero.

GRAY

301. 22. Dictionary Johnson. "As great men of antiquity such as Scipio Africanus had an epithet added to their names, in consequence of some celebrated action, so my illustrious friend was often called DICTIONARY JOHNSON, from that wonderful achievement of genius and labor, his Dictionary of the English Language; the merit of which I contemplate with more and more admiration." (Boswell.)

37. Mr. Thomas Sheridan. (1719-1788) Father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; himself an actor, manager, and playwright.

303. 224. Garrick.

David

Garrick (17171779), pupil and friend of Johnson; the most popular actor of the time. 306. 556. Colley Cibber (1671-1757). Actor, dramatist, and poet-laureate 1730-1757; attacked by Pope in the Dunciad as the prince of dunces.

577. Whitehead. Cibber's successor in the laureateship.

589. Gray. Compare these remarks with the opinions expressed in the selections from Johnson's Life of Gray.

308. 776. He studied physic. Studied medicine.

789. An usher to an academy. A subordinate teacher in a private school.

309. 810. Nihil quod tetegit, etc. Slightly misquoted from Johnson's epitaph on Goldsmith, in Westminster Abbey. "He touched nothing that he did not adorn." 817. The fragrant parterre. The fragrant garden.

828. Un étourdi. A fellow who talks explosively.

883. Mrs. Piozzi. Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741-1821). Mrs. Thrale, later Mrs. Piozzi, was one of the few women whom Johnson knew intimately. Sir John Hawkins (1719-1789). A close friend of Johnson's, and one of his executors. Boswell was jealous of him.

310. 975. Churchill. Charles Churchill (17311764); a satirist, and an ardent supporter of John Wilkes and his faction. 312. 1208. Bayle's Dictionary. The Dic

tionaire Historique et Critique of Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), a French philosopher and man of letters.

313. 1233. Prospects. Views," scenery. 1319. Canada is taken. Wolfe's victory over Montcalm, on the Plains of Abraham, had taken place in 1759. 314. 1369. His present Majesty. Johnson's pension came from George III, against whom the Pretender, James Stuart, son of the exiled James II, had in 1745 organized an armed rebellion of Highlanders and English Jacobites. Johnson had been for a time a favorer of the Stuarts, a sort of sentimental Jacobite, though he had always been loyal to the existing government.

Charles

1399. Victory at Culloden, etc.
Stuart, son of the pretender James, was
his father's personal representative in
England and Scotland during the second
Jacobite rebellion, "The Forty-five,"
which ended in 1746 at Culloden, where
the Duke of Cumberland overwhelmed
the Stuart forces.

315. 1455. A negation of all principle." He

used to tell, with great humor, from my relation to him, the following little story of my early years, which was literally true: Boswell, in the year 1745, was a fine boy, wore a white cockade, and prayed for King James, till one of his uncles (General Cochran) gave him a shilling on condition that he should pray for King George, which he accordingly did. So you see (says Boswell) that Whigs of all ages are made the same way.' (Boswell.)

1483. Hume. David Hume (1711-1776), philosopher, historian, and, according to the judgment of his contemporaries, a sceptic.

317. 1720. Those called Methodists. The name was first applied contemptuously to Wesley and his friends, when, as students at Oxford, they met together for prayer and worship. By 1763 the sect had become numerous.

317. 1755. Buchanan. George Buchanan (1506-1582), a Scotch scholar, historian, and poet, practically all of whose work was written in Latin.

318. 1759. Johnston. Arthur Johnston (1587– 1641), a Scotch physician and author of a large amount of Latin verse, including a metrical version of the Psalms and the complimentary epigrams to which Boswell alludes.

1769. Formosam resonare, etc. Thou teachest the forest to resound (with the name of) lovely Amaryllis.

322. 2233. One of the most luminous minds. Burke. The quotation is from Goldsmith's Retaliation; see p. 286.

BURKE

TO THE ELECTORS OF BRISTOL

23. I was put in nomination after the poll was opened. The election lasted for nearly a month.

323. 40. The candidate.

Four persons were candidates, the two Whigs, Burke and Cruger, being elected. The defeated Tory, Brickdale, is the person here referred to. Brickdale tried unsuccessfully

to have Burke's election annulled by the courts.

98. I stood on the hustings. "Hustings meant both the actual platform from which nominations were made, and the entire election proceedings. "On the hustings" is not very different from the American idiom on the stump."

66

324. 184. The former part.

Brickdale had formerly urged the qualifications of the electors whom, after his defeat, he sought to have disfranchised.

237. My colleague. Cruger had told the electors that he would at all times vote in accordance with their desires and instructions. Burke's statement of his position on this question makes this address to the electors one of the significant documents in his history.

THE IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS

326. Warren Hastings (1732-1818) was the first governor-general of India, being appointed in 1773 under the newly passed Regulating Act, and holding office till 1785. He was impeached by the House of Commons in 1786; his trial before the Lords began in 1788, and dragged on till 1795, when he was acquitted. Burke was charged with the prosecution, and although the verdict went against him, the ultimate result was a victory for Burke; for as a result of the disclosures made at the trial came a new and more equitable governmental policy for India. 15. Their Dewan. Financial agent. 328. 4. Our long, long labors. Burke concluded his charge on 19 February, 1788;

the peroration did not follow until 16 June, 1794. Burke had been interested in Indian affairs for fifteen years before the trial began.

328. 53. Moral earthquake. The French Revolution. At the time he was speaking, the Reign of Terror was at its height. 329. 106. The Parliament of Paris. The chief court of the old French monarchy, abolished by the Revolution.

REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE

The French Revolution, during the period 1789-1792, found many supporters in England. Wordsworth and Coleridge, Charles James Fox, and liberal clergymen among whom Priestly and Price were the most prominent, openly gloried in the deeds that were being done in the name of Liberty. From these enthusiasts Burke was separated by a wide gulf. He did not comprehend the need for change in the French social and economic systems; he saw only the overthrow of an established civilization by hungry peasants and doctrinaire philosophers, and with impassioned earnestness he protested. The Reflections appeared November, 1790.

in 330. 43. The civil social man. As distinguished from man in his aboriginal "state of nature," before the existence of society. 332. 233. Liceat perire poetis. Poets have the right to die.

236. Ardentem frigidus, etc. In cold blood he leaped into glowing Etna. Empedocles, a Sicilian philosopher, is said to have died thus. A slipper, cast out in an eruption, was proof of his act.

THOMSON

THE SEASONS

334. 311. In vain for him, etc. Gray seems to have had the following three lines in mind when he composed the stanza of the Elegy beginning

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn."

THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE

335. 35. A coil the grasshopper did keep. "To keep a coil" is an Elizabethan expression meaning to make a noise.

BLAIR

THE GRAVE

337. It was in part, at least, from this poem that Bryant drew the inspiration for his Thanatopsis.

338. 34. Night's foul bird. The owl.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY

345. A Pindaric Ode. Gray is adopting the
ode form of the Greek poet Pindar. Pro-
fessor Phelps's note explains the structure
of the poem succinctly: " As Hales pointed
out, this Ode is really divided into 3
stanzas, with 41 lines in each stanza.
Again, each stanza is divided into 3 parts
-strophe, antistrophe, and epode-the
turn, counter-turn, and after-song, Greek
theatrical names. The three strophes,
antistrophes, and epodes are similar in
construction; hence the architecture of
the poem
is curiously symmetrical,
though one could easily read it without
any perception of this fact." (Athenæum
Press Edition, p. 149.)

1. Awake, Æolian lyre. Gray is invok-
ing the Æolian harp of Pindar.
3, 4. From Helicon's harmonious springs,
etc. The different streams of the world's
poetry all have their source in the sacred
fountain of the Muses on Mount Helicon.
9. Ceres' golden reign. Fields of grain,
in the care of Ceres, goddess of the harvest.
15. Enchanting shell. The lyre, to which
the first three sections of the poem are
addressed. Hermes, according to the
legend, made the first lyre from a tortoise
shell.

17. On Thracia's hills the Lord of War.
Mars was supposed to spend much of his
time in Thrace.

21. The feathered king. Jove's eagle.
25. Thee. The lyre.

27. Idalia. A town in Cyprus, sacred to
Venus, or Cytherea (1. 28).

346. 36. Their Queen. Venus.

47. Justify the ways of Jove. An obvious echo of Milton's "Justify the ways of God to men."

48. Has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Has poetry been of no value to mankind?

53. Hyperion. The sun.

66. Delphi's steep. Delphi's mountain, location of the famous oracle.

68. Ilissus. A river of Attica.

69. Mæander. A river of Asia Minor.

77. The sad Nine. The Muses.

77-82. Poetry left Greece for Rome, and
from Rome sought England.

84. Nature's Darling. Shakespeare.
95. Nor second he, that rode sublime.
Milton.

105. Two coursers of ethereal race.
Dryden's favorite verse form was the
iambic pentameter couplet.

347. 107. His hands. Dryden's.

112. What daring spirit? Gray himself. 115. The Theban Eagle. Gray's own note reads: " Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of their noise."

10. The first Edward. Edward I invaded Wales in 1282.

13, 14. Glo'ster, Mortimer.

in Edward's army.

Chieftains

27. Fatal day. The day on which the bards were executed.

28. Hoel, Llewellyn; 29, 31. Cadwallo, Urien. Welsh poets.

33. Modred. Gray uses the name of the
Arthurian knight; no such Welsh poet
is known.

34. Plinlimmon. A Welsh mountain.
35. Arvon's shore. "The shores of
Caernarvonshire, opposite to the isle of
Anglesey." (Gray.)

49. The whole band of murdered bards
joins with the survivor in prophesying the
future of Edward's race.

348. 54. Severn. A Welsh river.

"Edward the

56. An agonizing king. Second, cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle." (Gray.)

"Tri

59. Who o'er thy country hangs. umphs of Edward the Third in France." (Gray.)

63. Mighty Victor. Edward III.

65. No pitying heart. "Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress." (Gray.) 67. The sable warrior. Edward III's son, the Black Prince, who died before his father. 70. The rising morn. Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign." (Gray.) 77-82. "Richard the Second . . . was starved to death." (Gray.)

83-86. The wars of the Roses, between the houses of York and Lancaster, 14551485.

87. Towers of Julius. According to an old legend, Julius Cæsar is supposed to have begun the Tower of London.

89. His Consort's faith. Margaret of Anjou (wife of Henry VI), a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown.' (Gray.) His father. Henry V.

90. The meek usurper. Henry the Sixth very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown." (Gray.) "The

91, 2. The rose of snow, etc.