Pass with the respirations of the tide,
Perpetual, multitudinous!
referred to in pp. 332-33, a reminiscence perhaps of what he had often seen in the Bristol Channel.—ED.
[JX] See last note. The phrase "on the lofty side of some bare hill," occasions some difficulty; and, taken in connection with the previous clause, "air has lent her breezes," suggests the idea of a windmill, seen in its slow movement, far off on a bare hill-side. But I rather think it is the progress of the "sails of traffic" on the waters of an inland tidal channel that is still referred to; the masts and sails of the vessels being seen moving onwards, while the water itself is hidden, and the spectacle is therefore by the rustic eye, "with wonder kenned from far." I would be disposed to think that there was a misprint here, and that we should read "from the lofty side" instead of "on," did the latter reading not occur in the edition of 1814, as well as in 1836, and all the subsequent editions.—ED.
[JY] Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield.—ED.
[JZ] See the Fenwick note, p. [330].—ED.
[KA] The curfew-bell, introduced into England by William of Normandy, in 1068.—ED.
[KB] Compare Mrs. Browning's Cry of the Children, stanza vii.—ED.
[KC] The foundation of Thebes was ascribed to the mythical Manes. The ground on which it stood was large enough to contain a city equal in extent with ancient Rome, or modern Paris; ... an immense area was covered with Temples, and their avenues of Sphinxes. (Cf. Diodorus, i. 40, 50. Strabo, xvii. pp. 805, 815 fol., and Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography.) Tyre, in Phœnicia, was built partly on an island and partly on the mainland. The island city "must have arisen in the period between Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great."... "The western side of the island is now submerged, to the extent of more than a mile; and that this was once occupied by the city is shewn by the bases of columns which may still be discerned. Benjamin of Tudela mentions that, in the end of the twelfth century, towns, markets, streets, and halls might be observed at the bottom of the sea." (Smith's Dict. of Ancient Geography.) Palmyra, or Tadmor,—the city of palms,—was enlarged, if not built, by Solomon in the tenth century B.C. It is situated in a well-watered oasis, in the great Syrian desert. It was an independent city under the first Roman Emperors, and is called a colonia on the coins of Caracalla. In 273 A.D. it had dwindled into an insignificant town. The ruins are inferior to those of Baalbec, but have a grandeur of their own. They are chiefly of the Corinthian order; although the most magnificent of them—the Temple of the Sun—is Ionic.—ED.
[KD] I am indebted to the Rev. H. G. Woods, President of Trinity College, Oxford, for the following note on the tomb of Archimedes:—