Sonnet of Chillon
"Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heart— The heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consigned— To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
"Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar—for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard!—May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God."
[ [107] 4. Sudden fears. Marie Antoinette's hair has been said to have turned gray on the return from Varennes to Paris. It certainly turned gray very quickly during the anxiety of the Revolution.
[ [108] 22. Sealed. How?
[ [109] 27.Chillon has seven Gothic-looking pillars, i.e. a pillar that holds up Gothic-style arches.[Note missing in original text.]
[ [110] 35. Marsh's meteor lamp; will o' the wisp.
[ [111] 38. Cankering thing. What does canker do?
[ [112] 57. The elements are fire, air, earth, and water.
[113] 82. Polar day. What is the length of the day near the poles?
[ [114] 100. Sooth; truth.
[ [115] 107. Lake Leman; another name for Lake Geneva.
[ [116] 133. The moat was the ditch which surrounded a castle. The moat of Chillon Castle, however, was the part of the lake which separated the rock from the shore.
[ [117] 179. Rushing forth in blood. Byron is said to have been fond of the symptoms of violent death. He, a year after writing this poem, saw three robbers guillotined, taking careful notice of his own and their actions. Goethe, the German poet, even thought that Byron must have committed murder, he seemed so interested in sudden death.
[ [118] 230. Selfish death; suicide.
[ [119] 237. Wist; the imperfect tense of wit, to be aware of, to know.
[ [120] 288. Brother's. It was a Mohammedan belief that the souls of the blessed inhabited green birds in paradise.
[ [121] 294. Solitary cloud. This line is one of several very close similarities in this poem to Wordsworth; cf.:—
"I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills."
[ [122] 341. The little isle referred to is Ile de Peilz, an islet on which a century ago were planted three elms.
[ [123] 392. With a sigh. It is not unheard of for men long imprisoned to lose all desire for freedom, and even to return to their place of confinement after being set free.
Mazeppa [(Page 58)]
The following extract from Voltaire's History of Charles XII was prefixed to the first edition of Mazeppa as the "Advertisement":—
"The man who then filled this position [Hetman of Ukraine] was a Polish gentleman, named Mazeppa, who had been born in the Palatinate of Podolia. He had been brought up as a page to John Casimir, at whose court he had taken on some of the color of learning. An intrigue which he had in his youth with the wife of a Polish gentleman having been discovered, the husband had him bound, all naked, upon a wild horse, and in this condition let go. The horse, which was from the country of Ukraine, returned and brought there Mazeppa, half-dead with weariness and hunger. Some peasants helped him: he remained a long time among them and distinguished himself in several expeditions against the Tartars. The superiority of his wisdom brought him great consideration among the Cossacks. His reputation increased day by day, until the Czar was obliged to make him Prince of Ukraine."
The real life of Mazeppa was as follows: Ivan Stepánovitch Mazeppa was born in 1645, of Cossack origin and of the lesser nobility of Volhynia. When fifteen years old, he became the page to John Casimir V of Poland, and, while holding this office, learned Latin and much about statesmanship. Later, however, being banished on account of a quarrel, he returned home to his mother in Volhynia. While here, to pass the time, he fell in love with the wife of a neighbor, Lord Falbouski. This lord, or pane, discovering his wife and her lover, caused Mazeppa to be stripped and bound to his own horse. The horse, enraged by lashes and pistol shots and then let loose, ran immediately to Mazeppa's own courtyard.
Mazeppa, later, after holding various secretaryships, was made hetman, or prince, over all of Ukraine, and for nearly twenty years he was the ally of Peter the Great. Afterwards, however, he offered his services to Stanislaus of Poland, and finally to Charles XII of Sweden. "Pultowa's Day," July 8, 1709, when Charles was defeated by the Russians and put to flight, was the last of Mazeppa's power. He fled with Charles across the river Borysthenes and received protection from the Turks. He died a year later at Varnitza on the Dneister, just in time to escape being delivered over to Peter.
[ [124] 1. Pultowa. [See Introductory Note.]
[ [125] 9. Day were dark and drear; Napoleon's famous defeat, and retreat from Moscow, October, 1815.
[ [126] 15. Die. What is the plural?
[ [127] 23. Gieta was a colonel in the king of Sweden's army.
[ [128] 51. Levels man and brute. Burke says in his Speech on Conciliation with America, "Public calamity is a mighty leveller."
[ [129] 56. Hetman.[See Introductory Note.] Mazeppa was sixty-four years old.
[ [130] 104. Bucephalus; the horse of Alexander the Great. Alexander, when a boy, was the first to tame this horse, thereby, in fulfilment of the oracle, proving his right to the throne.
[ [131] 105. Scythia was a country, north and northeast of the Black Sea, which was inhabited by nomadic people. It was noted for its horses.
[ [132] 116. Borysthenes; another name for the Dnieper River.
[ [133] 151. A Mime was a sort of farce, travestying real persons or events.
[ [134] 154. Thyrsis was one of the names commonly used for shepherds in the Greek and Latin pastoral poets, as Theocritus, Bion, Virgil. The names were conventionally used by modern imitators of these poets.
[ [135] 155. Palatine (from palatium, meaning palace) was a name given to a count, or ruler of a district, who had almost regal power.
[ [136] 237. O'erwrought; the past participle of overwork. Cf. wheelwright, wainwright, etc.
[ [137] 329. Cap-à-pie; from head to foot.
[ [138] 349. 'Scutcheon, or escutcheon, is the shield-shaped surface upon which the armorial bearings are charged.
[ [139] 437. Spahi's; the name of a Turkish corps of irregular cavalry.
[ [140] 575. Uncouth; literally, unknown.
[ [141] 618. Ignis-fatuus; will-o-the-wisp, Jack-o'-lantern.
[ [142] 664. Werst; a Russian measure equal to about two-thirds of a mile.
The Destruction of Sennacherib [(Page 86)]
Read 2 Chronicles, chapter 32, and Isaiah, chapters 36 and 37.
[JOHN KEATS]
John Keats was born October, 1795, and died on the 23d of February, 1821. He was the son of a livery-stable keeper, who had married his former proprietor's daughter. The parents had wished to educate Keats and his two brothers, but before Keats was fifteen, both his father and mother had died. He was then apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton, under whom he remained four years, and then went up to London to complete his training for a medical degree. This he received in due time and began to practise, but he found literature so much more attractive that, in about a year, he gave up his attempt to practise medicine. At about this time he became acquainted with Leigh Hunt, who had a good deal of influence upon Keats's literary beginnings. His first volume of poetry, which appeared in 1817, shows this influence strongly. A year later his Endymion was published and was so severely criticised by Blackwood's and especially by the Quarterly that Keats took it much to heart; some have supposed that this attack very much hastened his death. His brother George had moved to America in 1818, and his brother Tom was now dying with consumption. Keats nursed him faithfully until his death. Immediately after this sorrow, he fell deeply in love, but his health was so greatly impaired that he found it necessary, in 1820, to take a trip to Italy. He did not grow stronger, however, but died at Rome on the 23d of February, 1821.
Keats's poetry is noted especially for its sensuous beauty, its descriptions, and its remarkable reproduction of the Greek and romantic spirits.
The Eve of St. Agnes [(Page 88)]
Around St. Agnes' Eve, which is the night before the Feast of St. Agnes on January 21, and which corresponds to the Scotch "Hallowe'en," there grew up the superstition that a maiden could, by observing certain traditional precautions, have in her sleep a vision of her future husband. Perhaps the most common way to obtain this vision was for the girl to go to sleep on her back with her hands behind her head; then at midnight she would dream that her lover came and kissed her. This is the superstition that Keats has made use of in The Eve of St. Agnes.
St. Agnes was a Roman girl, who at thirteen was loved by the son of a Roman prefect, but, however, being like her parents a Christian and having vowed virginity, she told her lover that she was already betrothed. The youth, thinking he had some earthly rival, as a result fell so very sick that his father tried to intercede with the girl's parents. When he found these people were Christians, he tried to compel Agnes to become a vestal virgin or marry his son. Agnes, because she refused to do either of these things, was dragged to the altar, but because here, by her prayers, she restored to her lover the sight which he had lost, she was set free by the Prefect. The people, however, tried to burn her, but were themselves consumed in the fire, until finally one of their number slew her with his sword. A few days after her death, her parents had a vision of her, surrounded by angels and accompanied by a lamb (Agnus Dei). After her canonization it was customary to sacrifice on St. Agnes' Day, during the singing, two lambs whose wool the next day was woven by the nuns into pallia for the archbishops. (Cf. I. 115, 117.) Cf. Agnus and Agnes.
[ [143] 5. Beadsman. Bead originally meant prayer; hence "to say one's beads." A beadsman was an inmate of an almshouse who was bound to pray for the founders of the house. In Shakespeare the word is used to denote one who prays for another.
[ [144] 31. Snarling. Does this verse resemble the sound described? What is the name of this figure?
[ [145] 40. New-stuffed. What does this mean here?
[ [146] 46. St. Agnes' Eve.[See Introductory Note.]
[ [147] 70. Amort (Fr. à la mort); lifeless, spiritless.
[ [148] 71. Lambs.[See Introductory Note.]
[ [149] 75. Porphyro (Gr. porphyro = a purple fish, purple). Why did Keats choose this name instead of Lionel, as he first intended?
[ [150] 77. Buttress'd means supported, but here it must mean protected from; i.e. Porphyro was in the shadow of the buttress.
[ [151] 81. Sooth; truth. Cf. soothsayer.
[ [152] 86. Hyena. Find out the characteristics of this animal, and see what the force of the epithet is here.
[ [153] 90. Beldame (bel + dame) originally meant a fair lady, then grandmother and, in general, old woman or hag.
[ [154] 105. Gossip originally meant a sponsor at baptism (God-sib), then a boon companion, and finally a tattler.
[ [155] 115. Holy loom. [See Introductory Note.]
[ [156] 120. Witch's sieve. This refers to the superstition that witches could hold water in sieves and could sail in them. Cf. Macbeth, I. 3. 1, 8:—
"But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do."
[ [157] 126. Mickle; much.
[ [158] 135. Lap.
"Madeline is asleep in her bed; but she is also asleep in accordance with the legends of the season; and therefore the bed becomes their lap as well as sleep's."
—Leigh Hunt.
[ [159] 138. How make purple riot in his heart?
[ [160] 171. Merlin was the sorcerer in Arthur's court. Vivien succeeded in getting from him a secret by which she shut him up in a hollow tree. See Tennyson's Merlin and Vivien. Malory has another version of the story.
[ [161] 173. Cates; provisions,—especially rich, luxurious provisions. Cf. cater, caterer.
[ [162] 174. Tambour frame. Tambour is a kind of drum; cf. tambourine. A tambour frame is a round frame for holding material which is to be embroidered.
[ [163] 208. Casement high.... On these next three stanzas Keats spent much time. They are considered beautiful description. Why?
[ [164] 214. Heraldries are coats of arms.
[ [165] 215. Emblazonings; colored heraldries.
[ [166] 218. Gules; the tincture red. In a shield without color gules is indicated by vertical parallel lines.
[ [167] 241. Missal; a mass book for the year. What is the meaning of this line? Paynims; pagans.
[ [168] 257. Morphean. Morpheus was the god of sleep.
[ [169] 262. Azure-lidded sleep. Note the different senses appealed to in these next stanzas. Keats is called one of our most sensuous poets.
[ [170] 266. Soother; used here for more soothing.
[ [171] 267. What are lucent syrops? Note derivation.
[ [172] 277. Eremite; hermit.
[ [173] 292. Keats wrote a poem about this time called La Belle Dame sans Merci.
[ [174] 346. Wassailers was a term originally used for men drinking each other's health with the words wes h[=a]l, be whole.
[ [175] 375. Angela. Have the deaths of Angela and the Beadsman been foretold?
[ALFRED TENNYSON]
Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, on August 6, 1809, and died at Aldworth in Surrey in 1892. He was the third of twelve brothers and sisters, several of whom later showed evidences of genius. As early as 1827 he and his brother Charles published Poems by Two Brothers, for which they received ten pounds. At Trinity College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1828, he won the chancellor's gold medal for a prize poem Timbuctoo. On the death of his father in 1831 he left Cambridge without a degree. Before this in 1830 he had published Poems, chiefly Lyrical, and two years later in 1832 a new volume appeared which was severely criticised, though it contained much excellent work. The death of his close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, in 1833 was a terrible blow to Tennyson and one from which it took him many years to recover. It was, however, the inspiration for his elegy In Memoriam, written for the most part during the period when the loss was felt most keenly. For some time after, Tennyson lived quietly, gaining in power and expression, and busy training himself for the future. The product of this seclusion came in two volumes of poetry, printed in 1842, which were enthusiastically greeted. In 1845 Wordsworth wrote, "Tennyson is decidedly the first of our living poets." The Princess; A Medley, appeared in 1847, and three years later he gave to the world the completed In Memoriam. This same year (1850) is also notable for his marriage with Miss Emily Sellwood and his appointment as poet-laureate in place of Wordsworth, who had just died.
From this time on his place in literature was secured, and he lived a happy life, making occasional short trips in England and on the continent, but remaining for the most part quietly at his estate on the Isle of Wight. Among his later works are Maud (1855), Enoch Arden (1864), Idylls of the King (finished 1872), a group of Ballads, and Other Poems (1880), and several dramas. He accepted a peerage in 1883. Nine years later he died and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Tennyson, in the range and scope of his work, in the variety of his interests, and in the versatility of his art, is the most representative poet of the nineteenth century. He tried many kinds of poetry and met with some success in all. He learned versification as Stevenson did his prose style, by long-continued study and practice, with the result that he became eventually a supreme literary artist, a master of melody in words. His diction is admirably precise and exact, and he is easy to read and understand. While he is rarely profound or searching, like Browning, neither is he overintellectual; but he embeds sane and safe thought in a mould of beauty. He was a national poet in his patriotism and fondness for English scenery. Finally he was an apostle of religious optimism, ready to combat the morbid beliefs which were disturbing contemporary philosophy.
Dora [(Page 103)]
Published in 1842.
The clearness and simplicity of this exquisite pastoral make any explanatory notes superfluous. Regarding it, Wordsworth once said to Tennyson, "I have been endeavoring all my life to write a pastoral like your Dora and have not yet succeeded."
Œnone [(Page 108)]
Most of this poem was written in 1830 while Tennyson was travelling in the Pyrenees Mountains with his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. The descriptions of scenery belong, therefore, to that district, and not to the vicinity of ancient Troy. Œnone was first published in 1832, but was afterward frequently revised; it appears here in the final form approved by Tennyson himself.
[ [176] 1. Ida is a mountain in northwest Asia Minor near the site of Troy.
[ [177] 2. Ionian; Grecian.
[ [178] 10. Gargarus is the highest peak of Mount Ida.
[ [179] 13. Troas is the district in northwest Asia Minor in which was located the city of Troy.
[ [180] 13. Ilion was the Greek name for Troy.
[ [181] 16. Paris was the son of Priam, king of Troy, and his wife Hecuba.
[ [182] 37. River-God; Cebren, the god of a small river near Troas.
[ [183] 40. Rose slowly. According to tradition, Neptune, the god of the sea, was the founder of Troy, but was assisted by Apollo, who raised the walls to the music of his lyre.
[ [184] 51. Simois; a river having its source in Mount Ida.
[ [185] 65. Hesperian gold. The apples of Hesperides were made of pure gold. They were given to Herè as a wedding present, and thereafter guarded night and day by a dragon. Hercules finally secured three of them through a stratagem.
[ [186] 66. Ambrosially. Ambrosia was the food of the gods.
[ [187] 72. Oread. The Oreads were nymphs who were supposed to guide travellers through dangerous places on the mountains.
[ [188] 79. Peleus; a king of Phitia who married Thetis, a sea-nymph. To the wedding feast all the immortals were invited except Eris, goddess of discord. In revenge, she cast a golden apple on the banquet table before the gods and goddesses, with an inscription awarding it to the most beautiful among them. The strife which followed resulted in the choosing of Paris as judge in the matter.
[ [189] 81. Iris was the messenger and attendant of Juno. She frequently appeared in the form of a rainbow.
[ [190] 83. Herè (Roman Juno) was the wife and sister of Zeus (Roman Jupiter), and therefore Queen of Heaven.
[ [191] 84. Pallas (Roman Minerva) was the goddess of wisdom.
[ [192] 84. Aphroditè (Roman Venus) was the goddess of beauty and love.
[ [193] 95. Amaracus; a fragrant flower.
[ [194] 95. Asphodel; supposed to have been a variety of Narcissus.
[ [195] 102. The peacock was a bird sacred to Herè.
[ [196] 151. Guerdon; reward.
[ [197] 170. Idalian; so-called from Idalium, a town in Cyprus sacred to Aphroditè.
[ [198] 171. Paphian; a reference to Paphos in Cyprus where Aphroditè first set foot after her birth from sea foam.
[ [199] 195. Pard; leopard.
[ [200] 220. The Abominable; Eris, the goddess already referred to.
[ [201] 257. The Greek woman; Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. She was the wife promised to Paris by Aphroditè as his reward for his decision. Paris stole her from her husband through the direction of Aphroditè, and carried her back to Troy. As a result of this act, the Greeks, under Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon, joined in an attack on Troy which ended, after ten years, in the capture of that city. In the course of the siege Paris was killed.
[ [202] 259. Cassandra; the daughter of Priam, and hence the sister of Paris. She was condemned by Apollo to utter prophesies which, though true, would never be believed.
The conclusion of the story of Œnone and Paris may be read in Tennyson's own Death of Œnone or in William Morris's Death of Paris.
Enoch Arden [(Page 117)]
This poem was written in 1862, its actual composition taking only two weeks, although the poet had been considering the theme for some time. It was first printed in 1864 and became popular at once, sixty thousand copies being sold in a very short period.
[ [203] 7. Danish barrows are burial mounds supposed to have been left by the early Danish invaders of England.
[ [204] 18. The fluke is the part of the anchor which fastens in the ground.
[ [205] 36. Wife to both. This line is a prophecy of future events in the story.
[ [206] 94. Osier. The reference is to baskets made of osier, a kind of willow.
[ [207] 98. The lion-whelp was evidently a heraldic device over the gateway to the hall.
[ [208] 99. Peacock-yewtree; a yewtree cut, after the fashion of the old landscape gardeners, into the shape of a peacock.
[ [209] 213. Look on yours. This is another prophetic line.
[ [210] 326. Garth; a yard or garden.
[ [211] 337. Conies; rabbits.
[ [212] 370. Just ... begun; notice here the repetition of line 67: each of the two lines introduces a crisis in the life of Philip. Several other such repetitions may be found in the poem.
[ [213] 494. Under the palm-tree; found in Judges iv. 5.
[ [214] 525. The Bay of Biscay is off the west coast of France and north of Spain.
[ [215] 527. Summer of the world; the equator.
[ [216] 563. Stem; the trunk of a tree.
[ [217] 573. Convolvuluses; plants with twining stems.
[ [218] 575. The broad belt of the world. The ancients considered the ocean to be a body of water completely surrounding the land.
[ [219] 633. This description may be compared with that of Ben Gunn in Stevenson's Treasure Island.
[ [220] 671. A holt is a piece of woodland.
[ [221] 671. A tilth is a name for land which is tilled.
[ [222] 728. Latest; last.
[ [223] 733. Shingle; coarse gravel or small stones.
[ [224] 747. Creasy; full of creases.
The Revenge [(Page 146)]
Published first in the Nineteenth Century, March, 1878. Reprinted in Ballads, and other Poems, 1880.
The Revenge deals with an incident of the war between England and Spain during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Sir Richard Grenville, the hero, came from a long line of fighters and was one of the most famous naval commanders of the period. He had led, in 1585, the first English colony to Virginia, and had been in charge of the Devon coast defence at the time of the Armada (1588) when that great Spanish fleet, organized to deal a crushing blow to England, was defeated and almost entirely destroyed by English ships and seamen under Lord Howard and Sir Francis Drake. In 1591 he was given command of the Revenge, a second-rate ship of five hundred tons' burden and carrying a crew of two hundred and fifty men, and sent to the Azores to intercept a Spanish treasure fleet. While there, he was cut off from his own squadron and left with two alternatives: to turn his back on the enemy, or to sail through the fifty-three Spanish vessels opposed to him. He refused to retreat, and the terrible battle described in the ballad was the result.
Grenville was a somewhat haughty and tyrannical leader, though noble-minded, loyal, and patriotic. In Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho! which gives a vivid portrayal of English national feeling and character during these stirring times, he is made to take an important part, and is idealized as "a truly heroic personage—a steadfast, God-fearing, chivalrous man, conscious (as far as a soul so healthy could be conscious) of the pride of beauty, and strength, and valour, and wisdom." Froude calls him "a goodly and gallant gentleman." Perhaps the best comment on him is found in his own dying words: "Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind: for that I have ended my life as true soldier ought to do, that hath fought for his country, Queen, religion, and honour. Whereby my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier; that hath done his dutie as he was bound to do."
The Revenge is styled by Stevenson (the English Admirals) "one of the noblest ballads in the English language." Indeed, in vigor of spirit, and in patriotic feeling, there are few poems which surpass it.
[ [225] 1. The Azores (here pronounced A-zo-res) are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. The island of Flores (pronounced Flo-res) is the most westerly of the group.
[ [226] 4. Lord Thomas Howard was admiral of the fleet to which the Revenge belonged.
[ [227] 12. The Inquisition was a system of tribunalsformed in the thirteenth century by the Roman Catholic Church to investigate and punish cases of religious unbelief. In the sixteenth century the Inquisition became infamous in Spain because of the cruelty of its persecutions, many people suffering terrible tortures and dying the most painful deaths, through its instrumentality.
[ [228] 17. Bideford in Devon was the birthplace of Sir Richard Grenville. In the sixteenth century it was one of England's chief seaports and sent seven vessels to fight the Armada. It is described in the opening chapter of Westward Ho!
[ [229] 21. The thumbscrew was an instrument of torture employed by the Inquisition.
[ [230] 21. Victims of the Inquisition were sometimes tied to a stake and burned alive.
[ [231] 30. Seville is a city in southwestern Spain. It is here to be pronounced with the accent on the first syllable.
[ [232] 31. Don; a Spanish title of rank, here used to designate any Spaniard.
[ [233] 46. Galleon; a name applied to sailing vessels of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
[ROBERT BROWNING]
Robert Browning was born at Camberwell, May 7, 1812, and died at Venice, December 12, 1889. Browning's father, as his grandfather had been, was employed in the Bank of England. Mr. Browning, who was an indulgent father, decided that his son's education should be under private tutors. This lack of being educated with other boys is sometimes supposed to have been one of the causes why Browning found difficulty in expressing his thoughts clearly to other people. It was at first planned that Browning should become a lawyer, but as he had no taste for this, his father agreed to allow his son to adopt literature as a profession. When Browning had made his choice, he read Johnson's Dictionary for preparation. Pauline, his first published poem, attracted almost no attention, but Browning kept on writing, regardless of inattention. The actor, Macready, with whom he became friendly, turned Browning's attention to the writing of plays, but he was never successful as a writer for the stage. On his return from his second visit to Italy, in 1844, he read Miss Elizabeth Barrett's Lady Geraldine's Courtship and expressed so much appreciation of this poem that, on the suggestion of a common friend, he wrote to tell Miss Barrett how much he liked her work. This was the beginning of one of the famous literary love affairs of the world. Although Miss Barrett was several years older than Browning and a great invalid, they were married, against family opposition, in 1846, and went immediately to Italy. Mrs. Browning's health was now much improved, and she lived till 1861. On her death, Browning, greatly overcome, returned to England. Gradually he went more and more into society, and as his popularity as a poet increased, he became a well-known figure in public. He continued writing throughout his life. He died at his son's house in Venice in 1889.
How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix [(Page 154)]
Browning wrote concerning this poem: "There is no sort of historical foundation about Good News from Ghent. I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse 'York' then in my stable at home. It was written in pencil on the fly-leaf of Bartoli's Simboli, I remember." Such an incident might, of course, have happened at the "Pacification of Ghent," a treaty of union between Holland, Zealand, and southern Netherlands under William of Orange, against Philip II of Spain. The distance between Ghent and Aix as mapped out in this poem is something more than ninety miles. Do you think a horse could gallop that distance? Notice that the verse gives the effect of galloping.
[ [234] 10. Pique; seems to be the pommel.
[ [235] 14 ff. Lokeren, Boom, Düffeld, Mecheln, Aerschot, Hasselt, Looz, Tongres, Dalhem; towns varying from seven to twenty-five miles apart on the route taken from Ghent to Aix.
[ [236] See Note 235 above.
[ [237] See Note 235 above.
[ [238] See Note 235 above.
[ [239] See Note 235 above.
[ [240] See Note 235 above.
[ [241] See Note 235 above.
[ [242] See Note 235 above.
[ [243] See Note 235 above.
[ [244] 46. Save Aix. Notice that this is the first we know of the purpose of this ride. Is this an advantage or a disadvantage?
Incident of the French Camp [(Page 156)]
Ratisbon (German Regensburg), which has been besieged seventeen times since the eighteenth century, was stormed by Napoleon, May, 1809, during his Austrian campaign. Mrs. Sutherland Orr, the biographer of Browning, says this incident actually happened, except that the hero was a man and not a boy.
[ [245] 5. Neck out-thrust. Notice how Browning gives the well-known attitude of Napoleon.
[ [246] 9. Mused. What effect has this supposed soliloquy of Napoleon?
[ [247] 11. Lannes; a general of Napoleon's, and the Duke of Montebello.
[ [248] 29. Flag-bird. What bird was on Napoleon's flag?
The Pied Piper of Hamelin [(Page 158)]
There are many versions of this story which Browning might have used. He is said to have used directly the account in The Wonders of the Little World; or a General History of Man, written by Nathaniel Wanley and published in 1678. This poem, however, from whatever source the story was taken, was deservedly popular long before Browning himself was. It was written to amuse, during a sickness, the son of William Macready, the most prominent English actor of his time and a close friend of Browning's.
[ [249] 1. Hamelin; a town near Hanover, the capital of the province of Brunswick, Prussia.
[ [250] 37. Guilder; a Dutch coin worth about forty cents.
[ [251] 68. Trump of Doom. The Archangel Gabriel was to blow his trumpet to summon the dead on the Day of Judgment.
[ [252] 79. Pied Piper. Pied means variegated like a magpie. Cf. piebald.
[ [253] 89. Cham. The Great Cham, or Khan, was the ruler of Tartary. Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller, gives an account of him. Dr. Johnson was called the Great Cham of literature.
[ [254] 91. Nizam; a native ruler of Hyderabad, India.
[ [255] 123, 126. Julius Cæsar and his Commentary. Julius Cæsar, the great Roman general and dictator, who wrote his Commentaries on his wars in Gaul and Britain.
[ [256] 169. Poke; pocket.
[ [257] 182. Stiver; a small Dutch coin.
[ [258] 188. Piebald. Cf. pied, line 79.
[ [259] 260. Needle's eye. Cf. Matthew xix. 24; Mark x. 25; Luke xviii. 25.
Hervé Riel [(Page 168)]
[ [260]1. Hogue. Cape La Hogue, on the east side of the same peninsula as Cape La Hague, was the scene, in 1692, of the defeat of the French by the united English and Dutch fleets.
[ [261] 5. Saint Malo on the Rance; a town on a small island near the shore of France. The entrance to its fine harbor is very narrow and filled with rocks. At high tide there is forty-five to fifty feet of water, but at low tide this channel is dry.
[ [262] 30. Plymouth Sound. Plymouth is on the southwestern coast of England.
[ [263] 43. Pressed; forced into military or naval service.
[ [264] 43. Tourville; the famous French admiral, who commanded at La Hogue.
[ [265] 44. Croisickese; La Croisic, a small fishing village near the mouth of the Loire, which Browning often visited.
[DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI]
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born in London, of Italian parentage, in 1828. He was educated at King's College School, but became very early a student of painting, in which art he attained considerable prominence. He was a member of the famous pre-Raphaelite group of artists and authors, and was largely responsible for the movement started by them. In 1861 he published The Early Italian Poets, a volume of translations; in 1870, Poems; and in 1881, Ballads and Sonnets. His last days were unhappy, his death in 1882 being hastened by overindulgence in narcotics.
Rossetti's painting had a marked effect upon his poetry, chiefly in giving him the faculty of vivid and ornate description. Though essentially a lyric poet, he revived old English ballad forms with much success, and his narrative poems are vigorous and spirited. A good short life of Rossetti is that by Joseph Knight in the Great Writers Series.
The White Ship [(Page 175)]
First published in 1881 in the volume called Ballads and Sonnets.
Henry the First, the third son of William the Conqueror had, on the death of his brother William the Second (William Rufus) in 1100, seized the crown of England by force from his other elder brother, Robert, Duke of Normandy. In 1106, after overthrowing Robert at Tenchebray, he became also Duke of Normandy, thus uniting under himself the two nations. This bond of union he further strengthened by marrying Mathilda, an English princess. His reign, which lasted until 1135, marked a revival in English national feeling, and a long step was taken toward the assimilation of the victorious Normans by the people whom they had conquered.
Henry and Mathilda had only one son, William, who was born in 1103. The following account of his death is given by William of Malmesbury (edited by J. C. Giles): "Giving orders for returning to England, the king set sail from Barfleur just before twilight on the seventh before the kalends of December; and the breeze which filled his sails conducted him safely to his kingdom and extensive fortunes. But the young prince, who was now somewhat more than seventeen years of age, and, by his father's indulgence, possessed everything but the name of king, commanded another vessel to be prepared for himself; almost all the young nobility flocking around him, from similarity of youthful pursuits. The sailors, too, immoderately filled with wine, with that seaman's hilarity which their cups excited, exclaimed, that those who were now ahead must soon be left astern; for the ship was of the best construction and recently fitted with new materials. When, therefore, it was now dark night, these imprudent youths, overwhelmed with liquor, launched the vessel from the shore.... The carelessness of the intoxicated crew drove her on a rock which rose above the waves not far from shore.... The oars, dashing, horribly crashed against the rock, and her battered prow hung immovably fixed. Now, too, the water washed some of the crew overboard, and, entering the chinks, drowned others; when the boat having been launched, the young prince was received into it, and might certainly have been saved by reaching the shore, had not his illegitimate sister, the Countess of Perche, now struggling with death in the larger vessel, implored her brother's assistance. Touched with pity, he ordered the boat to return to the ship, that he might rescue his sister; and thus the unhappy youth met his death through excess of affection; for the skiff, overcharged by the multitudes who leaped into her, sank, and buried all indiscriminately in the deep. One rustic alone escaped; who, floating all night upon the mast, related in the morning the dismal catastrophe of the tragedy."
[ [266] Henry never recovered from the shock of this disaster; and although he married again, he left at his death no direct male heir to the throne.
[ [267] 2. Rouen; a city in northwest France on the river Seine.
[ [268] 14. Clerkly Henry. In his youth Henry had been a student and scholar—hence his early nickname "Henry Beauclerc."
[ [269] 15. Ruthless; pitiless.
[ [270] 17. Eyes were gone. According to a legend, which, however, has no historical foundation, Henry had put out the eyes of his brother Robert.
[ [271] 26. Fealty. Under the feudal system each vassal or dependant was required to take an oath of allegiance to his overlord.
[ [272] 35. Liege; having the right to allegiance.
[ [273] 36. Father's foot. William the Conqueror, Henry's father, defeated Harold, the English king, at Hastings in 1066 and thus became master of England.
[ [274] 39. Rood; the fourth part of an acre.
[ [275] 45. Harfleur's harbor. Harfleur is a seaport town on the north bank of the outlet of the river Seine in northwest France.
[ [276] 59. Hind; servant.
[ [277] 98. Moil; wet.
[ [278] 138. Maugre; notwithstanding.
[ [279] 163. Honfleur; a town on the south bank of the outlet of the river Seine, opposite Harfleur.
[ [280] 166. Body of Christ; the procession of the Holy Communion.
[ [281] 178. Hight; called.
[ [282] 198. Foredone; gone.
[ [283] 211. Shrift; the confession made to a priest.
[ [284] 214. Winchester; a cathedral city in southern England, the ancient capital of the country.
[ [285] 233. Pleasaunce; pleasure.
[ [286] 236. Pardie; certainly or surely. It was originally an oath from the French par Dieu.
[ [287] 260. Dais; the platform on which was the king's throne.
[ [288] 268. Rede; story.
[WILLIAM MORRIS]
William Morris was born in 1834 in Walthamstead, Essex, England, and died in London in 1896. He went to Exeter College, Oxford, in 1853, where he formed a close friendship with Edward Burne-Jones, the future artist. A little later he came under the influence of Rossetti, who induced him to attempt painting, an art which he followed with no great success. In 1858 he published The Defence of Guinevere, and Other Poems. This volume was followed by The Life and Death of Jason (1867), The Earthly Paradise (finished 1872), and Sigurd the Volsung (1876). In 1863 he became a manufacturer of wall paper and artistic furniture, branching out afterwards into weaving, dyeing, and other crafts. After 1885 he was a confirmed Socialist, speaking frequently at laborers' meetings and pouring forth a steady stream of leaflets and pamphlets in support of his radical beliefs. His death was probably due to overwork.
Morris was by instinct a lover of the beautiful and harmonious. A fluent versifier, he delighted especially in the composition of narrative poetry, which he adorned with ornate description and superb decoration. This very richness sometimes cloys the taste and tends to arouse a feeling of monotony. His longest work, The Earthly Paradise, is modelled somewhat on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and contains twenty-four stories, twelve mediæval and twelve classic in origin.
A satisfactory short life is that by Alfred Noyes in the English Men of Letters Series.
Atalanta's Race [(Page 187)]
Published in 1868 as the first story in the collection called The Earthly Paradise. The episode was a favorite with Greek and Latin writers, and has been used occasionally in modern times. The metre in this version is the antiquated Rime Royal.
[ [289] 1. Arcadia was a province of the Grecian peninsula.
[ [290] 14. Cornel is a kind of wood of great hardness used for making bows.
[ [291] 28. King Schœnus; a Bœotian king, the son of Athamas. Most other versions of the story name Iasius as Atalanta's father.
[ [292] 62. Image of the sun; a statue of Phœbus Apollo, the sun-god.
[ [293] 63. The Fleet-foot One; Mercury (Hermes), the messenger of the gods.
[ [294] 79. Diana; the daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and the sister of Apollo. She was the goddess of the moon and of the hunt. She was also the protector of chastity. See Guerber, Myths of Greece and Rome, Chapter VI.
[ [295] 80. Lists; desires.
[ [296] 177. Saffron gown; the orange-yellow dress indicative of the bride.
[ [297] 184. The sea-born one; Aphrodite (Venus).[See page 266.]
[ [298] 206. The Dryads were wood-nymphs who were supposed to watch over vegetation.
[ [299] 208. Adonis' bane; the wild boar. Adonis was a beautiful youth who was passionately loved by Venus, though he did not return her affection. He was mortally wounded at a hunt by a wild boar, and died in the arms of the goddess.
[ [300] 211. Argive; Grecian.
[ [301] 224. Must; the juice of the grape before fermentation.
[ [302] 353. Argos; a city in Argolis, a province in the northeast part of the Peloponnesian peninsula in Greece.
[ [303] 373. Queen Venus. It was to Venus, the goddess of love, that unhappy lovers were accustomed to turn for aid.
[ [304] 391. Holpen; the old past participle of the word help.
[ [305] 516. Damascus; the chief city of Syria.
[ [306] 535. Saturn (Cronus or Time) was the father of Jupiter. Under his rule came the so-called Golden Age of the world.
[ [307] 671. Phœnician. The Phœnicians lived on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and were famous for their commerce and trade.
[HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW]
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, on February 27, 1807. He entered Bowdoin College at the early age of fifteen, graduating there in 1825. He then spent about three years abroad preparing himself for a position, as Professor of Modern Languages at Bowdoin, which he took on his return. There he remained six years, leaving in 1834 to become a professor in Harvard College. His first book of poems, Voices of the Night, appeared in 1839, and two years later he published Ballads and other Poems. Both volumes were received cordially and had a wide circulation. Other important later works were Evangeline (1847), Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (finished 1873). In 1854 he left off teaching and settled down to a quiet literary life. During a trip to Europe in 1868 he was given honorary degrees by both Oxford and Cambridge. He died in Boston in 1882. It is a testimonial to his popularity in England that his bust was placed in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, the only memorial to an American author there.
Longfellow was a scholarly and cultured poet, influenced much by foreign literatures and proficient in translation. His verse is rarely impassioned, but is usually simple, smooth, and polished. America has had no finer narrative poet; and it is unquestionable that this form of poetry was well adapted to his genius, which was fluent, but not often strongly emotional.
The Wreck of the Hesperus [(Page 211)]
Longfellow's diary for the date December 17, 1839, contains the following entry: "News of shipwrecks horrible on the coast. Twenty bodies washed ashore near Gloucester, one lashed to a piece of wreck. There is a reef called Norman's Woe, where many of these took place; among others the schooner Hesperus—I must write a ballad upon this." Two weeks later he wrote: "I sat last evening till twelve o'clock by my fire, smoking, when suddenly it came into my mind to write the 'Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus,' which I accordingly did. Then I went to bed, but I could not sleep. New thoughts were running in my mind, and I got up to add them to the ballad. It was three by the clock. I then went to bed and fell asleep. I feel pleased with the ballad. It hardly cost me an effort. It did not come into my mind by lines, but by stanzas."
Published first in 1841 in Ballads and Other Poems.
Paul Revere's Ride [(Page 214)]
Published in 1863 as The Landlord's Tale in the first series of Tales of a Wayside Inn.
General Gage, commander of the British forces in Boston and vicinity, despatched, on the night of April 18, 1775, a body of troops to seize stores said to be concealed at Concord. According to the story, Paul Revere spread the warning throughout the surrounding country, and when the British arrived at Lexington they found a small body of militia lined up to oppose them. A skirmish ensued in which the first blood of the war was spilled, several being killed and others wounded.
[ [308] 2. Paul Revere (1735-1818) was a goldsmith and engraver who became one of the most active of the colonial patriots.
[ [309] 9. North Church. There is some dispute as to what church is referred to here. A tablet on the front of Christ Church, Salem Street, Boston, points that out as the church from which the lanterns were hung. Other good authorities, however, support the claims of the North Church, formerly standing in North Square, but now torn down.
[ [310] 88. Medford is on the Mystic River about five miles northwest of Boston.
[ [311] 102. Concord is about nineteen miles northwest of Boston.
[JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER]
John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807, and died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892. Whittier's ancestors for several generations had been New England farmers on the same farm where the original Whittier immigrant had settled. The family was too poor to give Whittier an education, so that two terms at Haverhill Academy, the tuition for which he paid by shoemaking and school teaching, completed his school training. He early became interested in journalism, and was employed in editorial work in Boston and in Hartford. When abolition became an agitation, Whittier became one of the leaders. He was instrumental in bringing the English Abolitionist, George Thompson, to America; and, while on a tour with him, was stoned and shot at by a mob in Concord, New Hampshire. Later, when he was editor of the Philadelphia Freeman, his office was burned by a mob. During this period he wrote many anti-slavery poems, such as the Ballads, Anti-Slavery Poems, etc., of 1838 and the Voices of Freedom of 1841. In spite of his interest in politics, for he was twice elected to the Massachusetts legislature, Whittier led a very simple life in accordance with his Quaker beliefs. He never married, partly, it seems, because he had the care of his mother and sister Elizabeth, until the latter's death in 1864. The latter part of his life he lived at Amesbury and Danvers, Massachusetts.
Whittier's poetry is of three kinds. He is at times more thoroughly than any other writer the poet of New England country life; again he is essentially an anti-slavery poet; and, finally, he has written many religious poems. His best-known poem is Snow-Bound, which gives an admirable picture of a farmer's life in the hard storms of a New England winter.
Skipper Ireson's Ride [(Page 219)]
[ [312] 3. Apuleius's Golden Ass. Apuleius was a Roman satirist who lived in the first half of the second century. His most celebrated work was Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass, a satirical romance to ridicule Christianity.
[ [313] 4. Calender's horse of brass. See the story in the Arabian Nights.
[ [314] 6. Islam's prophet on Al-Borák. Mohammed was believed to make his journeys between heaven and earth upon a creature, which some say was a camel, named Al-Borák. (The word signifies lightning.)
[ [315] 26. Bacchus; the god of wine and revelry. A Bacchanalian revel was a common subject for decorations.
[ [316] 30. Mænads; women who attended Bacchus, the god of wine, waving, as they danced and sang, the thyrsus, a wand entwined with ivy and surmounted by a pine cone.
[ [317] 35. Chaleur Bay; an inlet of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, between Gaspé and New Brunswick. It is a great resort for mackerel fishing.
Barclay of Ury [(Page 222)]
"Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of the Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. 'I find more satisfaction,' said Barclay, 'as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor.'"
—Whittier.
[ [318] 1. Aberdeen; a city in northeastern Scotland.
[ [319] 2. Kirk; the Scotch word for church.
[ [320] 3. Laird; lord.
[ [321] 10. Carlin; Scotch word for old woman.
[ [322] 35. Lützen; a town in Saxony, province of Prussia.
[ [323] 56. Tilly. "The barbarities of Count de Tilly after the siege of Magdeburg made such an impression upon our forefathers that the phrase 'like old Tilly' is still heard sometimes in New England of any piece of special ferocity."
—Whittier.
[ [324] 57. Walloon; from certain provinces of Belgium.
[ [325] 81. Snooded. The snood was a band which a Scottish maiden wore in her hair as a sign of her maidenhood.
[ [326] 99. Tolbooth; a name commonly applied to a Scottish prison.
[ [327] 117. Fallow; ploughed but unsown land.
Barbara Frietchie [(Page 226)]
"This poem was written in strict conformity to the account of the incident as I had it from respectable and trustworthy sources. It has since been the subject of a good deal of conflicting testimony, and the story was probably incorrect in some of its details. It is admitted by all that Barbara Frietchie was no myth, but a worthy and highly esteemed gentlewoman, intensely loyal and a hater of the Slavery Rebellion, holding her Union flag sacred and keeping it with her Bible; that when the Confederates halted before her house, and entered her dooryard, she denounced them in vigorous language, shook her cane in their faces, and drove them out; and when General Burnside's troops followed close upon Jackson's, she waved her flag and cheered them. It is stated that May Quantrell, a brave and loyal lady in another part of the city, did wave her flag in sight of the Confederates. It is possible that there has been a blending of the two incidents."
—Whittier.
[OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES]
Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1809. He studied at Phillips Academy, Andover, and later at Harvard College, where he graduated in the famous class of 1829. He tried law for a year, but gave this up for medicine. In 1833 he went abroad, returning in 1835 for a medical degree at Harvard. He at once began the active practice of his profession, but accepted a professorship at Dartmouth in 1838. He remained there only a short time, coming back again to Boston, where he married and resumed his work as a physician. In 1847 he became Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Harvard, and held this position until 1882. In 1857, through the influence of James Russell Lowell, he began to contribute regularly to the Atlantic Monthly. After 1882 he devoted himself almost exclusively to writing and lecturing. He died in 1894 in Boston.
While Holmes is best known as the author of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table and other prose works, he published numerous poems, most of them humorous in tone. Many of them were written for specific occasions, and as such are distinguished for their wit and cleverness rather than for strong emotion or profound thought.
Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle [(Page 230)]
First published in 1875 at the time of the centennial of the battle of Bunker Hill.
The so-called battle of Bunker Hill was the first important engagement of the Revolutionary War. On June 17, 1775, five thousand British soldiers under Howe, Clinton, and Pigott attacked a smaller number of Americans then stationed on Breed's Hill near Boston, under Colonel William Prescott. They were twice beaten back, but captured the hill on their third charge. The British loss was about twelve hundred men, while the Americans lost only four hundred, among them, however, being the patriot, Dr. Joseph Warren.
[ [328] 2. Times that tried men's souls; a quotation from the first of a series of tracts called The Crisis by Thomas Paine, 1776.
[ [329] 3. Whig and Tory. In the Colonies the Whigs werethe Revolutionists, while the Tories were the supporters of the King. The Whigs were also called Rebels.
[ [330] 5. April running battle; the fight at Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, when the British forces were led by Lord Percy.
[ [331] 16. Mohawks; one of the tribes of the Six Nations notorious for their cruelty in the French and Indian War.
[ [332] 42. Banyan; a colored morning-gown.
[ [333] 67. Dan'l Malcolm; an allusion to an inscription on a gravestone in Copp's Hill Burial Ground, Boston. The inscription is as follows:—
"Here lies buried in a
Stone Grave 10 feet deep
Capt. Daniel Malcolm Mercht
Who departed this Life
October 23, 1769,
Aged 44 years,
A true son of Liberty,
A Friend to the Publick,
An Enemy to oppression,
And one of the foremost
In opposing the Revenue Acts
On America."
[ [334] 147. J. S. Copley (1737-1815) was a distinguished American portrait-painter.
Macmillan's
Pocket Series of English Classics
Cloth Uniform In Size and Binding 25 cents each
| Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. | Edited by Zelma Gray, East Side High School, Saginaw, Mich. |
| Andersen's Fairy Tales. | Translated from the Danish byCaroline Peachey and Dr. H. W. Dulcken. With biographical notes and introduction by Sarah C. Brooks, Training School, Baltimore, Md. |
| Arabian Nights. | Edited by Clifton Johnson. |
| Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and other Poems. | Edited by Justus Collins Castleman, Bloomington High School, Bloomington, Ind. |
| Bacon's Essays. | Edited by Professor George Herbert Clarke, Mercer University, Macon, Ga. |
| Blackmore's Lorna Doone. | Edited by Albert L. Barbour, Superintendent of Schools, Natick, Mass. |
| Browning's Shorter Poems. | Edited by Franklin T. Baker, Teachers College, New York City. |
| Mrs. Browning's Poems(Selections from). | Edited by Heloise E. Hershey. |
| Bryant's Thanatopsis, Sella, and other Poems. | Edited by J. H. Castleman, Michigan Military Academy, Orchard Lake, Mich. |
| Bulwer-Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii. | Edited by J. H. Castleman. |
| Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. | Edited by Professor Hugh Moffatt, Central High School, Philadelphia, Pa. |
| Burke's Speech on Conciliation. | Edited by S. C. Newsom, Manual Training High School, Indianapolis, Ind. |
| Burns' Poems and Songs. | Selected by P. M. Buck, Jr. |
| Byron's Shorter Poems. | Edited by Ralph Hartt Bowles, Instructor in English in The Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H. |
| Carlyle's Essay on Burns, with Selections. | Edited by Willard C. Gore, Armour Institute, Chicago, Ill. |
| Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship. | Edited by Mrs. Annie Russell Marble. |
| Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. | Edited by Charles A. McMurry. |
| Chaucer's Prologue to the
Book of the Tales of Canterbury, the Knight's Tale, and the Nun's Priest's Tale. | Edited by Andrew Ingraham. |
| Church's The Story of the Iliad. | |
| Church's The Story of the Odyssey. | |
| Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. | Edited by T. F. Huntington, Leland Stanford Junior University. |
| Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. | Edited by W. K. Wickes, Principal of the High School, Syracuse, N.Y. |
| Cooper's The Deerslayer. | |
| Cooper's The Spy. | Edited by Samuel Thurber, Jr. |
| Dana's Two Years before the Mast. | Edited by Homer E. Keyes, Dartmouth College. |
| Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. | Edited by Clifton Johnson. |
| De Quincey's Confessions of an
English Opium-Eater. | Edited by Arthur Beatty, University of Wisconsin. |
| De Quincey's Joan of Arc and
The English Mail-Coach. | Edited by Carol M. Newman, Virginia Polytechnic Institute. |
| Dickens's A Christmas Carol and
The Cricket on the Hearth. | Edited by James M. Sawin, with the collaboration of Ida M. Thomas. |
| Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. | Edited by H. G. Buehler, Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Conn., and L. Mason. |
| Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. | Edited by Percival Chubb, Vice-Principal Ethical Culture Schools, New York City. |
| Early American Orations, 1760-1824. | Edited by Louie R. Heller, Instructor in English in the De Witt Clinton High School, New York City. |
| Edwards's (Jonathan) Sermons (Selections). | Edited by H. N. Gardiner, Professor of Philosophy, Smith College. |
| Emerson's Earlier Poems. | Edited by O. C. Gallagher. |
| Emerson's Essays (Selected). | Edited by Eugene D. Holmes. |
| Emerson's Representative Men. | Edited by Philo Melvyn Buck, Jr., William McKinley High School, St. Louis, Mo. |
| Epoch-making Papers in United States History. | Edited by M. S. Brown, New York University. |
| Franklin's Autobiography. | |
| Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford. | Edited by Professor Martin W. Sampson, Indiana University. |
| George Eliot's Silas Marner. | Edited by E. L. Gulick, Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, N.J. |
| Goldsmith's The Deserted Village and The Traveller. | Edited by Robert N. Whiteford, High School, Peoria, Ill. |
| Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. | Edited by H. W. Boynton, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. |
| Gray's Elegy. | Edited by J. H. Castleman. |
| Grimm's Fairy Tales. | Edited by James H. Fassett, Superintendent of Schools, Nashua, N.H. |
| Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair. | Edited by H. H. Kingsley, Superintendent of Schools, Evanston, Ill. |
| Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. | Edited by Clyde Furst, Secretary of Teachers College, Columbia University. |
| Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse. | Edited by C. E. Burbank. |
| Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. | Edited by R. H. Beggs. |
| Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. | Edited by C. R. Gaston. |
| Hawthorne's The Wonder-Book. | Edited by L. E. Wolfe, Superintendant of Schools, San Antonio, Texas. |
| Homer's Iliad. | Translated by Lang, Leaf, and Myers. |
| Homer's Odyssey. | Translated by Butcher and Lang. |
| Hughes' Tom Brown's School Days. | Edited by Charles S. Thomas. |
| Irving's Alhambra. | Edited by Alfred M. Hitchcock, Public High School, Hartford, Conn. |
| Irving's Knickerbocker History of New York. | Edited by Prof. E. A. Greenlaw, Adelphi College, New York City. |
| Irving's Life of Goldsmith. | Edited by Gilbert Sykes Blakely, Teacher of English in the Morris High School, New York City. |
| Irving's Sketch Book. | |
| Keary's Heroes of Asgard. | Edited by Charles H. Morss. |
| Kingsley's The Heroes: Greek Fairy Tales. | Edited by Charles A. McMurry, Ph.D. |
| Lamb's Essays of Elia. | Edited by Helen J. Robins. |
| Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. | Edited by A. Ainger. |
| Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish. | Edited by Homer P. Lewis. |
| Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish, and Minor Poems. | Edited by W. D. Howe, Butler College, Indianapolis, Ind. |
| Longfellow's Evangeline. | Edited by Lewis B. Semple, Commercial High School, Brooklyn, N.Y. |
| Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. | Edited by J. H. Castleman. |
| Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha. | Edited by Elizabeth J. Fleming, Teachers' Training School, Baltimore, Md. |
| Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal. | Edited by Herbert E. Bates, Manual Training High School, Brooklyn, N.Y. |
| Macaulay's Essay on Addison. | Edited by C. W. French, Principal of Hyde Park High School, Chicago, Ill. |
| Macaulay's Essay on Clive. | Edited by J. W. Pearce, Assistant Professor of English in Tulane University. |
| Macaulay's Essay on Johnson. | Edited by William Schuyler, Assistant Principal of the St. Louis High School. |
| Macaulay's Essay on Milton. | Edited by C. W. French. |
| Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. | Edited by Mrs. M. J. Frick, Los Angeles, Cal. |
| Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, and other Poems. | Edited by Franklin T. Baker, Teachers College, Columbia University. |
| Malory's Morte d'Arthur (Selections). | Edited by D. W. Swiggett. |
| Memorable Passages from the Bible (Authorized Version). | Selected and edited by Fred Newton Scott, Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Michigan. |
| Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and II. | Edited by W. I. Crane. |
| Old English Ballads. | Edited by William D. Armes, of the University of California. |
| Out of the Northland. | Edited by Emilie Kip Baker. |
| Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics. | |
| Plutarch's Lives of Cæsar, Brutus, and Antony. | Edited by Martha Brier, Polytechnic High School, Oakland, Cal. |
| Poe's Poems. | Edited by Charles W. Kent, University of Virginia. |
| Poe's Prose Tales (Selections from). | |
| Pope's Homer's Iliad. | Edited by Albert Smyth, Head Professor of English Language and Literature, Central High School, Philadelphia, Pa. |
| Pope's The Rape of the Lock. | Edited by Elizabeth M. King. |
| Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies and
The King of the Golden River. | Edited by Herbert E. Bates. |
| Scott's Ivanhoe. | Edited by Alfred M. Hitchcock. |
| Scott's Kenilworth. | Edited by J. H. Castleman, Editor of Gray's Elegy, Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn, Bryant's Thanatopsis, etc. |
| Scott's Lady of the Lake. | Edited by Elizabeth A. Packard. |
| Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. | Edited by Ralph H. Bowles. |
| Scott's Marmion. | Edited by George B. Aiton, State Inspector of High Schools for Minnesota. |
| Scott's Quentin Durward. | Edited by Arthur Llewellyn Eno, Instructor in the University of Illinois. |
| Scott's The Talisman. | Edited by Frederick Treudley, State Normal College, Ohio University. |
| Shakespeare's As You Like It. | Edited by Charles Robert Gaston. |
| Shakespeare's Hamlet. | Edited by L. A. Sherman, Professor of English Literature in the University of Nebraska. |
| Shakespeare's Henry V. | Edited by Ralph Hartt Bowles, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H. |
| Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar. | Edited by George W. Hufford and Lois G. Hufford, High School, Indianapolis, Ind. |
| Shakespeare's Macbeth. | Edited by C. W. French. |
| Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. | Edited by Charlotte W. Underwood, Lewis Institute, Chicago, Ill. |
| Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. | Edited by E. C. Noyes. |
| Shakespeare's Richard II. | Edited by James Hugh Moffatt. |
| Shakespeare's The Tempest. | Edited by S. C. Newsom. |
| Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. | Edited by Edward P. Morton. |
| Shelley and Keats (Selections from). | Edited by S. C. Newsom. |
| Sheridan's The Rivals, and The School for Scandal. | Edited by W. D. Howe. |
| Southern Poets (Selections from). | Edited by W. L. Weber. |
| Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book I. | Edited by George Armstrong Wauchope, Professor of English in the South Carolina College. |
| Stevenson's Kidnapped. | Edited by John Thompson Brown. |
| Stevenson's Master of Ballantrae. | Edited by H. A. White. |
| Stevenson's Treasure Island. | Edited by H. A. Vance, Professor of English in the University of Nashville. |
| Swift's Gulliver's Travels. | Edited by Clifton Johnson. |
| Tennyson's Shorter Poems. | Edited by Charles Read Nutter. |
| Tennyson's The Princess. | Edited by Wilson Farrand. |
| Thackeray's Henry Esmond. | Edited by John Bell Henneman, University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn. |
| Washington's Farewell Address, and
Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration. | Edited by William T. Peck. |
| John Woolman's Journal. | |
| Wordsworth's Shorter Poems. | Edited by Edward Fulton. |