pours out his passionate melodies. Gulistan is Persian for rose-garden. Saadi calls his book of poems-Gulistan. The Princess does not think that any rose-bud would open at the singing of such a nightingale as the Prince. Marshdivers-probably the water-rail, is meant. Meadow-crakethe corn-crake or land-rail. Says Wood, "The cry of the corn-crake may be exactly imitated by drawing a quill or a piece of stick smartly over the large teeth of a comb, or by rubbing together two jagged strips of bone." The Princess is severe on the singers. Neither the matter of the one, or the manner of the other, pleases her.

Line 130.

Whole in ourselves, and owed to none.

As an intransitive verb in the sense of, to be bound; a rare use, but found in Chaucer.

Line 185. Of open-work in which the hunter rued His rash intrusion, manlike, but his

brows

Had sprouted.

The allusion is to the hunter Actæon, who, having come upon Diana and her nymphs when bathing, was turned into a stag.

Line 236.

He has a solid base of temperament ;
But as the water-lily starts and slides
Upon the level in little puffs of wind

Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he.

A very similar passage occurs in Wordsworth-Excursion, book v., where it is said of Moral Truth that it is

A thing

Subject, you deem, to vital accidents,

And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives,

Whose root is fix'd in stable earth, whose head

Floats on the tossing waves.

Wordsworth's is the more familiar picture. This parallel passage has been noticed by Mr. Wace.

Line 243.

But I began

To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind
And double in and out the boles.

Musky-circled mazes, garden walks with fragrant borders. Musky is used by Milton in the sense of fragrant in Comus

And west winds with musky wing,

About the cedarn alleys fling

Nard and Cassia's balmy smells.

Bole, the stem of a tree; a word much used by Tennyson, but not found in Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer. It is frequently heard in the northern and central districts of England, sometimes spelt boll, as thorn-boll, but usually pronounced bool.

Line 255.

Above her drooped a lamp, And made the single jewel on her brow Burn like the mystic fire on a masthead, Prophet of storm.

When the atmosphere is in a state of electrical tension, brush-shaped or star-like flames are seen on the masts of ships, or on pointed objects on land. Mariners call them St. Elmo's fires. The real name of the saint was Erasmus of Formia. He is venerated in Southern Italy under the

corrupted name of St. Elmo. Sailors invoke his aid in time of storm, and the appearance of St. Elmo's fires is thought to be of good omen. The Greeks and Romans ascribed these appearances to Castor and Pollox. So Macaulay, Battle of Lake Regillus-

Safe comes the ship to haven,

Through billows and through gales,
If once the Great Twin Brethren
Sit shining on the sails.

Line 260. Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain.

Blowsed, swarthy. Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, iv. 2Sweet blouse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.

Said of a swarthy child-the son of the Moor Aaron and the Queen of the Goths. In the Kentish dialect a great blowze means a red-faced wench.

Line 420. Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned

Persephone in Hades.

Cassiopeia, queen of Ethiopia, now one of the chief constellations in the northern sky. Persephone or Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, and queen of Hades.

Line 424.

Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue.

Frequence is the older and original meaning of throng, as in Milton, Par. Reg. i. 128

Who in full frequence bright,

Of angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake.

Line 427.

That many a famous man and woman,

town,

And landskip, have I heard of.

This is the old and correct spelling. The word, says Skeat, is undoubtedly derived from the Dutch painters, and answers nearly to the word background. It is a Dutch word, landschap, and means a province or extent of land. Schap answers to the Anglo-Saxon ship in friendship, lordship. Sch is harder in Dutch than in English, hence the sk in landskip. Milton usually spells the word thus, as in Par. Lost, v. 142

Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light

Dash themselves dead.

The same simile occurs in Enoch Arden—
Allured him as the beacon-blaze allures
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes
Against it, and beats out his weary life.

The description in the first passage is far more vivid. lofty tower, the tempest, and the red revolving light intensify the picture. A parallel passage occurs in Longfellow-The Lighthouse

The

The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din

Of wings and win ls and solitary cries,

Blinded and maddened by the light within,

Dashes himself against the glare and dies.

But Longfellow's poem was published in 1849, two years after The Princess.

INTERLUDE BETWEEN CANTOS IV. AND V.

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums.

Another version of this song is given in a volume of selections made by Tennyson, although not published in his collected works.

Lady, let the rolling drums.

Beat to battle where thy warrior stands
Now thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands.

Lady, let the trumpets blow,

Clasp thy little babes about thy knee:

Now their warrior father meets the foe,

:

And strikes him dead for thine and thee.

The version finally adopted is by far the better of the

two.

CANTO V.

Line 2. We stumbled on a stationary voice.

The voice of one stationed at a post-a sentinel. In French, soldats stationnaires are guards detached singly ; from the post-classical stationarii milites. This use of the word is a Latinism.