Minstrel. The theme of Christabel is the struggle of the heroine against the powers of evil embodied in a wicked enchantress, whom, in the form of a beautiful maiden, she rescues and brings into her father's castle. We give only the opening episode.

FRANCIS JEFFREY

Pp. 416 f. If Francis Jeffrey was unjust in his reviews of Wordsworth, lovers of Wordsworth and who is not?-have been at least equally unjust in their treatment of Jeffrey. Sentences have been quoted, often in garbled form and always without the context, to illustrate the unfairness and stupidity and poetic insensibility of Jeffrey. Most sane critics of the present day differ from Jeffrey mainly in emphasis; they recognize that Wordsworth really had the defects which Jeffrey pointed out, and that they are grave. But in literature only the successes count, the failures fall away and should be forgotten. The selection here printed presents Jeffrey in his most truculent mood; another selection, the review of the Excursion, was planned for this volume, but the limitation of our space necessitated its omission.

SIR WALTER SCOTT

THE LAY OF ROSABELLE

Pp. 417 f. In the Lay of the Last Minstrel this poem is supposed to be sung, after the espousal of Margaret of Buccleuch to Lord Cranstoun, by Harold, the minstrel of the house of St. Clair. It is composed in imitation of the ancient ballads and tells, dramatically but simply, the death of Rosabelle in the Firth of Forth as she was returning from Ravensheuch Castle to Roslin, and the supernatural prodigies which preluded it. The time is perhaps conceived as the fifteenth century.

The difficulties of the poem lie mainly, if not exclusively, in the diction; for the superstitions, if not well known, are at least easily understood. The words for which the dictionary may need to be consulted are: firth, 1. 8, inch, l. 10, panoply, 1. 36, sacristy, l. 38, pale, 1. 38, pinnet, l. 41, and sea-mews, l. 10; copse-wood, 1. 30, battlement, 1. 41, buttress, l. 42, are known to most of us only from literature.

The first stanza gives, in the ancient manner, the minstrel's appeal for attention, and the nature and subject of his lay.

In the next five stanzas the minstrel presents dramatically the vain effort to persuade the lady

not to tempt the storm, the real motive for her going being suggested by her protests (ll. 17, 22). The next five describe the blazing portents above the castle and chapel of Roslin.

The last two tell the fate of the lady.

The poem has no other motive than that of causing our sympathies to dwell lightly for a moment upon an ancient tragic episode. An air of remoteness and unreality is produced by the archaic spellings ladye, chapelle, by the poetic syntax, and by the light versification.

1. 21. Riding the ring was a favorite sport of knights as late as the seventeenth century. The competitors, riding on horseback at full speed, tried to thrust a lance through a ring suspended at the proper height and carry it away. He who succeeded most often was the winner. The sport required fine horsemanship and an accurate aim. A form of it is practised nowadays at country fairs by the riders of the wooden horses of a merry-go-round the same sport, but "Oh, how changed! how fallen!"

1. 32.

Hawthornden where Ben Jonson visited the poet Drummond in 1618 is famous for its caves. There are two sets, the upper and the lower, both of them artificial, but of unknown date and purpose. The upper, and larger, consists of a gallery 75 feet long, a passage 24 feet long leading to a well, and two roughly shaped rooms 9 feet and 15 feet long respectively, — all of these 6 to 7 feet wide and about 5 feet 8 inches high.

1. 39. Roslin chapel is still a place of exquisite beauty. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited it September 17, 1803, and both were impressed with the abundance of carven foliage on walls and roofs and pillars. See her journal for an interesting account of this visit, and his sonnet, recording another visit in 1831. The chapel was repaired in 1842.

1. 50. The knell for the dead and the use of candles and the service book in the burial service are still well known in all Catholic churches.

FITZ-JAMES AND RODERICK DHU

Pp. 419 ff. This is an episode of Scott's interesting narrative poem The Lady of the Lake. King James V of Scotland, in disguise as the knight James Fitz-James, has penetrated to the island stronghold of the Highland clan Clan-Alpine in Loch Katrine and has there fallen in love with Ellen, the daughter of his enemy, the Earl Douglas. His disguise is discovered and on a second visit to the island he is led astray by his guide, one of

the followers of Roderick Dhu, chief of ClanAlpine. Discovering the treachery of the guide, he kills him and suddenly comes face to face with Roderick, who hates him, both because of jealousy of Ellen and because of the ancient enmity of the Highlanders for the Lowlanders. Fitz-James is speaking when our extract begins.

CHARLES LAMB

Pp. 422 ff. Either Charles Lamb captures his readers at once and keeps them as long as he cares to talk, or if their minds are averse to his hobbies, void of curiosity as to the various manifestations of humanity in which he delights, and not attuned to his personality, especially his humor – they must forever do without him as a friend. He is the least formal, the most friendly, the most brotherly of writers. He meets his reader on the street, as it were, and takes him off, gossiping all the way, to explore odd corners and talk about odd people, and joke about everything that turns up, in the happy and not unfounded belief that people in general will be interested in him because he is interested in them. Cf. Swinburne's sonnet to Lamb on p. 644.

THE TWO RACES OF MEN

P. 422 b. the primitive community. Lamb refers, not to communism among primitive races, but to the system of the early Christians; cf. Acts, iv: 32.

Pp. 424 f. Comberbatch, C., and S. T. C., are different designations for Coleridge in different aspects. Mystifications of this sort are a feature of Lamb's whimsical methods.

P. 424 b. a widower-volume, not as some say - because John Buncle married seven times, but because as there were two volumes originally, the one left was bereaved of his mate.

P. 425 a. Was there not Zimmermann on Solitude. The suggestion of a book on this subject as more suitable for the lady is a hint at her husband's leaving her alone when he went to France.

A CHAPTER ON EARS

P. 429 a. the Temple. Lamb was born there.

His father was clerk and servant to one of the Benchers, who later procured Lamb's admission to Christ's Hospital.

even in his long coats. Lamb studied at Christ's Hospital, the famous Blue Coat School founded by King Edward VI. Until a few years ago,

when the school was removed to the country, the boys were one of the picturesque features of London. They still went hatless and wore a modification of the original uniform: a dark blue coat reaching to the heels and open in front to show a leather belt, knee breeches and saffron colored stockings, and buckled shoes. At Christ's Hospital was formed the lifelong friendship between Lamb and Coleridge. Cf. Lamb's essays: On Christ's Hospital and the Character of Christ's Hospital Boys, and Christ's Hospital Five-andThirty Years Ago.

THOMAS CAMPBELL

YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND

P. 431: 1. 15. Robert Blake, a great English admiral under Cromwell, defeated both the Dutch and the Spaniards, who were then rivals of the English on the seas. He died at sea in 1657. Lord Nelson, perhaps the most famous of English admirals for his defeats of the navies of Bonaparte and his allies, was killed in the sea-fight at Trafalgar in 1805. But as this poem was written in 1800, the reference here must have been inserted later. The first edition of the poem (in the Morning Chronicle) is not accessible to me.

THOMAS MOORE

THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS

Pp. 433 f. Since the Elizabethan age, when apparently every one could write songs that would sing, there have been few poets whose lyrics have so much of the singing quality as have those of Thomas Moore. Many of them have been favorites of the people ever since they were written. Some of his sweetest and most characteristic songs are those celebrating the past glories or lamentirg the sorrows of Ireland (see the note on Adonais, 1. 269). Tara, the seat of the high, or chief, kings of Ireland in her ancient days of mythical and historical splendor and power, is celebrated in epic and in history. Ireland was then famous for culture, for learning, for poetry, for religion, and for

war.

LEIGH HUNT

RONDEAU

P. 434. This charming little poem is said to have been the result of Mrs. Carlyle's expression

of delight when Hunt announced that the publishers had accepted Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

Pp. 434 ff. The Confessions of an Opium Eater is a literary elaboration of a class of experiences never before put into literary form. De Quincey began taking opium when he was a student at Oxford and continued all his life, although, after several severe crises, he succeeded in reducing the amount very greatly. His Confessions became immediately popular, doubtless rather through morbid interest in the theme than through appreciation of his art.

The fact is, however, that he gives singularly little definite information in regard to either the sensations or the dreams produced by opium. His method is to take a comparatively small body of experiential fact and play with it as a musician plays with a theme in a fugue or a symphony. His high place among writers of English prose is due chiefly to the elaborate and subtle rhythms he builds up in his long, involved sentences. For the suggestions of these he is indebted to the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially Hooker, Sir Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor and Milton.

P. 435 b. My knowledge of the Oriental tongues. The reader might infer that De Quincey knew the Arabic and Turkish words he mentions at the time of the visit of the Malay, but this visit if it ever occurred - is placed by him in 1816-1817 (see p. 438 a), at least two years before the publication of Anastasius. The fact is that De Quincey was a little vain in regard to his learning

even when, as here, it was very small- and rarely neglects an opportunity to insinuate it.

The quantity was enough to kill three dragoons and their horses. At the usual price of opium, this amount was an expensive gift for so poor a man as De Quincey to make. But the incident is picturesque.

P. 436 b. as a witty author has it. The reference is to Southey's The Devil's Walk, st. 8:

"He passed a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility:

And he owned with a grin

That his favorite sin

Is pride that apes humility."

centurion to Jesus: "I say unto this man 'Go,' and he goeth; and to another 'Come,' and he cometh." Matt. viii: 9.

P. 440 b. That Homer knew of opium and its effects is inferred from the account in the Odyssey, IV, 220-221, of the drug which Helen cast into the drink of the heroes who were lamenting those who had fallen in the Trojan war, to lull pain and cause forgetfulness; but there is no reason to believe that this implies that Homer had any personal experience of the drug.

P. 441 a. Observe how slight a use is made of the Malay after all the elaborate preparations of pp. 435-436. De Quincey seems often to secure his effects upon his readers rather by awakening enormous expectations and supplying eloquent generalizations than by given specific details of horror or obsession. The passage at the foot of p. 441 b has been greatly and justly admired, but except in it and the passages on pp. 442-443 he displays little faculty for visual imagery, despite what he says in p. 438 b. His method furnishes a remarkable example of the use and effectiveness of "atmosphere". which he creates abundantly. P. 442 a. my children were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside. At this date he had only one child an infant in arms; he married Margaret Simpson the "dear M." of p. 437 b — in 1816. The first child was born in 1817.

Easter Sunday. A dream-confusion; Easter cannot occur in May.

P. 443 b. "I will sleep no more!" But he did.

LORD BYRON

Byron is not a poet whose work requires to be studied in detail, though his powerful imagination often produces images and phrases that do not reveal their full significance without careful reflection. In general, it is the larger, broader phases of his work that demand attention, - his emotional power, his creative imagination. That much of his poetry is the product of hysterical sentimentality, partly natural and partly cultivated, is true, and this has been the cause of strange ups and downs in his reputation; but his genius is undeniable, and few English poets have exercised so powerful an influence upon foreign literature.

ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS

Pp. 443 ff. In 1807 Byron published his first volume of verse, Hours of Idleness. It was unfavorably reviewed in the Edinburgh Review, one of the two most influential magazines of the time.

This is his reply. That his judgments are the product, not of intelligence, but of emotion, may be inferred from the praise he lavishes upon forgotten versifiers such as Montgomery, Bloomfield, Gifford, Macneil, White and Shee. In his preface he says, referring, we may presume, to Scott, Wordsworth, and Coleridge: "But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured, renders their mental prostitution the more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the more decided reprehension."

P. 445. 1. 235-238. "Mr. W., in his Preface, labors hard to prove that prose and verse are much the same, and certainly his precepts and practice are strictly conformable." Byron's Note.

bears so sadly upon him—as when he is just passing from youth to manhood. This was the period at which Byron began this poem, and he had, in addition to youth's natural causes of melancholy, some special ones, arising from his morbid pride and sensitiveness, accentuated by fits of nervous exhaustion and reaction from a life of excessive self-indulgence.

The poem is a series of more or less connected descriptions and meditations, suggested by the scenes through which his imaginary pilgrim took his proud and lonely way. The subjects are very varied, and it is interesting to note how the poet has made the Spenserian stanza respond to all the moods and movements of his themes.

The extracts give a few of the many famous passages.

The first (Canto I, ll. 1–197) describes the pilgrim and his departure on his pilgrimage. Note his pride in his profligacy and his unfaithfulness in love, his disbelief in friendship, his sullen aloofness, and despite all this his fundamental capacity for strong and genuine affection. His attitude is indicated in the very first stanza by his refusal to invoke the Muse.

1. 1. Hellas, ancient Greece.

1.6. Delphi, the shrine of Apollo, god of music and poetry. He obtained the lyre from Hermes, who had stretched strings across a tortoise shell (see 1. 8) and produced the first lyre.

1. 8. Mote, an ancient form meaning may. Other archaisms, for which the dictionary may be consulted, are whilome (l. 10), in sooth (1. 14), Childe (1. 19), hight (1. 19), losel (1. 23), Eremite (1. 36), lemans (1. 77), feere (l. 79), Paynim (1. 99). 1. 8. the weary Nine, the nine muses, who have been invoked by so many generations of poets.

P. 446. 1. 61. Paphian girls. Paphos, in Cyprus, was the seat of one of the most famous temples of Aphrodite (Venus). Here the adjective is applied to devotees of sensual love.

1. 79. Eros (Cupid), the god of capricious sensual love. feere, an old word for companion, friend.

1. 81. Mammon, the Syrian god of wealth (see Par. Lost, I, II. 678-688).

P. 447. The second extract (Canto III, ll. 181252) begins with the ball in Brussels the night before the battle of Quatre Bras (two days before Waterloo) and passes almost immediately to the battle itself (ll. 200-207). The Duke of Brunswick was one of the first leaders to leave the ball and one of the first to fall in the battle. His father was mortally wounded nine years before in the battle of Auerstadt.

11. 226-234. The memories of clan Cameron included the great deeds of Evan in the war of the Commonwealth and of his son Donald, called "the gentle Lochiel," in behalf of Prince Charles Stuart in 1745. A pibrock is a piece of warlike Scottish music played on the bagpipes; that of clan Cameron was Cameron's Gathering."

66

P. 448. 1. 235. The forest of Soignies, between Brussels and Waterloo, said by Byron to be a remnant of the ancient forest of Ardennes, is mentioned here on account of its associations with peace.

The third extract (Canto III, II. 604-675) is devoted by the poet to setting forth his attitude toward Nature and Man and the effect of Nature upon himself.

P. 449. The three stanzas (Canto IV, II. 694720) demand some familiarity with the history of Rome. They need no other commentary.

And none seems needed by the two remaining extracts, devoted respectively to a cynical view of love (Canto IV, ll. 1081-1125) and to a contrast

of the works of Man with the desert, the forest, and the ocean (Canto IV, Il. 1587-1656).

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON

Pp. 451 ff. Bonnivard, celebrated in the prefatory sonnet, was a Genevan patriot, imprisoned for six years in the castle of Chillon, four of which he spent in the dungeon. He was released by his own party and seems to have lived for some thirtyfour years more. His story, though not very similar to that of "the prisoner," no doubt suggested the poem.

ODE

Pp. 455 ff. There can be no doubt of the genuineness of Byron's interest in political independence. It is attested not only by the sonnet on Chillon, this Ode, and many other passages in his writings, but by his devotion of his money and his life to the struggle for the independence of Greece. At the time this Ode was written, Venice, once a glorious and powerful republic, had been since 1797 a possession of Austria. Austrian governors sat in the ancient seat of the doges, and Austrian soldiers paraded with drums and guns in the streets and in the Piazza di San Marco; ancient spirit of patriotism seemed dead or at least alive only in the hearts of a few conspirators, who held meetings in Byron's own apartments. Every reader will wish to read in connection with this Ode, Ruskin's The Stones of Venice, Vol. II, Chap. IV (cf. above, pp. 582 ff.), especially §§ xii-xv.

the

This Ode is very uneven in conception and execution. Cantos I and IV are well conceived and in general nobly expressed; Cantos II and III are awkward and uncertain in thought and awkward and involved in style.

After four lines of invocation to the city, Canto I is devoted to a merciless arraignment of the Venetians for cowardice and submission to the tyrant Austria. Even the carved Lion of St. Mark, the patron saint of the city, is made to appear subdued and spiritless (1. 19) and the city is compared to a dying man (ll. 37-55).

In Canto II (Il. 56-100) the same theme is continued in confused fashion, with almost unintelligible references to "the few spirits" who love freedom and are not appalled at thought of the crimes which the mob will commit in freedom's name when the prison wall is thundered down.

P. 456. Canto III recites some of the former glories of Venice and her services in preserving

freedom for Europe, and, finally, the poor requital she has received.

Canto IV predicts the disappearance of freedom from Europe with the subjugation of Switzerland and declares America to be its only remaining refuge.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Pp. 458 ff. Shelley's poetry should be read in the light of his own views of the nature and value of poetry. These are given with clearness and eloquence in his Defense of Poetry, which, with the views of sixteen other poets, including Chaucer, Sidney, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, is published in a small volume entitled The Prelude to Poetry, edited by Ernest Rhys (J. M. Dent and Co.). . What the poets themselves thought about the nature and value of their own art is surely of greater interest to lovers of it than the disquisitions of critical system makers.

ALASTOR

Alastor is not the name of the hero or any other character in the poem indeed there are no other characters. It is a Greek word meaning an evil spirit; Shelley's intention was to set forth solitude as evil and even fatal. "The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin.” But Shelley's sympathy is so obviously engaged by his picture of the youth enamored of "his own imaginations" of "all of wonderful, or wise, or beautiful" and uniting them in " a single image," that the terror of the poet's fate is less impressive than the charm of his lonely and restless pursuit of loveliness and truth. The passage here given contains only the characterization of the youth and a general account of his early efforts in search of truth. The quotation from St. Augustine is from the Confessions, Bk. III, Chap. I.

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY

Pp. 459 f. The basis of this poem is Plato's doctrine of beauty; cf. especially The Banquet. It gains new light and interest from a comparison with Spenser's Hymn in Honor of Beauty and Hymn of Heavenly Beauty (see pp. 120-122), which are based upon Neo-Platonism; that is, upon the ideas of Plato as modified by later Christian and nonChristian philosophers and poets.

The following quotation from Diotima's conversation, as given by Socrates in Plato's Banquet,