[These lines] are imitated from Thomson, Autumn, 167-174.
XXXI.
Becq de Fouquières observes that when André Chénier composed this short bucolic fragment the revolutionary storm was raging. Chénier, a suspect, threatened with arrest, was sick in body and mind, and had gone to the waters at Forges for a few days' rest.
[L. 8.] lent. Lent, in the sense of 'supple, flexible,' is a Latinism twice or thrice used by Chénier, and perhaps nowhere else to be found in French literature. The second instance occurs in his Art d'aimer, the third (doubtful) on p. 75, l. 17. 'Un cuir souple et lent thus forms a pleonasm which mars this piece otherwise so neat.
XXXII.
[L. 10.] The subject might tempt a sculptor.
XXXIII. MNAÏS.
A translation of the ninety-eighth epitaph of Leonidas of Tarentum, Anal. t. i, p. 246 (note of André Chénier). The abbreviation means: Analecta veterum poetarum, published by Brunck, in three vols.
[L. 4.] rendez, grant. E. render once had this sense. N.E.D., s.v. 7.
[L. 5.] Par Cérès. Only women swore by Ceres. Spanheim in Callimachus,p. 655 (note of André Chénier).