The lovers being together one day by the river Kirtle, a rival suitor suddenly appeared on the opposite bank, and pointed his gun; Helen threw herself before her sweetheart, received the bullet in her breast, and died in his arms. Then Adam Fleming fought with his guilty rival, and slew him."-W. Allingham. Notes to The Book of Ballads. Verse 2. Line 3. burd Helen-maiden Helen. Verse 3. L. 1. sair-sore. Ibid. L. 2. mair-more. Ibid. L. 3. meiklemuch. Verse. 5. L. 2. sma'-small. Verse 9. L. 2. een-eyes; from eyen. Page 137. "EDWARD OF THE BLOODY BRAND"-Sir D. Dalrymple. This striking ballad was first printed in Percy's Reliques, and there announced as "transmitted in MS. from Scotland by Sir D. Dalrymple, Bart, late Lord Hailes." It has been attributed to Sir D. Dalrymple, and also to Lady Wardlaw, the author of the well-known, and as Mr. W. Allingham has it, the "overpraised" ballad of Hardyknute. Verse 5. Line 4. "dule you drie"-grief you suffer,

Dule is in fact dole.

Page 140. "ALL OR NONE"-Sir W. Raleigh. Verse 2. Line 1. Angelgold-an Angel was an old English coin, worth about ten shillings, and of a finer quality of gold than that known as crown gold. Benedick ("Much ado about nothing"), in his soliloquy about the sort of woman he could love, says "rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel." This pun upon the two coins, the Noble and the Angel, seems to have escaped the observation of the commentators.

Page 162. "LOVE-SLAIN"-W. Shakespeare. Line 2. sad cypressmeaning Cyprus lawn, of which shrouds were made, and which was first manufactured in the Isle of Cyprus.

Page 163. "INCONSTANCY"-W. Shakespeare. Shakespeare's claim to these stanzas is somewhat doubtful. The first only appears in "Measure for Measure," while both are found in Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Rollo, Duke of Normandy.' On the other hand, both verses are attributed to Shakespeare in the 1640 Edition of his poems.

Page 167. "MAD-SONG"-W. Blake. Verse 1. Line 7. Rustling beds of dawn-Mr. Gilchrist prints this "rustling birds of dawn." Mr. Rossetti has it "beds," as Blake printed it.

Page 168. "ARIEL'S SONG"-W. Shakespeare. Line 5. after sunsetTheobald reads sunset, because the bat does not come out before twilight, and this is the version adopted by Dr. Arne. Most editors adhere to "Summer" as printed in the first Folio of 1623.

Page 168. "A FAIRY'S SONG"-Ibid. Line 8. Her orbs-the rings dried up on the sward, where the fairies have been dancing in circles. See an allusion to the same superstition in the two last lines of the next following poem.

Page 169. "THE FAIRY QUEEN"-Anonymous. Verse 3. manchet-a small loaf of fine white bread.

Line 4.

Page 171. "SONG OF AN ENCHANTRESS"-Giles Fletcher. This beautiful song, which has in it not only a ring of Spenser's music, but a distant echo of Ariosto, is from that almost forgotten but very remarkable poem "The Purple Island.'

"

Page 173. "A VISION OF THE FAERY QUEEN""-Sir W. Raleigh. Line 12. perse-pierce. L. 13. sprighte-spirit. Leigh Hunt says-"Two persons, I have no doubt, were included in the magnificent flattery of this sonnet-Queen Elizabeth as well as Spenser; for it was she whom the poet expressly imaged in his Queen of Fairyland; and Sir W. Raleigh was not the man to let the occasion pass for extolling that great woman, their joint mistress. His abolition of Laura, Petrarch, and Homer all in a lump, in honour of his friend Spenser is in the highest style of his wilful and somewhat domineering genius: but everything in the poem is as grandly as it is summarily done."

Page 175. 'TO HIS LOVE"-W. Shakespeare. This sonnet is introduced here in the above connection, inasmuch as it evidently conveys a complimentary allusion to Spenser.

Page 179.

"TRUTH THE SOUL OF BEAUTY"-Ibid. Line 9. But for their virtue only is their show, another inversion, as in the last line of Sir P. Sidney's sonnet to the Moon. It means-" but that their show only is their virtue."

Page 180.

"THE PAINS OF MEMORY"-W. Drummond. One of the richest and tenderest of Elizabethan sonnets. The Alexis to whom it is addressed was probably the poet's friend William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. Line 14. sith-since.

Page 182. "To Mr. Lawrence”—J. Milton. This Mr. Lawrence was the son of the President of Cromwell's Council. Line 6. Favonius-the spring wind. This sonnet, a model of neat and elegant classicism, might have been written by Horace to Mæcenas.

Page 203.

"A RURAL PICTURE"-O. Goldsmith. To give complete poems and eschew extracts, has been a leading principle of construction throughout this volume. In the present instance, however, the Editor feels that some apology is due for the liberty taken in cutting and adapting certain passages from the "Deserted Village." Not a word, however, has been altered, and the extract thus arranged presents, it is believed, a fair representative specimen of Goldsmith's manner.

Page 205. "ODE TO EVENING"-W. Collins. Verse 2. Line 3. Brede ethereal-braid; used by Keats in the sense of chain, or procession, See Ode to a Grecian Urn-" with brede of marble men and maidens overwrought." Page 207. "ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD”—T. Gray. "Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher. It is the corner-stone of his glory."-Lord Byron. "Perhaps the noblest stanzas in our language"-F. T. Palgrave. Page 213. "THE BIRKS OF INVERMAY"-D. Mallet. Birks-i. e. birches. Page 215. "THE BIRD"-H. Vaughan. A most tender and touching picture of the life of a bird; at once the most innocent and spiritual of created existences.

Page 217. "THE TIGER"-W. Blake. There are two versions of this noble poem. The one here given is that printed by Blake in his Songs of Experience. The other, containing some unimportant variations from a MS. authority, may be found in Gilchrist's 'Life of Blake.'

Page 229. "CUPID'S MISTAKE"-M. Prior. This poem and the one by which it is followed, are given, not for their poetical merit, which is slender, but as specimens of the vers d'occasion of the time, and as necessary links in the chain of English verse.

"LOVE'S PATIENCE." Verse 5. Line 4.

ure-custom, habit

Page 230. used here to signify that spring follows winter according to custom. Page 232. "LOVE'S MIGHT"-Beaumont and Fletcher. From a play by Beaumont and Fletcher called The Little French Lawyer. To assign the exact authorship of this delightful lyric would not be easy. Leigh Hunt especially admired the third line of the 2d verse-Fear the fierceness of the boy-than which, he writes, "nothing can be finer. Wonder and earnestness conspire to stamp the iteration of the sound." Vide Imagination and Fancy. Page 235. "LOVE'S PRISONER "-W. Blake. "This lovely lyric is affirmed to have been written by Blake before he was fourteen years of age."-W. M. Rossetti. Notes to The Poetical Works of W. Blake.

Page 236. "To NANCY"-Bishop Percy of Dromore. Robert Burns pronounced this song to be the most beautiful composition of its kind in the English language.

Page 237.

"SALLY IN OUR ALLEY"-Henry Carey. "A little masterpiece in a very difficult style. Catullus himself could hardly have bettered it. In grace, tenderness, simplicity and humour, it is worthy of the Ancients; and even more so, from the completeness and unity of the picture presented." W. G. Palgrave. Notes to The Golden Treasury. H. Carey was a musician and song-writer, and author of some minor dramatic works, published in 1743. He wrote, among other things, a farce called Hanging and Marriage, and some Verses on Gulliver's Travels.

Page 241. "YE Gentlemen of England"-Martyn Parker. It is said of Campbell that he used frequently to repeat this poem, and that he warmly admired it. It undoubtedly suggested to him that noblest of sea-songs, Ye Mariners of England.

In

Page 242. "TO ALL YOU LADIES NOW ON LAND"-Lord Dorset. 1665, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, attended the Duke of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war, and was in the battle of June 3d when eighteen Dutch ships were taken, fourteen others destroyed, and Opdam the Admiral, who engaged the Duke, was blown up beside him, with all his crew. On the day before the battle, he is said to have composed the celebrated song To all you Ladies now on Land, with equal tranquillity of mind and promptitude of wit. Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. "I have heard from the late Earl of Orrery, who was likely to have had good hereditary intelligence, that Lord Buckhurst had been a week employed upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memorable evening. But even this, whatever it may subtract from his facility, leaves him his courage." Dr. Johnson.

Page 245. "The Loss of the Royal GEORGE"- W. Cowper. The Royal George, of 108 guns, whilst undergoing a partial careening in Portsmouth Harbour, was overset about 10A.M. Aug. 29, 1782. The total loss was believed to be near 1000 souls.

Page 247. "A DIRGE"-T. Chatterton. Verse 2. Line 1. cryne-hair. Ibid. L. 2. Rode-complexion. Verse 6. L. 4. calness-coldness. Verse 7. L. 1. dent-fix. Ibid. L. 2. gree-grew. Ibid. L. 3. ouphani-elfin. Verse 9. L. 1. rey tes-water-flags.

Page 249. "YARROW STREAM"-7. Logan. Founded on an old Scottish legend, also versified anonymously in a ballad called "Willy drowned in Yarrow." See Golden Treasury, Book III. No. CXXVIII.

Page 251. "BONNIE GEorge CampbeLL"-Anonymous. This ballad is founded on a common incident of border life in the wild days of old. Page 252. "LOVE'S LAMENTATION"-Anonymous. Line 1. O Waly, waly-a cry of lamentation; see King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 6.: "the first time that we smell the ayre, we wawle and cry" Ed. 1623. Verse 1. L. 2. Brae-hillside. Ibid. L. 3. burn-side-brook-side. Verse 2. L. 5. busk-in the sense of array, or adorn. Verse 3. L. 3. Saint Anton's well-a spring at the foot of Arthur's Seat. Verse 4. L. 8. cramasie-from the French cramoisie-crimson. "A very ancient song."-Bishop Percy.

Page 253. AULD ROBIN GRAY"-Lady A. Barnard.

"There can

"

hardly exist a poem more truly tragic in the highest sense than this; nor, except Sappho, has any poet known to the Editor equalled it in excellence.' W. G. Palgrave. Notes to The Golden Treasury. Lady A. Barnard was the daughter of James Lindsay, 5th Earl of Balcarras, and wife of Sir Andrew Barnard, librarian to George III. Having kept the authorship of this celebrated ballad strictly secret for more than fifty years, Lady Anne Barnard acknowledged it for her own in a letter to Sir W. Scott in A.D. 1823. The story of the ballad was altogether a fiction. Robin Gray was her father's gardener, and no such persons as Jamie or the heroine ever existed, save in the imagination of the Lady Anne.

Page 255. "To MARY UNWIN"-W. Cowper. The Mary Unwin of these purely pathetic and tragic lines, was the faithful friend whose solicitude soothed, while she lived, the clouded and declining years of the poet's unhappy life.

Page 258. "Alexander's FeaST"-7. Dryden. Line 1. 'Twas at the royal feast-Alexander is recorded to have held a great banquet on the occasion of his victory at Persepolis, and to have set fire to the palace in his mad revelry. An Athenian courtesan named Thais is said to have in-tigated him to the act. Timotheus was a famous flute-player of Thebes; but Dryden makes him a performer on the lyre. His music is said to have been so soul-stirring that the King is reputed to have started up and seized his arms on one occasion when Timotheus was performing an Orthian nome to Athena. L. 46. drinking is the soldier's pleasure—a fragment of Menander quoted by Athenæus describes the drunkenness of Alexander as proverbial. L. 130. divine CeciliaSaint Cecilia, a Roman lady of the 3d Century, who is said to have excelled so surpassingly in music that an angel was attracted down from heaven by the charms of her voice. It is a mistake to attribute the invention of the organ to St. Cecilia (who is nevertheless the patron saint of music and musicians); that honour belonging traditionally to Archimedes, about 220. B.C.

Page 262. "ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY"-A. Pope. Line 39. The

Thracian-Orpheus, who accompanied Jason when he departed in quest of the Golden Fleece. L. 40. Argo-the galley of Jason, the wood of which, according to Pope, recognised, and thrilled responsively towards, the trees that came down the mountain side to the sound of Orpheus' lyre; one of the most beautiful figures in the whole of Pope's poetry. L. 50. Phlegethon-a fiery river of the lower world. L. 99. Hebrus-see note to Lycidas. L. 109. Rhodopea range of mountains in Thrace. L. 111. Hamus—another mountain-range in Thrace. L. 133. His numbers rais'd a shade—the epigrammatic antithesis is curiously imitative of that which concludes the preceding poem.

Page 267. "ODE ON THE Universe"-J. Addison. The great essayist's strongest claim to a place among the British poets rests upon this noble ode, which for simple majesty, and breadth of both style and feeling, is unrivalled.

Page 268. "ODE ON THE MORNING of Christ's Nativity"—John Milton. Verse 4. Line 4. The hooked chariot-Chariots armed with scythes and hooks were in use as engines of war in ancient Syria and Persia, and, according to Cæsar, were a formidable weapon of the ancient Britons. Verse 5. L. 4. whist-silenced. Todd quotes, in illustration of this passage, the following line from Marlowe and Nash's Dido (1594.)

"The ayre is cleere and Southerne windes are whist" Verse 8. L. 5. Milton here uses the name of Pan, the Hellenic God of the Universe, in the sense of Christ, the Lord of All. Dante, no less daringly, addresses Christ as sommo Giove, high Jove. Verse 10. L. 3. Cynthia-the moon. Verse 13. L. 7. ninefold harmony-the harmony of the spheres, which Milton elsewhere describes as "nine-enfolded." Verse 20. L. 3. A voice of weeping heard and loud lament-Plutarch tells of a mighty voice that was heard in the air proclaiming "Great Pan is dead!" whereupon the oracles ceased, and there was universal lamentation. This story, as told by the early Christian commentators, is made to date from the hour of Christ's Nativity. Verse 21. L. 3. The Lars and Lemurés-the household Gods of the Romans. Ibid. L. 6. Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint-Flamen was a sacerdotal title pertaining to any Roman priest who was devoted to the service of one especial God. Quaint is probably here used in the sense of curious, or perhaps of fantastic. It has lately been suggested by a correspondent of The Academy that the word employed by Milton was quent, an early form of quenched. Verse 22. L. 1. Baalim is here used in the sense of Gods only; the true meaning of the word being the lesser Baals, or local minor Gods, who were emanations of Baal, the great God of the Phoenicians. Baal-Peor was one of these, and has by some commentators been identified with Priapus. Ibid L. 3. twice-battered God of Palestine-Dagon. Ibid. L. 4. Moonéd Ashtoroth-Astarte, the local Goddess of Sidon, identified later with the Greek Aphrodite. Astarte was one of those Phoenician deities who were admitted into the Egyptian pantheon. She is represented at Edfoo in Upper Egypt with the head of a lioness, and crowned with the solar disk. Milton had evidently seen some representation of Astarte crowned in this manner, and had mistaken the disk for that of the moon. Ibid. L. 7. Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn-an allusion to the Egyptian Amen, the deity worshipped at the Oasis of Amen, now called the oasis of El Khargeh, which lies W. of the