Bedivere beheld all those ladies go from him. Then Sir Bedivere cried, Ah, my lord Arthur, what shall become of me now ye go from me, and leave me here alone among mine enemies. Comfort thyself, said the king, and do as well as thou mayest, for in me is no trust for to trust in. For I will into the vale of Avilion, to heal me of my grievous wound. And if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul. But ever the queens and the ladies wept and shrieked, that it was pity to hear. And as soon as Sir Bedivere had lost the sight of the barge, he wept and wailed, and so took the forest, and so he went all that night, and in the morning he was ware betwixt two holts hoar of a chapel and an hermitage.'

354. Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves, etc. We hear all the changes on the vowel a every sound of it used to give the impression and then, in a moment, the verse runs into breadth, smoothness, and vastness; for Bedivere comes to the shore and sees the great water:

And on a sudden, lo! the level lake

And the long glories of the winter moon.

in which the vowel o in its changes is used as the vowel a has been used before' (Stopford Brooke).

379. And dropping bitter tears against a brow. The 1869 edition has his brow.'

435. Like some full-breasted swan. Compare "The Dying Swan.'

440. And on the mere the wailing died away. Here the original Morte d'Arthur' ends.

The next five lines are not in the 1869 edition, which goes on thus:

At length he groan'd, and turning slowly clomb
The last hard footstep of that iron crag.

445. Even to the highest he could climb. The 1869 edition has E'en,' for which the printer is probably responsible, as Tennyson never uses it.

To the Queen. This epilogue has not been altered since it first appeared in the Library Edition,' 1872-73.

3. That rememberable day. Referring to the public thanksgiving in February, 1872, on the recovery of the Prince of Wales from typhoid fever.

12. Thunderless lightnings striking under sea, etc. Congratulatory despatches by submarine telegraph.

14. That true North, etc. When Manitoba was added to the Dominion of Canada, complaint was made in England of the cost of maintaining the colonial possessions in North America. Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his History of Our Own Times,' says: For some years a feeling was spreading in England which began to find expression in repeated and very distinct suggestions that the Canadians had better begin to think of looking out for themselves. Many Englishmen complained of this country being expected to undertake the principal cost of the defences of Canada, and to guarantee her railway schemes, especially when the commer

35. For one to whom I made it, etc. Referring to the dedication of the 'Idylls' to the memory of Prince Albert.

6

38. Ideal manhood closed in real man. This line does not appear in any English or American edition up to the present time (1898); but the Memoir (vol. ii. p. 129) states that the poet, thinking that perhaps he had not made the real humanity of the King sufficiently clear in his epilogue,' inserted this line in 1891, as his last correction.' It is probably through mere oversight that it has not been inserted in the editions published since 1891.

41. Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's. Geoffrey of Monmouth and Malory, whose name was also written Malorye, Maleore, and Malleor.

55. With poisonous honey stolen from France. Compare Locksley Hall Sixty Years After,' 145: Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the troughs of Zolaism,' etc. Littledale quotes Goldwin Smith, Essays': As to French novels, Carlyle says of one of the most famous of the last century that after reading it you ought to wash seven times in Jordan; but after reading the French novels of the present day, in which lewdness is sprinkled with sentimental rosewater, and deodorized, but not disinfected, your washings had better be seventy times seven.'

Page 452. THE FIRST QUARREL.

The poem is an idyll of the hearth inspired with life: Nelly and Harry are lifelike in the very respect in which Annie and Philip in "Enoch Arden" are idealized. They speak the rough, genuine language of the fisherfolk' (Waugh).

Page 454. RIZPAH.

A reviewer in Macmillan's Magazine' for January, 1881, says of the poem: As the recital in lyric form of a weird tale of misery and madness, this poem is unmatched in Mr. Tennyson's work. An old woman, in her fierce and at the same time trembling dotage, tells a lady who has come to visit her how her boy had long ago been hung in chains, under the old laws of England, for robbing the mail; how he had done it not in wickedness but in recklessness, but how her plea to that effect had availed him nothing; how, when she had gone to visit him in prison, she had been forced from him by the jailer, with his cry of "mother, mother! " ringing in her ears; how the same cry rang afterwards in her brain while she lay bound and beaten in a madhouse; and how, when she was at last set free, she used to steal out on stormy

nights, and gather together his bones from beneath the gallows, until she had gathered them every one and buried them in consecrated ground beside the churchyard wall. It is as terrible a tale as could well be imagined, and is told with a plain and classic force, a freedom from shrillness or emphasis, which leaves the terror all the more piercing and unescapable.'

The Edinburgh Review' for October, 1881, refers to the poem as one in which Tennyson 'has broken on the world with a new strength and splendor,' and 'has achieved a new reputation.' The writer adds: Of this astonishing production it has been said that, were all the rest of the author's works destroyed, this alone would at once place him among the first of the world's poets. Such was the verdict pronounced by Mr. Swinburne. It has all his characteristic generosity, and not much of his characteristic exaggeration. A work of this order can never be done justice to by quotations; but we have used them with no further end than to indicate baldly the outline of the poet's subject. For his sublime treatment of it, for the tenderness and the terror of his pathos, we must refer the reader to the poem itself in its entirety. Nothing in "Maud," nothing in Guinevere," can approach in power to Rizpah." This fact can, we conceive, be accounted for by the special nature of the subject. Of all the affections of human nature that are least subject to change, either in the way of contraction or development, is the passion of mother for child. It asks least aid either from faith or reason. And something may be said of the three other poems that we have associated with "Rizpah [The First Quarrel, The Northern Cobbler," and "The Village Wife ']. These three deal all of them with the life of the common people, and touch our feelings and principles in their rudest and simplest form. They take us below the reach of either conscious faith or philosophy; and they elude, they do not meet, the problems of human destiny. Thus Mr. Tennyson's genius has escaped, in these cases, from the external circumstances that have been depressing it; and, once supplied with a fitting theme to handle, it has shown itself as strong, if not stronger than

ever.

For the suggestion of the title of 'Rizpah,' see 2 Samuel, xxi. 1-14.

Line 7. The creak of the chain. It was for merly the custom in England to hang the bodies of certain malefactors in chains after execution. The bodies of pirates were so hanged on the banks of the Thames.

54. They had moved in my side. For the use of side,' compare Comus, 1009:

And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

Page 456. THE NORTHERN COBBLER. The general lines of the Northern Cobbler's position are the same as of many reformed drinkers, but no one but himself could have set

the bottle up in the window, or declared that he would take it with him after death, like Norse warrior his sword, before the throne (Stopford Brooke).

Line 6. The line. The equator.

13. I could fettle and clump, etc. Repair and put new soles to old boots and shoes. Shakespeare uses 'fettle' once, in 'Romeo and Juliet,' iii. 5. 154:

But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next, To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church; where it means to prepare, make ready. 19. I slither'd. That is, slipped.

20.

Slaäpe down i' the squad. Suddenly down in the slush. Clawed and

22. Scrawm'd and scratted. scratched.

32.

Weär'd it o' liquor. Spent it for liquor. 53. All in a tew. All in a fluster. 78. Snaggy. Snappish, ill-tempered. 108. Feat. Trim; used by Shakespeare several times.

110. A codlin. A codling, or unripe apple. Compare Twelfth Night,' i. 5. 167: a codling when 't is almost an apple.'

Page 458. THE REVENGE.

Line 51. Having that within her womb, etc. 'Womb' is here used in its original sense of belly. Compare Wiclif's Bible, Luke, xv. 16: 'And he coveitide to fille his wombe of the coddis that the hoggis eaten,' etc.

118. And the little Revenge herself went down, etc. Markham, in a postscript to his poem, says: What became of the Reuenge after Sir Richards death, diuers report diuersly, but the most probable and sufficient proofe sayth, that within fewe dayes after the Knights death, there arose a great storme from the VVest and North-west, that all the Fleet was disperced, aswell the Indian Fleet, which were then come vnto them, as all the rest of the Armada, which attended their ariuall; of vvhich fourteene sayle, together with the Reuenge, and in her two hundred Spanyards, were cast away vppon the Ile of S. Michaels; so it pleased them to honour the buriall of that renowned Ship the Reuenge, not suffering her to perrish alone, for the great honour shee atchiued in her life time." Page 461. THE SISTERS.

Line 91. Lake Llanberis. In North Wales. Compare The Golden Year': —

And found him in Llanberis: then we crost
Between the lakes, etc.

The lakes are Llyn Padarn and Llyn Peris; but they are often called the Llanberis Lakes.'

111. Of our New Forest. An ancient royal hunting demesne, extending westward from Southampton Water. There are about 140 square miles in the district, little more than two thirds of which now belongs to the crown. 117. My Rosalind in this Arden. The allusion to As You Like It' is obvious.

Page 465. THE VILLAGE WIFE.

Line 19. Can tha tell ony harm on 'im, lasst All the English editions omit the comma before 'lass.'

64. The 'Ouse. That is, the poorhouse: a colloquial use of the word in England.

80. White wi' the maäy. That is, with the blossoms of the white hawthorn. See note on The Miller's Daughter,' line 130. All the English editions have Maäy' in the present passage.

88. Fur he ca'd 'is 'erse Billy-rough-un. For he called his horse Bellerophon. Similarly, the name of the warship Bellerophon is said to have been corrupted by the sailors into 'Billyruffian.'

99. Siver the mou'ds rattled down upo' poor owd Squire the wood. Howsoever (however) the mould (earth) rattled down on the poor old Squire's coffin.

107. Hes fur Miss Hannie the heldest hes now, etc. This is the reading of the English editions; but elsewhere in the poem we have Miss Annie' and 'es' (foras) except in the preceding line, where it is misprinted as.'

121. Hugger-mugger they lived. They lived in a slovenly way (Century Dict.). The word, whether as noun or adjective, often means in privacy or secrecy. Compare Hamlet, iv. 5. 84:and we have done but greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter him.

126. coach).

Roomlin' by. Rumbling by (in his

Page 468. IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. Line 10. Drench'd with the hellish oorali. A drug, also known as 'woorali' and 'curari' (or curara '), extracted from the Strychnos toxifera. It acts by paralyzing the nerves of motion without impairing the sensibility. It is used by the South American Indians for poisoning their arrows. The reference here is to the practice of vivisection for purposes of physiological investigation. Tennyson evidently sympathized with the criticisms, not wholly groundless, which have been urged against it, and which have led in England to the enactment of laws restricting and regulating it.

Page 470. DEDICATORY POEM TO THE PRINCESS ALICE.

Line 7. Thy soldier-brother's bridal orangebloom, etc. Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, was married at Windsor, on the 13th of March, 1879, to Louise-Marguerite, Princess of Prussia. Page 470. THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW. Line 20. The brute bullet. The senseless bullet; antithetical to the sentient 'brain.'

25. Mine? yes, a mine! Sir James Outram, describing the siege, says: 'I am aware of no parallel to our series of mines in modern war. Twenty-one shafts, aggregating two hundred feet in depth, and 3291 feet of gallery have been executed. The enemy advanced twenty mines against the palaces and outposts; of these they exploded three which caused us loss of life, and two which did no injury; seven have been blown in; and out of seven others the enemy have been driven and their galleries taken possession of by our miners.'

Page 472. SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE.

Line 5. Scribbled or carved upon the pitiless

stone. Like the carvings by prisoners of state still to be seen on the walls of the Beauchamp Tower in the Tower of London.

16. The proud Archbishop Arundel. Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, a zealous persecutor of the Lollards.

19. Bara. Bread (Welsh).

20. Vailing a sudden eyelid. The 'vailing' is the obsolete word meaning to lower or let fall. 21. Dim Saesneg. No English; that is, I do not speak English.

24. Not least art thou, thou little Bethlehem, etc. See Micah, v. 2.

26. Little Lutterworth. Lutterworth, the parish in Leicestershire of which Wielif was

rector.

77. Sir Roger Acton. A prominent Lollard. 78. Beverley. John of Beverley, who was martyred January 19, 1413-14.

79. Thy two witnesses. See Revelation, xi. 3. 84. Him, who should bear the sword, etc. Henry V. The poet seems here to identify the speaker with the Sir John Oldcastle who appears as one of Prince Henry's wild companions in the old play of The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth,' on which Shakespeare founded his 'Henry IV. and Henry V.;' and it is well known that Sir John Oldcastle' was originally the name of Falstaff in the Henry IV.' plays. The dramatist changed the name to avoid offending the Protestants and gratifying the Roman Catholics. See the epilogue to 2 Henry IV.': 'Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.' Fuller, in his Church History' (lib. iv.), says: 'Stage poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon companion, a jovial royster, and yet a coward to boot. . . . The best is, Sir John Falstaff hath relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted buffoon in his place.' 93.

Or Amurath of the East. A Turkish Sultan. Compare 2 Henry IV.' v. 2. 48: This is the English, not the Turkish court; Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, But Harry Harry.

159. Sylvester. Sylvester II., who became Pope A. D. 999.

Page 476. COLUMBUS.

When Columbus returned to San Domingo on his third expedition, the colony was in a deplorable condition. Things went from bad to worse, and the Spanish monarchs sent an officer of the royal household, Francis de Bobadilla, to make investigations, with authority to send back to Spain any cavaliers or other persons whom he thought proper. It is not probable that the intention was to include Columbus in the list of persons subject to arrest; but Bobadilla, soon after his arrival in the island, put the great admiral in chains, and sent him to Spain, where he arrived in November, 1499. Line 18.

Deum.

The greatLaudamus.' The Te

25. The Dragon's Mouth. The name (Becca

del Drago) which Columbus gave to a channel between the island of Trinidad and the mainland of South America.

26. The Mountain of the World. The 'Mountain of Adam,' or Mountain of the Gods,' the highest peak in Ceylon, on the summit of which the print of Buddha's foot is supposed to be visible.

46. King David call'd the heavens a hide, a tent. See Psalms, civ. 2.

48. Some cited old Lactantius. An eminent Christian author, who flourished early in the 4th century. The 1st edition of his works, one of the oldest of printed books, was brought out at Subiaco in 1465.

74. Guanahani. The native name of the first island discovered by Columbus.

107. The belting wall of Cambalu, etc. The royal residence of the Khan of Cathay. Compare Milton, Paradise Lost,' xi. 388: Cambalu, seat of Cathayan Can.'

109. Prester John was a mythical Christian king of India. Compare Much Ado About Nothing,' ii. 1. 274: I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John's foot.'

117. Howl'd me from Hispaniola. The name which Columbus gave to the island of Hayti.

125. Fonseca, my main enemy at their court. Juan Rodriguez Fonseca, a bigoted Spanish prelate, who called Columbus a visionary and treated him with persistent malignity.

126. Bovadilla. The Francisco de Bobadilla mentioned above.

144. Veragua. A province of New Granada in South America.

190. The Catalonian Minorite. Bernardo Buil (Boyle), a Benedictine monk, according to the best authorities (not a Minorite, or Franciscan), who was sent by the Pope to the new Indies in June, 1493, as apostolical vicar. He hated Columbus, but there seems to be no evidence that he excommunicated him.

206. Colón. The Spanish form of Columbus.'

Page 479. THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE.

Line 22. Fainter than any flitter mouse-shriek. The cry of the bat, which in England is popularly called flittermouse' (fluttering-mouse), 'flickermouse,' or 'flindermouse.' Compare Ben Jonson, Sad Shepherd,' ii. 8: 'And giddy flittermice, with leather wings,' etc.

26. They almost fell on each other. This idea, which occurs so often in the poem, is not to be found in the old legend.

48. The triumph of Finn. Finn, the son of Cumal, was the most renowned of all the heroes of ancient Ireland. He was commander of the Feni, or Feni of Erin,' a sort of standing army maintained by the monarch for the support of the throne. Each province had its own soldiers under a local captain, but all were under one commander-in-chief. Finn was equally brave and sagacious. His foresight was, indeed, so extraordinary that the people believed it to be a preternatural gift, and a legend was invented to account for it. He was killed at a place

called Athbrea, on the Boyne, A. D. 284. Ossian, or Oisin, the famous hero-poet, to whom the bards attribute many poems still extant, was the son of Finn.

55. The Isle of Fruits. The poet may have got the hint of this island from the isle of intoxicating wine-fruits' in the Celtic tale; but the rich details of the picture are all his own.

77. That undersea isle. The description here is developed from the simple statement in the old legend that they could see, beneath the clear water, a beautiful country, with many mansions surrounded by groves and woods.' So far from being tempted to dive down to the place, the sight of an animal fierce and terrible' which infests it makes them tremble lest they may not be able to cross the sea over the monster, on account of the extreme thinness of the water; but after much difficulty and danger they get across it safely.'

105. The Isle of the Double Towers. If I had not read the old tale, I should have said that this quaint and wild conception must have been taken from it; but, though it seems so thoroughly like a Celtic fancy, there is nothing in the legend that could have suggested it.

115. Saint Brendan. One of the most famous of the ancient Celtic legends is that of The Voyage of Saint Brendan,' undertaken in the sixth century. He set out from Kerry, sailed westward into the Atlantic, and, as some believed, landed on the shore of America. The adventures he met with were as varied and surprising as those of Maeldune.

Page 484. PREFATORY SONNET TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.'

Line 3. Their old craft, seaworthy still. “The Contemporary Review."

7. This roaring moon of daffodil. Compare "The Winter's Tale,' iv. 4. 118:

Up that long walk of limes I past

To see the rooms in which he dwelt.

11. Our kindlier, trustier Jaques. The allu sion to As You Like It' needs no explanation. Page 484. MONTENEGRO.

Line 12. Great Tsernogora! Or Tzernagora, the native name of Montenegro.

Page 488. TO E. FITZGERALD.

Line 15. Your table of Pythagoras. For the allusion to the vegetarianism of the old philosopher, based on the doctrine of metempsychosis, compare Twelfth Night,' iv. 2. 54:

Clown. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?

Malrolio. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.

Clown. What thinkest thou of his opinion? Malvolio. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.

Clown. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness. Thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits, and fear to kill a woodcock lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam.

For the poet's account of the vegetarian dream, see the Memoir,' vol. ii. p. 317. The visit to Fitzgerald was made in 1876.

16. A thing enskied. See Measure for Measure,' i. 4. 34: 'I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted.'

Line 9. My son. Used in a familiar figurative way. Menaceus, whom he addresses below, was the son of Creon, and directly descended from Cadmus, who had offended Ares (Mars) by killing the dragon guarding a spring sacred to the god.

25. Subjected to the Heliconian ridge. 'Subjected' is used in its etymological sense of lying below.

38. There in a secret olive-glade I saw, etc. The description of the goddess is nowise inferior to that of the same goddess and her companion deities in Enone."

96. The song-built towers and gates. The walls of Thebes rose to the music of Amphion's harp, as those of Troy to Apollo's. Compare 'Enone.'

147. A wiser than herself. Edipus.

164. Their ocean-islets. The Isles of the Blest.

192. Find the gate Is bolted, and the master gone. For the figure, compare The Deserted House.'

Line 21. In the drear nightfold of your fatalist. The 1881 reading was dark nightfold.' Tho' glory and shame dying out for ever, etc. The 1881 reading was: Tho' name and fame dying out,' etc.

75.

Page 504. TO-MORROW.

Line 31. The white o' the may. All the English editions have May; but I have no doubt that the reference is to the blossoms of the white hawthorn, as in 'The Village Wife,' line 80. See note on that passage.

48. The Sassenach whate, The Saxon (English) wheat.

Page 508. PROLOGUE TO GENERAL HAMLEY. Line 5. You came, and look'd, and loved the view, etc. The view from the poet's summer residence at Aldworth.

28. Tel-el-Kebir. A village in Lower Egypt, about fifty miles northeast of Cairo. Here, on the 13th of September, 1882, the English under General Wolseley defeated the Egyptian insurgents under Arabi Pasha, whose surrender soon followed.

Page 509. THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE AT BALACLAVA.

Line 5. When the points of the Russian lances arose on the sky. Originally, 'broke in on the sky.'

14-21. Thousands of horsemen had gather'd there on the height, etc. For these eight lines the first version had:

Down the hill slowly thousands of Russians

Drew to the valley, and halted at last on the height, With a wing push'd out to the left, and a wing to the

right

Page 510. EPILOGUE.

Irene. The name, which is the Greek word for peace,' is in keeping with the character.

Line 14. Or Trade re-frain the Powers, etc. The hyphen is apparently intended to call attention to the derivation of re-frain' from the late Latin refrenare, to bridle or hold in with a bit (frenum).

17. Kelt. Elsewhere the poet uses the form 'Celt.' Compare In Memoriam,' cix.: The blind hysterics of the Celt;' A Welcome to Alexandra': Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be,' etc.

45. I will strike,' said he, etc. See his Ode (i. 1. 35, 36):

Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseres,
Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

52. Yon myriad-worlded way. The Galaxy. 59. The falling drop will make his name As mortal as my own. That is, by finally obliterating the record; apparently suggested by Ovid's 'Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo.' Page 511. TO VIRGIL.

The allusions to the 'Eneid,' the Georgics,' and certain Eclogues' need no explanation. Line 3. He that sang the Works and Days. Hesiod.

18. The Northern Island sunder'd once from all the human race. Compare the first Eclogue,' 67: Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.' Page 513. EARLY SPRING.

Line 19. The woods with living airs. Originally, by living airs.'

33. A gleam from yonder vale. Originally, 'Some gleam,' etc.

Page 514. Frater Ave Atque Vale. The Latin quotations in the poem are from Catullus, the Frater ave atque vale' being the end of his lament for the loss of his brother (101.10). Page 514. HELEN'S TOWER.

Line 4. Mother's love in letter'd gold. The