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3. sovran see note to No. 62, 1. 60.

7. Spares but but the border, etc.: as the tallest mountain is known only at its foot, so the loftiest intellects are unknown to the world except in trifling points.

11. unguess'd at: few things in the history of literature are more remarkable than the indifference shown by his contemporaries to one whom subsequent ages have, not merely in the English-speaking world, regarded as the master-mind of all time. He made less money than a successful grocer might reasonably look for, and received less honour than would now be paid to a provincial alderman.

366

From Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852). 4. unopening down: if this means 'without the upper sash being pulled down,' it is hard to see why the poet should regard this as unfriendly on the part of the inmates. Windows are opened at the top for purposes of ventilation, and not to exchange greetings with passers-by.

7. lost and fading qualify 'tract' (1. 10). 84, 85. their silent pain Who:

those who.'

From the same.

367

the silent pain of

16. task'd: the ordinary meaning would be strained,' oppressed by the task imposed on it'; but I would rather suppose task'd morality to mean morality assumed as a task,'' adopted from a sense of duty.'

24. it is not mine: as Nature is essentially unmoral and works on purely mechanical lines, she has no part in the divine strivings of Man, who, like herself, sprang originally from the breast of God.'

From the same.

368

36. Rebekah: see Genesis xxiv. 15 sqq.; though in the Biblical narrative Rebekah did not sit by the well. 45. Moses: see Exodus iii. 1.

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369

From the Poems of 1853.

Philomela: see note to No. 34, 1. 23.

18. in the Thracian wild: the tragedy happened in Daulis, as the note just referred to says, and not in Thrace.

27. Cephissian vale: Cephissus was a river of Phocis.

From the same.

Requiescat :

370

may she rest'; I have not been able to discover whom this beautiful little poem was intended to commemorate.

12. laps:

wraps,'' folds.' Cf. No. 34, 1. 24.

From the same.

371

subtilty of his carriage:cleverness of his demeanour." Glanvil: Joseph Glanvill (1636–80), was a student at Exeter and Lincoln Colleges, Oxford, who ultimately became a prebendary of Worcester. The Vanity of Dogmatizing, or Confidence in Opinions was a plea for freedom of thought and the use of experiment; though in a subsequent work on Witchcraft Glanvill shows himself by no means free from the credulity of his time. 2. wattled cotes: sheds made of hurdles.'

4. rack: strain,' with shouting to him to come. 5. shoot another head: spring up again.'

9. Cross the omission of 'to' is rather ugly. 25. blue: altered in the 1890 edition to pink.'

28. bent grass: termed also merely bent,' a rushlike grass with a stiff stem. The word in its secondary sense of a field where such grass grows appears in No. 358, 1. 32.

42. erst this word is often used in Spenser and Milton with the meaning 'a little while since,' but in this sense it is obsolete; with the meaning' formerly,' which it has here, it is merely archaic.

57. the Hurst: hurst means either a hill, or a wood, or, combining the two ideas, a wooded hill. Hurst lies to the south-west of Oxford.

59. ingle-bench :

No. 270, 1. 16.

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Cumnor

seat nearest the fire'; see note to

69. Cumner hills: Cumnor [sic] is three miles west of Oxford; Bablock Hythe ferry over the Thames is about three miles farther on.

76. chops: suddenly shifts.'

79. Wychwood bowers: Wychwood Forest lies to the north of Witney; its edge is about fourteen miles from Oxford.

83. Fyfield: beyond Cumnor on the road to Faringdon, about eight miles from Oxford.

90. words she can report of thee: i.e. none of the maidens could say she had heard him speak.

91. Godstow Bridge: over the Thames, three miles above Oxford.

95. lasher: 'pool below the weir,' a term mainly confined to the Thames.

100. wert: see note to No. 241, 1. 2.

107. watching: altered to again to 'eyeing' in 1890.

haunting' in 1869, and

111. Bagley-wood: three miles from Oxford on the Abingdon road.

114. tagg'd: 'having bits of rags hanging on it.' 115. Thessaly: this does not appear to have been identified.

125. Hinksey: North and South Hinksey lie between Oxford and Cumnor, to the south of the main road. 147. teen suffering.'

:

149. the just-pausing Genius: according to classical paganism each person was allotted an attendant spirit at birth who determined his character, presided over his fortunes, and ultimately conducted him out of the world. In just-pausing the former part is for justly'; it was but fair that man should be allowed to show his own ineffectiveness before being taken hence.

153. wert: here subjunctive, 'wouldst be,' put for 'wouldst have been.'

172. our casual creeds: most people hold their creed because they happen to have been brought up in it; very few have found a creed for themselves.

182. one: I am indebted to a kindly correspondent in

Notes and Queries for the suggestion that Arnold meant
Tennyson, and was thinking of 'In Memoriam,' v—

'But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,

Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.'

190. anodynes:

drugs to alleviate pain.'

193. to bear: sc. to bear up.

208. Averse: 'turning away.'

as Dido did: see Aeneid vi. 469, 'Illa solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat. ... Tandem corripuit sese, atque inimica refugit,' 'Turning away she kept her eyes fixed on the ground. At last she gave a quick start and fled from him indignant.' Her false friend was Aeneas, who had been a good deal more than a friend, and a good deal less.

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225. Like us, etc.: sc. to become distracted like us. 234. Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers: i.e. the bows of the boat were thrusting aside the vegetation on the edge of the shore as the boat put out to sea. Matthew Arnold is not very happy in his compound epithet.

238. Chian wine: the island of Chios in the Aegean, five miles from the coast of Asia, was famous for its wine, which was often mentioned by Roman writers.

239. tunnies: a large fish, weighing sometimes as much as a thousand pounds, which resembles a gigantic mackerel. It abounds in the Mediterranean, and when dried and salted is largely consumed in the adjacent countries.

240. his ancient home: the Phoenicians from Tyre were the earliest navigators recorded by history. To forward their commerce they founded colonies on the west coasts of Spain and Africa, and it was from their colony of Carthage that Pytheas sailed in 320 B.c. to make the first recorded visit to Britain.

244. Midland: a literal translation of ranean.'

'Mediter

245. the Syrtes: two bays on the north coast of Africa.

247. unbent sails: 'untied his sails from the yards,' preparatory to lowering them.

249. Iberians: the Greek name for the Spaniards.

372

From New Poems (1867).

13. my father: Thomas Arnold, D.D. (1795-1842), became Head-master of Rugby in 1828, and in a short time entirely regenerated the school, earning also the love and respect of all who knew him. He was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford in 1841 and died suddenly in June of the following year. 20. not of gloom : changed in the 1890 edition to not dark.'

110. the grim and taciturn host: it is not easy to see whom Matthew Arnold means. It cannot be Death, for those who were 'lost in the storm' would equally have met with him; it is perhaps a personification at once of Old Age and Death.

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162. or sons: an echo of Galatians iv. 7, 'Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son'; and John xv. 15, For the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth.' 186. Labour : altered to Stagger in the 1890 edition.

190. Ye: sc. the servants of God, 1. 161.

373

WILLIAM JOHNSON CORY (1823-92) was an assistant master at Eton for twenty-seven years. His first book of poems, Ionica, was published anonymously in 1858, an enlarged edition appearing in 1891. The three poems here given are all included in the earlier edition.

Mimnermus: a Greek elegiac poet who flourished from about 634 to 600 B.C. Few of his compositions have come down to us, the rest having been burnt in anti-erotic zeal by the Byzantine monks. However, enough remains to show the kind of reply he would have made to any one who tried to draw him into the fold of the Church; so, though this little poem is not a translation of any of his extant songs, it may be taken as very well representing his point of view.

15. quires for the spelling see note to No. 62, 1. 115.

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