[240] 253 Bonnivard, a Genevese, was imprisoned by the Duke of Savoy in Chillon on the lake of Geneva for his courageous defence of his country against the tyranny with which Piedmont threatened it during the first half of the Seventeenth century.—This noble Sonnet is worthy to stand near Milton's on the Vaudois massacre.
[241] 254 Switzerland was usurped by the French under Napoleon in 1800: Venice in 1797 (255).
[243] 259 This battle was fought Dec. 2, 1800, between the Austrians under Archduke John and the French under Moreau, in a forest near Munich. Hohen Linden means High Limetrees.
[247] 262 After the capture of Madrid by Napoleon, Sir J. Moore retreated before Soult and Ney to Corunna, and was killed whilst covering the embarkation of his troops.
[257] 272 The Mermaid was the club-house of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other choice spirits of that age.
[258] 273 Maisie: Mary.—Scott has given us nothing more complete and lovely than this little song, which unites simplicity and dramatic power to a wild-wood music of the rarest quality. No moral is drawn, far less any conscious analysis of feeling attempted:—the pathetic meaning is left to be suggested by the mere presentment of the situation. A narrow criticism has often named this, which maybe called the Homeric manner, superficial, from its apparent simple facility; but first-rate excellence in it is in truth one of the least common triumphs of Poetry.—This style should be compared with what is not less perfect in its way, the searching out of inner feeling, the expression of hidden meanings, the revelation of the heart of Nature and of the Soul within the Soul,—the analytical method, in short,—most completely represented by Wordsworth and by Shelley.
[263] 277 Wolfe resembled Keats, not only in his early death by consumption and the fluent freshness of his poetical style, but in beauty of character:—brave, tender, energetic, unselfish, modest. Is it fanciful to find some reflex of these qualities in the Burial and Mary? Out of the abundance of the heart ...
[264] 278 correi: covert on a hillside. Cumber: trouble.
[265] 250 This book has not a few poems of greater power and more perfect execution than Agnes and the extract which we have ventured to make from the deep-hearted author's Sad Thoughts (No. 224). But none are more emphatically marked by the note of exquisiteness.
[266] 281 st. 3 inch: island.