the gnarled oak ... the soft myrtle. “Faërie Qu.,” II, ii, 116-117.
calm contemplation. Thomson’s “Autumn,” 1275.
[P. 122.] More subtle web. “Faërie Queene,” II, xii, 77.
[P. 123.] from her fair head. “Rape of the Lock,” III, 154.
Now meet thy fate. Ibid., V, 87-96.
[P. 124.] Lutrin. The “Lutrin” was a mock-heroic poem (1674-1683) of the French poet and critic, Nicolas Boileau Despreaux (1636-1711), the literary dictator of the age of Louis XIV.
’Tis with our judgments. “Essay on Criticism,” I, 9.
Still green with bays. Ibid., I, 181.
[P. 125.] the writer’s despair. Cf. Ibid., II, 278:
“No longer now that Golden Age appears,
When Patriarch-wits survived a thousand years:
Now length of fame (our second life) is lost,
And bare threescore is all ev’n that can boast:
Our sons their fathers’ failing language see,
And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.”