P. 17, 1. 3. master. Vassal a dependent who owes service to a = P. 18, 1. 14. Rout a confusion, tumult; then a mob, a noisy company of people. It is probably derived from an old English verb, routen to snore, to bellow like an ox. Not the same word as rout in Battle of Blenheim, 1. 32. = = P. 18, 1. 20. Weary mountain mountain that made them weary. Adjectives were more commonly used in this way a couple of centuries ago than now. In Shakespeare we have numberless examples, e.g. " idle bed," "weak evils," &c. Spenser has "greedy prey," and so on. We still say "happy news," "breathless expectation," &c. - A.S. P. 18, 1. 21. Chid them on = harshly urged them on. cidan to strive, quarrel. Hence chide to rebuke harshly. It is also used of noise and clamour of any kind, as of dogs, of winds, of the sea, &c. P. 18, 1. 27. See note on Battle of Blenheim, 1. 26. P. 18, 1. 28. Harta horned deer, and therefore a male stag with its horns grown. The female is called a "hind.” P. 18, 1. 35. Blew his horn. It was the custom at the death of the deer for the huntsman to blow certain notes on the horn (called blowing the mort) to summon every one. P. 18, 1. 32. Feat = deed, from the French fait, which is itself derived from the Latin factum, whence we get our fact. "Feat" refers to the doing of a thing, and "fact to the reality of its having been done. There are many other such pairs of words in the English language-frail and fragile, caitiff and captive, royal and regal, &c. = P. 18, 1. 46. Notice the gentle sarcasm of this. P. 19, 1. 50. Sheer separated, or severed, pure, unmixed. Hence sheer ascent = ascent, and nothing else. A.S. sciran to cut. Cf. shire, shears, &c. See note on Battle of Blenheim, 1. 22. P. 19, 1. 51. Several "several " = = separate, apart, distinct. Hence comes to mean "various," "divers;" and hence " P. 19, 1. 60. Coy = quiet, gentle, shy. From the French coi, which is itself from the Latin quietus. So that coy and quiet are the same word. See note on line 32, above. P. 19, 1. 61. Cunning = skilful, from A.S. cunnan, to know, to know how to, to be able. The word did not acquire its meaning of unlawfully skilful till about the middle of the seventeenth century. Cf. "craft," "silly," &c. P. 19, 1. 70. Paramour lady love. It is generally now used of an unlawful lady love. P. 19, 11. 73-76. Notice the vainglorious boast, and he end of it. Cf. lines 169-176. P. 19, 1. 77. Stone dead. Spenser, Faerie Queene, ii. 11, “The stone-dead quarry falls." Cf. "stone cold," and in Shakespeare, "stone hard" (Rich. III. iv. 4) and "stone still" (John, iv. 1). P. 19, 1. 81 = "Before three days had elapsed." To liken the motion of the moon to that of a ship is a simile natural enough. P. 20, 11. 97-100. These describe Wordsworth's idea about his own poetry. The delight in mysteries and horrors was very general at and before this time. Cf. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Christabel; Southey's Thalaba, and Mrs. Radcliffe's and Monk Lewis's novels. P. 20, 1. 97. Trade = a trodden path, habitual course, way of life, employment, commerce. For its use here Cf. "Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade?" = P. 20, 1. 110. from French, tan become tan coloured. P. 21, 1. 123. yule, Christmas. Jolly. French joli, from Norse jol, English = = P. 21, 1. 150. Tide time, hour, season. Time consists of, or is recognised by, the happening of events; hence betide to happen; tidings happenings, events, news; tidy = timely, in due season, orderly; tides = the regular seasons of the sea. = P. 22, 11. 165, 166. Wordsworth held that there was a soul, a living spirit, in nature that entered into all things, and gave each its distinct life; indeed, that the spirit of God existed in all things. Cf. "I have felt (in nature) All thinking things, all objects of all thought P. 22, 11. 167, 168. Compare "He prayeth best who loveth best COLERIDGE, Ancient Mariner, 614–617. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW was born in Portland, Maine, U.S., in the year 1807. After travelling for some time through the various countries of Europe he settled down, in 1829, as Professor of Modern Languages at Bowdoin College, U.S. Six years later he was appointed to the similar post at Harvard College, Massachusetts-a post which he still holds. But before entering on his new duties he again travelled for more than a year through the north of Europe. There is certainly no living poet, except perhaps Tennyson, whose works have been more read in England, whose words have grown more familiar in every home. Everyone has read Hiawatha, Evangeline, Tales of a Wayside Inn, and Miles Standish; everyone knows by heart the Psalm of Life and the Village Blacksmith. It is Longfellow's tender, homely feeling which has made him so widely understood and loved. But there is little, very little vigour of thought or expression in his work. He is far too prone to give us a sermon in verse instead of a work of imagination and art-a sermon, too, of a very ordinary kind. Nevertheless his purity and simplicity of thought, his tender homely sadness, and, here and there, his touches of genuine poetic feeling, have rightly gained him a wide and sure popularity. THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. This poem is a very good example of Longfellow's manner. There is nothing very lofty in it, nor are the verses especially melodious; but there is in the thought a ring of that sturdy manliness and proud contentment with one's lot which Longfellow has so long and so earnestly preached; while, just before the end, there is a touch of that homely pathos which is seldom absent from any of his poems. P. 23, 1. 8. Tan = a brown, swarthy yellow. See note on Hart-Leap Well, line 110. sacristan = P. 23, 1. 17. Sexton the keeper of the sacristy, or place where the sacred vestments and other implements of a church are stowed. Nowadays his chief or only duty is to dig graves. P. 23, 1. 32. Paradise a Greek word for "park.' Xenophon says the Persians applied the word to gardens in which were put every good and beautiful production of the earth. We used paradise first as the garden of Adam and Eve, and then as a place of happiness, heaven. WILLIAM COWPER. WILLIAM COWPER was born in the year 1731, at Great Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, of which place his father was rector. He was weak in body, nervous, and sensitive; and, from the account he has left us, his school days seem to have been miserable enough. After leaving school he was articled to an attorney for three years. But he studied little, and let twelve years of his London life drift away in idleness and gaiety. Not only did the practice of law prove unsuited to him, but his extreme nervousness and want of serious application rendered him unfit for work of any kind. Towards the end of 1763 his reason gave way, and it became necessary to place him under strict medical care and supervision. After his recovery he went to live with a clergyman named Unwin, at Huntingdon; and, later on, when Mr. Unwin died, he went with Mrs. Unwin to Olney, in Buckinghamshire, remaining with her till her death, which occurred a few years before his own. After his attack he became gloomy and unhappy in mind, and devoted himself very strictly to religion; while from time to time his terrible malady returned and darkened his life. It was not till his fiftieth year that he commenced writing, and in 1782 he published his first volume of poems. For the next ten years he was busy with literary work, his best productions being The Task and the translation of Homer. But Cowper was not only a poet, he was the most charming and best of English letterwriters, delighting us in poems and letters alike by the truthfulness of his thoughts, by his simplicity, and by his genuine insight into, and love of, the beauty of nature. What he saw, and thought, and loved he wrote about. He did not describe unreal people and sham love and sham passion, like most of the writers about him. By doing this he commenced-what Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Scott finished-a great reform in English literature. For this, if for nothing more, he deserves to be remembered. He died in 1800. JOHN GILPIN. This highly amusing ballad gives us an example of Cowper's gentle humour at its very best. The story was told him by his bright, cheerful friend Lady Austen, to rouse him out of one of the fits of gloomy melancholy to which he was constantly subject during the latter part of his life. The result was not only to rouse him, but to set him to work with his pen. The subject exactly suited him; for Cowper was always at his best when writing of matters of everyday homeliness; and, moreover, he had lived for years amongst the very scenes which he describes. Lady Austen said the story was one "which had been told her in her youth." There was probably an old ballad on the subject, as Professor De Morgan pointed out long ago. The facts of the story at any rate are not Cowper's, but the telling of the story is. It was written in 1782, and published anonymously in the Public Advertiser, but attracted no attention till it was read in public three years afterwards by the actor Henderson. It then became immediately very popular, and was reprinted again and again. P. 24, 1. 2. Of credit. A man of credit = a man whom people will trust—especially in money matters. In the City, a man's credit is said to be "good" when people believe that he will meet his engagements and discharge his debts at the proper times. P. 24, 1. 3. Trainband. The Train bands (i.e. trained bands) were the old militia of London, composed of the most substantial householders in the City. P. 24, 1. 11. The Bell at Edmonton-an inn, with the sign of a bell, at Edmonton, a village to the north of London, about eight miles from St. Paul's Cathedral. P. 24, 1. 12. All. This word is constantly used simply for the sake of emphasis, with somewhat of the sense of even. Compare "A damsel lay deploring All on a rock reclin'd." GAY, The What d'ye call't? ii. 8. "All in the Downs the fleet was moor'd." GAY, Sweet William's Farewell. Tennyson is especially fond of this use of the word, as in "All in the wild March morning I heard the angels call." May Queen. P. 24, 1. 16. After we. We are reminded by the bad grammar that people of Mrs. Gilpin's position were not very well educated in her day. P. 24, 1. 21. Linen-draper. Linen is from Scandinavian lin flax. Draper is from French drap = cloth. = P. 24, 1, 23. Calender. A calender is one whose trade it is to smooth, trim, and give a gloss to linen or woollen cloths, by the use of the "calender" (French, calandre; Lat. in cylindrus). This was a hot press, or a machine, consisting of two or more cylinders, revolving so nearly in contact with each other that cloth pressed between them is smoothed and glazed by their powerful pressure. It was natural for a linen-draper to have a calender as a particular friend. excited with expectation, ready to start P. 25, 1. 39. Agog = |