town in a car drawn by horses. The war being concluded, and the emergency over, the women demanded the repeal of the law. They gained one consul, but Cato, the other one, resisted. The women rose, thronged the streets and forum, and harassed the magistrates until the law was repealed. Line 112. Hortensia spoke against the tax. it; A heavy tax imposed on Roman matrons by the second triumvirate. No man was found bold enough to oppose it ; but Hortensia, daughter of Hortensius, the celebrated orator, spoke so eloquently against it, that her oration was preserved to receive the praise of Quintilian. She was successful. Left her more attractive in the restored sweetness of her womanly moral nature than was Aphrodite rising from the sea in all the splendour of her merely physical perfection. Line 165. Now Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost. Darwin, in his Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. i. p. 305, speaks of a white variety of peacock. This is not a sport, but a permanent variety white from the shell. The peacock always roosts high at night, and preferably in covert places. The drooping tail of a white peacock would look very uncanny on a dark night. The simile is not a happy one, however. Line 188. Or fox-like in the vine. "Take me the A reminiscence of the Song of Solomon. foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines." Or of Theocritus more probably, Idyll I., "Two foxes, one is roaming up and down the rows spoiling the ripe grapes." Line 189. Walk With death and morning on the silver horns. This small sweet Idyll commencing "Come down, O maid," is one of the most finished passages of the poem. "It transfers," says Symonds (Greek Poets, vol. ii.), "with perfect taste, the Greek Idyllic feeling to Swiss scenery; it is a fine instance of new wine being successfully poured into old bottles, for nothing could be fresher, and not even the Thalysia is sweeter." The shepherd is calling his love from the chill and barren, though lofty and beautiful heights, down into the fruitful and smiling valleys of practical life, where she may find happiness by imparting it, and by sharing its duties. The meaning of this line is not clear; but it seems to be a description of the appearance of those lofty Alpine peaks (Matter-horn-Aar-horn-Forister-horn -Alatsch-horn), called in Switzerland "horns" in the early morning before the sun lights them with a ruddy glow. In the early light they have a chill ashen hue as of deathly pallor. The line may be paraphrased into "On the high Alpine summits when they look chill in the early morning." Morning, as portrayed by the poets, is usually rosy or ruddy; but the very earliest dawns of fine mornings are of cool grey tints. Shakespeare and Milton so describe them. As in Il Penseroso Or in Hamlet, i. I— Civil suited morn. Morn in russet mantle clad. And in Romeo and Juliet, iii. 5— I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye. And in Julius Cæsar, ii. 1— Yon grey lines That fret the clouds are messengers of day. These cold tints on the snowy Alpine peaks when, as in E'none Far up, the solitary morning smote The streaks of virgin snow; have suggested the words silver horns and death in an early morning landscape. Line 249. Stays all the fair young planet in her hands. It is difficult to discover the astronomical allusion here, or what the precise appropriateness of the word planet may be when used to signify the young generation of mankind. Evidently the poet means to say that the influence of the mothers of any given generation of men shape the course of the world during that generation. Line 256. Will leave her space to burgeon out of all Within her. From the French bourgeonner, to put forth buds or young shoots. Found in Middle English, as borjoune, a bud. Line 76. THE EPILOGUE. Fill me with a faith ; This fine old world of ours is but a child Yet in the go-cart. This strong faith runs through all of Tennyson's poems, causing them to be true "medicines for the mind." It is met in the earlier poems, especially in the Golden Year, and in the conclusion of Locksley Hall, in the poems of middle age as here, and in No. 125 of In Memoriam, and in the very last published volume-as Stanza iii. of the Children's Hospital, and the Sonnet to Victor Hugo. This healthful hope pervading all his writings is one of the secrets of the poet's popularity and influence. CHANGES AND OMISSIONS. It has been stated in the preliminary essay that great changes were made in the poem of The Princess in the way of additions; and, of these, the most important were noticed. There are, however, some omissions which are worthy of note. In the following passages the lines in italics have been entirely omitted from the final edition. Canto V., Line 116. You have spoilt the child; she laughs at you and man; She shall not legislate for Nature, king. Line 135. More soluble is the knot, Like almost all the rest if men were wise. Line 138. Your cities into shards with catapults Line 151. Tut, you know them not, the girls, They prize hard knocks and to be won by force. Line 418. With claim on claim, from right to right, till she Canto VI., Line 316. Rang ruin, answered full of grief and scorn. By our own creature! one that made our laws ! Line 325. But shall not. Pass and mingle with your likes Go, help the half-brained dwarf Society, To find low motives unto noble deeds, To fix all doubt upon the darker side; |