ale." 221. nut-brown draughts. As if we should say "pale draughts" for "draughts of pale 226. Etymologically parlour belongs to the same group with parliament, parlance, parley, and parole. The common stem is the Low Lat. parabolare,-Parlour originally denoted the speaking-room of a monastery, that is, the room where conversation was allowed, called also locutorium. The word seems now to be beginning to fall out of use, superseded by dining-room and breakfast-room. [What is meant by the parlour splendours, &c. ?] Of this department of village life Goldsmith could write from abundant experience. See the account of his early days given by Irving and by Forster. He had certainly often made one in such a company as he depicts at the Three Pigeons in She Stoops to Conquer. 107. 229. [What is the sense of debt here?] 232. the twelve good rules. See Crabbe's Parish Register, Part i. of the pictures possessed by "the industrious swain:" These rules were: state matters. 4. "There is King Charles and all his golden rules Who proved Misfortune's was the best of schools." 1. Urge no healths. 2. Profane no divine ordinances. 3. Touch no Reveal no secrets. 5. Pick no quarrels. 6. Make no companions. 7. Maintain no ill opinions. 8. Keep no bad company. 9. Encourage no vice. 10. Make no long meals. 11. Repeat no grievances. 12. Lay no wagers. Jonson wrote rules for the Devil Tavern (close by Temple Bar on the river side). the royal game at goose = perhaps, the game of the Fox and the Geese, but why called royal? 235. chimney here = fire-place. See note to L'Alleg. 111. 239. [What part of the sentence is obscure?] 241. Comp. Horace's "addit cornua pauperis" of the wine-jar (Od. III. xxi. 18). See Tam o' Shanter, 57. 243. The farmer's news. The farmer's necessary visits to the neighbouring market town would naturally make him the newsman. The barber's tale. The endless garrulity of barbers who, at least in the country, practised as surgeons also, is a perpetual matter of joke or disgust with the novelists of George II.'s time. So too in the Arabian Nights, &c. 244. woodman. Now a tree-feller, once sportsman, hunter; as in Merry W. of W., V. v.: "Am I a woodman, ha? speak I like Herne the hunter?" So Meas. for Meas. IV. iii. 170, Cymb. III. vi. 28., Comus, &c. the woodman's ballad = some praise of the greenwood, or perhaps some tale of Robin Hood, the hero of foresters. Perhaps it was not till after the middle of the last century that Ballad acquired what is now its general meaning, viz. a narrative piece. Johnson in his Dict. gives no special sense. Formerly it denoted a song of any kind, as in As you like it, II. vii. 148: "And then the lover Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow." Older writers call Solomon's Song the Ballet of Ballettes. Chaucer speaks of the birds singing ballads and layes (Dreame). 246. lean to hear. Comp. Wordsworth's exquisite lines of a far other listening: "And she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round," &c. 248. [Explain the mantling bliss.] 250. Comp. Jonson's "O leave a kiss but in the cup," &c. It was also a Greek custom; see Bekker's Charicles, Sc. ii. 254. gloss is probably from the same root as glass. This gloss is quite distinct from the gloss which means an explanatory note. 258. Comp. Par. Lost, V. 899, Hamlet, I. v. 77. 266. See Introduction. 268. an happy land. See note to "an hare," above, l. 93. 269. [Explain freighted.] 108. 276. [What part of the sentence is pour?] 277. Comp. Hor. Od. II. xv. 280. Comp. 1. 40. 281. But " sports are not always "solitary "in the Squire's park! See the Introduc tion to The Princess, &c. &c. 283. He seems to mean that the country does not keep back the amount of its own products that is needed for its own consumption, but exports and barters away what is necessary it should retain for what is altogether superfluous. 284. for, i. e to be exchanged for. 285. [Explain all here.] 286. [What is the force of the fall, as compared with its fall?] 288. [What is meant by secure to please?] 295. [What does he mean by bless here?] 296. [What part of the sentence is this line?] = 298. vistas orig., views, prospects, sights, from the Lat. video. 305. The enclosure of Commons, a measure by no means always dictated by mere greed, but sometimes in the highest degree prudential and considerate, has always been an extreme popular grievance. See Latimer's Last Sermon preached before King Edward VI., Ballads on the Condition of Eng. in Hen. VIII. reign, &c., Part I. ed. Furnivall, p. 54, &c., &c. Some 1600 or 1700 Inclosure Acts are said to have been passed before the beginning of the present century. Goldsmith ignores the fact that "half a tillage stinted the plains," where the old Commons lay extended. If the enclosure were made without proper compensation to the Commoners, then assuredly nothing can be more shameful. 109. 316. artist = here our artisan. Contrariously artisan was formerly used somewhat in the sense of our artist; as in the Guardian: "Best and happiest artisan Best of painters, if you can, With your many-colour'd art "What are the most judicious artisans but the mimicks of nature?" Wotton's Architect, apud Johnson's Dict.. See also Trench's Sel. Gloss. 336. she left her wheel. See Mrs Browning's A year's Spinning. Burns' Bessie is wiser; see his lines Bessy and her Spinnin Wheel. 344. Altama = the Altamaha or Alatamha in Georgia, U. S. Bancroft mentions a settlement made on it near Darien by certain Gaels; see Hist. United States, II. 1008, 12mo. ed. 1861. to. See note to Hymn Nat. 132. 345. He seems to forget that there are other parts of America besides the Tropical. For a description of the New World made in a very different spirit, see Kingsley's Westward Ho! 346. [What part of the sentence is terrors?] 352. [What does he mean by gathers death here?] 355. "This is a poetical licence; the American tiger, or jaguar, being unknown on the banks of the Alatamha." Mitford. 110. 357. tornado and the Eng. turn are ultimately from the same root. 358. landschape. The oldest English form is landscipe. The second syllable is cognate with shape, ship, scoop, skiff, the Greek σкάπтш, &c. 360. grassy vested green. Comp. "short-grass'd green," in Tempest, IV. i. 83. 367. thefts of harmless love. So Lat. furta, as Catull. LXVIII. 140, of Juno's wrath : "Noscens omnivoli plurima furta Jovis." And Georg. IV. 345, of Cyrene's attendant Nymphs down in the sea-depths: "Inter quas curam Clymene narrabat inanem Vulcani Martisque dolos et dulcia furta." 353. gloom'd. See l. 318. 368. seats Lat. sedes. See 1. 6. 378. Was the lover never able to go too? 386. [What does he mean by things like these?] 394. [Parse sapped their strength.] 111. 399. anchoring = lying at anchor, not in the act of anchoring. 402. He seems to distinguish between shore and strand, making strand mean the beach, the shore in the most limited sense of the word. Shore and shores are often used very loosely; as "He left his native shore" he left his native land, &c. There is no etymological reason for any such distinction. Shore is ultimately connected with shear, shears, shire, share. Strand is the Oldest Eng. strand a margin or border. 413. Comp. Wither's fine lines to his Muse from the Shepherd's Hunting: "And though for her sake I'm crost, Though my best hopes I have lost, 418. Torno's cliffs. The heights around Lake Tornea in the extreme N. of Sweden? Pambamarca. A mountain in South America, near Quito. 422. Comp. Progress of Poesy, 54-62. 426. Very blest. The common English rule is to use the adv. very with other advs. and with adjs., the adv. much with part. Blest here may be regarded rather as an adj. than a part. 429. [What does he mean by self-dependent power?] ROBERT BURNS. 1. 1759-1784. ROBERT BURNS was born some two miles to the south of Ayr, Jan. 25, 1759, (the year in which Handel died, Johnson's Rasselas was published, Goldsmith first began to make way against adverse fortune). His father, a small farmer, lived a somewhat hard struggling life; but he did not let his difficulties prevent his doing all he could for the education of his children. His own example and influence, both moral and intellectual, were of more advantage than much formal schooling. Even of formal instruction he gave them much himself. In 1766 he removed to Mount Oliphant Farm; 11 years afterwards to Lochlea, where he died in 1784. When that event happened, Robert and his brother Gilbert had for some years worked under him on the farm. The poet had already begun to feel and to reveal his talent. He had written the Death of poor Mailie; O Mary, at thy window be; and several other short pieces of no mean order. 2. 1784-1786. On the death of the father, the children-two sons and two daughtersstocked a farm on their own account; but "spem mentita seges," and it did not go well with them. It was early in this period that Robert first met Jean Armour. Scarcely less important perhaps in the history of his development was the state of polemics in his neighbourhood. The New Light or the Rationalists, as they were called, and the Auld Light or Evangelists, were struggling for the mastery. Thus, at this time, all Burns' nature was stirred within him. His wit and humour no less than his love-passionateness were all aroused, and found for themselves fervent and brilliant expression. He soon became locally famous, but his pecuniary fortunes grew worse and worse; and his amour brought him much distress and shame. He determined to leave the country. To raise money to pay his passage to Jamaica, he pubHis local fame lished a volume of the various poems he had written the last few years. spread at once into national. When now on the point of sailing, he received a letter from a Dr Blacklock of Edinburgh, which excited in him hopes of success at home; so he abandoned his voyage. Perhaps it might have been better for him if he had gone. 3. 1786-1789. At Edinburgh Burns found himself an object of curiosity and wonder rather than frankly recognised as a fellow, or a superior, in the world of letters. He was the gorilla of a season. Little did his condescending patrons dream how great, with all his ignorance of conventionalisms, he really was-how much of the "divine air" there was in him ; but no doubt they were civil and friendly according to their lights. His visit to Edinburgh was of no advantage to Burns; it rather tended to vulgarise him. His genius produced nothing worthy of it during his stay in the midst of that society. A bright time seemed dawning for him when in 1788 he took a lease of the farm of Ellisland on the banks of the Nith in Dumfriesshire. The following twelve months were certainly the happiest of his life. He married his Jean. Of a' the airts the wind can blaw; O were I on Parnassus' Hill; I hae a wife o' my ain-all songs written at this time-tell their own tale of content and bliss. Would that the sunshine could have lasted! This was 4. 1789-1796. In August 1789 Burns received an appointment in the Excise. surely an evil thing. It did not perhaps produce, but certainly it expedited his ruin. From this time all is decline and fall. He presently (in 1791) gave up the farm which was proving a failure, and resided in Dumfries; habits of hard drinking gradually prevailed over him that choicest treasure of all, self-respect, began to desert him. It was not without frequent remorses that he sank so low, not without intermissions of a higher and nobler life. Some of his best songs were composed during this period. The end could not be long in coming. In July 1796 he died, a splendid wreck. He never His nature Of the lyric poets, pure and simple, of British literature, Burns is certainly the chief. Few songs in the language, in whatever dialect, equal, very few indeed surpass, the best of his. In no writer has the passion of the moment, let it be what it would, love or wrath or anguish or despair, moulded itself into words more completely reflecting it-words of greater intensity or burning more fiercely. His love-songs are ablaze with passion; his humorous pieces are one inextinguishable laughter; his despondent shed around them a darkness that may be felt. In many respects it is obvious to couple him with Byron, different as they were in birth, and education, and associations. They were both in an eminent degree "bards of passion and mirth." If for wit the palm be given to Byron, as perhaps it should justly be, Burns is the greater master of passion. No song of Byron's can compare for fire and flame with Ae fond kiss and then we sever. In humour too the superiority lies with the Scotch poet. With all his quick radiant fancy there was in him a certain grand tenderness and indulgency of nature, which saved him always from savagery. confounded vile men with humanity, gross instances with the entire genus. was singularly free from morbidness. Rude and uninstructed and ill-regulated it was in some ways; but frank, generous, noble it was always, and these fine traits are omnipresent in his poetry. Light that could satisfy his spirit he never saw, or saw only in sparse glimpses; but indeed of whom can much more be said? Of some darkness at least that prevailed around him he was quickly conscious, and did what in him lay to dispel it. He spoke out plainly and vehemently, never, to do him mere justice, with profane and godless lips; for he was of a really reverent and worshipping soul, and wherever he recognised what was good and beautiful he bowed his face to the ground before it. It was quite consistent with, nay, dissociable from, this habit of obeisance, that wherever he beheld what was mean and foul he assaulted it, though it might stand in the high place itself. The intrinsic virtue of his nature is shown in that seeing around him so much that was truly ignoble and vicious, he was never corrupted into a mere cynic and satirist; but to the end, with whatever sad lapses of practice, held firm his faith in true manliness and honour. His was a life of much spiritual disorder and tumult. Often he beat his wings wildly against the bars of the world as he saw it; in calmer moments he sang out his pain, and whatever joy there might be, in` notes that must for ever awaken a responsive thrill in the bosom of mankind. Perhaps no poet ever more truly sang "because he must" than Burns. To the ordinary eye there was but little in his early surroundings to evoke a poetical spirit. To call him wholly uneducated is of course a mistake; his mental faculties had much care bestowed upon them; he was born in an intellectual country; and such gross unculture, if I may use such a word, as marks many a well-to-do farmer, and others than farmers, in England was happily not possible for him; but still it seemed as if everything was against his turning out a poet. Pope, the idol of the time, could not be inspiring to such a nature as that of Burns. Cowper began to write only two or three years before Burns himself. What in the shape of composition most moved his genius was the balladry of his native land, the old popular songs, which had long died out in England, but were still to be heard across the Border. How active their influence upon his mind, his works show everywhere. For a genius so rich and abundant, a slight outward inspiration sufficed. As to the themes of his poetry, he wanted no teaching; he found them all around him, in the ploughlands, in the cottages, in all creation as it lay around his own door. It is only as a lyric poet that Burns was great. He is said to have meditated writing a comedy, but nothing came of it. Indeed dramatic poetry, and epic also, would have demanded a higher culture than Burns could boast. Moreover, his genius does not seem to have lain in those directions. In this respect Burns may be regarded as the apotheosis of |