687. Philomela, daughter of Pandion, King of Attica, was dishonored by her brother-inlaw, Tereus, King of Daulis, in Phocis, a country in northern Greece. Tereus cut out Philomela's tongue that she might not bear witness against him, but she made her secret known to her sister Procne, wife of Tereus, by words woven into a robe. Procne killed her son Itys, served him up as food to his father, and fled with Philomela. On being pursued by Tereus, the sisters prayed for deliverance, and were changed into birds by the gods, Philomela becoming a nightingale. Arnold has reversed the positions of Philomela and Procne. 688. 21. The too clear web. The woven robe which only too clearly revealed the story of the crime. 27. Cephissian vale. The valley of the Cephissus, the chief river of Phocis. THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY The poem is based on the following passage from Glanvil's Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1661; cf. ll. 11, 31, 133, 159. "There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there; and at last to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the gipsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned." 690. 95. Lasher. Originally the turbulent water running through an opening in a weir; then applied to the weir itself, or, as here, to the pool below the weir into which the lasher empties. 129. Christ-Church hall. The dininghall in Christ-Church College, Oxford. 692. 208. Averse, as Dido. Æneas, on his journey through Hades, met the shade of Dido, queen of Carthage, who had slain herself when deserted by him; the shade turned away from Eneas with a gesture of aversion. 245. The Syrtes. The ancient name for the modern Gulfs of Sidra and Cabes, on the northern coast of Africa. 249. Iberians. Iberia was the ancient name for the Spanish peninsula. tician, who held chairs at Johns Hopkins and Oxford Universities. 715. 636. Cambridge. The study of mathematics has long been an important part of the curriculum at Cambridge University. 662. Mr. Darwin's famous proposition. The proposition occurs in Part IV, chapter 21, of The Descent of Man, and is really a summing up of the whole book. 716. 741. A Sandemanian. A member of the religious sect founded in Scotland by Robert Sandeman, about 1725. 718. 952. A school report. Arnold was for many years a government inspector of schools. 719. 1005. Letters will call out, etc. In this sentence Arnold sums up his entire argu ment. HUXLEY IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 720. This essay was delivered as a lecture in London, January 7, 1866, and is included in Volume I, Methods and Results, of Huxley's collected works. 721. 89. Laud. William Laud (1573-1645), Archbishop of Canterbury. He was the head of the established English Church, and a violent enemy of the anti-Stuart parties, who accomplished his execution in 1645. The Earl of Rochester and Sir Charles Sedley were court wits and poets in the time of Charles II. 722. 187. Principia. Sir Isaac Newton (16421727) published the Philosophic Naturalis Principia Mathematica, setting forth his theories about gravitation, in 1689. 208. Inquisitorial cardinals. Galileo (15641642) was persecuted by the Inquisition because of his acceptance of Copernicus's theories concerning the solar system. 214. Vesalius and Harvey. Vesalius was a Belgian anatomist of the 16th century; William Harvey (1578-1657) was English physician who published in 1628 a treatise De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in which he set forth the theory of the circulation of the blood. an 239. Writ in water. Keats suggested as his epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water.' 723. 266. Revenant. Ghost. 309. Boyle, ... Evelyn. Robert Boyle (1627-1691), an English chemist; and John Evelyn (1620-1706), the diarist. 726. 653. Count Rumford. Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814), a scientist of international reputation. NEWMAN THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY 728. 33. On an occasion like this. The Discourses on University Subjects were delivered in 1852 before the Catholics of Dublin. An 731. 361. "The world is all before it." adaptation of Paradise Lost, xii: 646–7: "The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." 375. The judgment-stricken king. Pentheus, in Euripides's Baccha, in his madness sees two suns. 732. 446. St. Thomas. Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274), canonized in 1323; one of the greatest of the scholastic philosophers. 733. 524. Pompey's Pillar. A column erected at Alexandria in honor of Diocletian. 734. 627 f. τετράγωνος. Four square. Nil admirari. To wonder at nothing. Felix qui, etc. Happy is he who has come to know the relationships of things, and has placed beneath his feet all fear, and inexorable fate, and the roar of greedy Acheron. Virgil's Georgics, ii. 490 ff. 735. 704. The learning of a Salmasius or a Burman. Claude Saumaise (1588-1653) was a French classical scholar. Pieter Burmann the Elder (1688-1741) and his nephew Pieter Burmann the younger (1714-1778) were both Dutch scholars. 706. Imperat aut servit. It is either mas ter or servant. 710. Vis consili, etc. Brute force without intelligence falls by its own weight. 712. Tarpeia. A woman of Roman legend, crushed to death by the shields of Sabine warriors, when she asked for what they wore on their arms (bracelets) as a reward for betraying Rome. 738. 1031. Genius loci. Genius of the place. 739. 1153. The exiled prince. See As You Like It, II. i. 16. 1156. The poem. poor boy in the "Crabbe's Tales of the Hall. This poem, let me say, I read on its first publication, above thirty years ago, with extreme delight, and have never lost my love of it; and on taking it up lately, found I was even more touched by it than heretofore." (Newman's note.) APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA Early editions of the Apologia contained the correspondence between Newman and Charles Kingsley, author of Westward Ho! The correspondence as a whole, and Newman's summary which is here reprinted, had been given to the public by Newman before the Apologia was published; they were omitted from later editions of the Apologia. ROSSETTI THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 740. The pictorial quality of this poem is characteristic of the work of Rossetti, famous as painter as well as poet; his painting of the same name corresponds exactly to the poem. SISTER HELEN 741. Founded on the old superstition that a woman deserted by her lover, could obtain the power of life and death over his body by making a waxen image of him, and laying it in the heat of the fire; as the wax melted the man's life ebbed away. There are three speakers,-the wronged woman, her small brother, who does not understand what is going on, and a spectator, whose comments, slightly varied from verse to verse, keep pace with the progress of the story. THE EARTHLY PARADISE: AN APOLOGY 746. The Earthly Paradise is a collection of twenty-four tales in verse, commonly considered the best body of narrative verse that has been given to English poetry since Chaucer's time. In the Prologue Morris tells how "certain gentlemen and mariners of Norway, having considered all that they had heard of the Earthly Paradise, set sail to find it, and after many troubles and the lapse of many years came old men to some Western land, of which they had never before heard"; the inhabitants of this land are of Greek descent. For the entertainment of the wanderers, the dwellers in the western land give semi-monthly feasts, at each of which a story is told. The duty of telling a story alternates between the two peoples; half the tales are, accordingly, from the Greek mythology, half of Scandinavian or Romance origin. 25. The ivory gate. The house of Morpheus, god of sleep, had two gates, through which dreams issued: if true, the dream passed through a gate of horn; if false, through one of ivory. PROLOGUE 746. 7. Below bridge. Navigation stopped at London Bridge. 747. 15. Bills of lading. Chaucer was for a time a clerk of the customs. ATALANTA'S RACE 748. 63. Fleet-foot One. Ordinarily the epithet would indicate Hermes; in this connection it may mean Artemis. 750. 177. Saffron gown. Saffron was the color used at marriages by the Greeks and Romans; cf. L'Allegro: "There let Hymen oft appear In saffron robe, with taper clear." 184. Sea-born one. Venus. 751. 208. Adonis' bane. The wild boar. 752. 275. Three-formed goddess. Artemis, or Diana, so called because she was worshipped as Diana on earth, as Luna in heaven, as Hecate in hell. 279. Her. Diana. 282. Sea-born framer. See note on l. 184. 755. 516. Damascus. Astarte, the Phoenician goddess of love, was identified with Venus. 756. 535. Saturn's clime. Saturn ruled the world before his place was usurped by Zeus, or Jupiter; Saturn's reign was identified with the golden age, a time of peace, plenty, and happiness. 758. 663. Mighty Lord. Zeus. 664. Her. Venus. PATER STYLE 760. 22. Efforts to limit art a priori. By argument from hypotheses concerning material, etc. 92. Absence or presence of metrical beauty. Wordsworth's views are expressed in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. 761. 96. Dichotomy. A division into two classes. 109. I propose here to point out. Pater here states the purpose of the essay. He is to discuss not prose or poetry, but both, finding in both certain identical characteristics, the qualities of "literature as a fine art." 165. Livy, Tacitus, Michelet. Jules Michelet (1798-1874), like the two Romans, was a historian. 762. 253. At this point Pater notes: "Mr. Saintsbury, in his Specimens of English Prose, from Malory to Macaulay, has succeeded in tracing, through successive English prose-writers, the tradition of that severer beauty in them, of which this admirable scholar of our literature is known to be a lover. English Prose, from Mandeville to Thackeray more re cently chosen and edited by a younger scholar, Mr. Arthur Galton, of New College, Oxford, a lover of our literature at once enthusiastic and discreet, aims at a more various illustration of the eloquent powers of English prose, and is a delightful companion." 763. 338. Le cuistre. The academic pedant. 358. Well! Pater is fond of this interjectional use of well. It suggests the French eh bien! 364. Dictionary other than Johnson's. Johnson's Dictionary, though comparatively slight in extent, contains few words to which exception may be taken on the score of utility, and is equipped with illustrative quotations which make it still valuable. 764. 417. "Its" which ought to have been in Shakespeare. Shakespeare uses "his," in conformity with regular Elizabethan usage, for the neuter possessive. 453. Ascêsis. The Greek word from which the English ascetic and asceticism are derived. 765. 540. Michelangelo. For a discussion of one phase of the work of this great Italian artist, see Pater's essay in The Renais sance. 609. Dean Mansel. Henry L. Mansel (1820-1871), Dean of St. Paul's from 1868 to his death. 767. 769. Swedenborg. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), founder of the New Church, or Swedenborgians. The Tracts for the Times were written and published by John Henry Newman and his associates in the so-called "Oxford Movement," during the years 1833-1841. The last of the tracts, No. 90, was condemned by the University because of its Romanism. 768. 952. Blake's rapturous design. One of the illustrations made by Blake for Blair's Grave represents "Soul and Body Reunited." 769. 1057. Buffon. Le Comte de Buffon (1707-1788), a famous French naturalist. WORDSWORTH 772. 36. Most serious critical efforts. See the selections from the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. 38. The excesses of 1795. The culmination of the Reign of Terror. 773. 117. Disciplina arcani. Discipline, or learning, of the mystery. 158. Senancour. Obermann, by Etienne de Senancour (1770-1846), is characteristic of this interest in nature. Gautier (1811-1872) was an enthusiastic Romanticist, a dramatist, poet, and playwright. 161. Rousseau. The importance of Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloïse in awakening people to the influence of nature upon the soul, and the influence of Rousseau's theories concerning the " state of nature," have been often pointed out. Chateau briand (1768-1848) and Victor Hugo (1802-1885) were both significant in the development of French romanticism. 773. 173. Reynolds or Gainsborough. The two greatest English portrait painters: Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), and Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788). 211 ff. The first three quotations are from The Prelude; the fourth is from The Pet Lamb. 775. 411. A selection of language really used by men. See the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, p. 389. 776. 452. George Sand. Her most famous novel, La Petite Fadette, is known in English translation as Fanchon the Cricket. The author's real name was Mme. Amandine Dudevant. 457. Meinhold. 777. 588. Anima mundi. Soul of the universe. 797. One who had meditated. STEVENSON ES TRIPLEX Lord 780. 24. Dule tree. A tree used as a gallows. 781. 104. The blue-peter. A blue flag indicating that a ship was about to sail. 141. The valley at Balaclava. The scene of the famous charge of the "Light Brigade" in the Crimean War. 145. Curtius. A hero of Roman legend who leaped into a chasm in the Forum, and sacrificed his life that the gulf might be closed. 159. Caligula. The third emperor of Rome, who proclaimed himself a god. 782. 187. The sheet. The rope by which the position of a sail is controlled. If it be tied, or "made fast," a sudden gust of wind may upset a small boat before the sailor has an opportunity to loosen the sheet. 206. Omar Khayyam . . . Walt Whitman. Omar Khayyam was a Persian poet who died c. 1123. Walt Whitman, an American poet famous for his wholesale violations of the conventions of poetry, died in 1892. 214. The same stuff with dreams. See Shakespeare's Tempest, IV. i. 156: "We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life 783. 303. As the French say. A cul-de-sac. 783. 312. A Bath-chair. An invalid's chair, much used at Bath, the health resort. 320. Our respec ed lexicographer. Samuel Johnson. 327. Bound with triple brass. The title of the essay, "Es Triplex," meaning triple brass,” is from Horace, Odes, I. iii. 394. Nelson. Before the battle of the Nile, Nelson made the remark to his officers. See Southey's Life of Nelson, chapter v.: "Before this time tomorrow, I shall have gained a peerage, or Westminster Abbey." 784. 416. The last paragraph might almost have been written by Stevenson as prophetic of the close of his own life. SWINBURNE ATALANTA IN CALYDON 785. The poem is a drama in the Greek form. 5-8. There is reference here to two stories of the nightingale, both accounting for the melancholy in its song. According to one, Edon killed her son Itylus by error, and was changed by Zeus into a nightingale. The tongueless vigil refers to the better known story of Philomela, ravished by her brother-in-law, Tereus, who cut out her tongue that she might not bear witness against him; she was afterward changed to a nightingale. Cf. Arnold's poem Philomela, p. 687. 785. 10. Maiden . . . lady. Artemis, the moon-goddess, patroness of chastity. 786. 38. The oat. The shepherd's pipe of oaten straw, contrasted with the lyre, symbolic of a more elaborate, sophisticated society. 44. Mænad, Bassarid. Names equivalent to Bacchanal (1. 49), one of the Bacchantes, female followers of Bacchus, who engaged in wild orgies in the god's honor. TO WALT WHITMAN IN AMERICA 787. Whitman seemed to Swinburne, as to many others, to be the prophet and poet of the new democracy which America was to offer to the Old World. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE 790. 9. If all the pens, etc. A quotation from Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part I, V. i. |