259: 10, lasagne, macaroni. 260:29, lentisks, mastic tree.

261:20, isles of the siren, those described in Odyssey, books xii. and riii., supposed to be the three islands near Crapolla.

262: 25, Feast of the Rosary, time of thanksgiving to Our Lady of the Rosary for victory of Catholic powers over Turkish fleet at battle of Lepanto.

263: 7, Calvano, mountain opposite Sorrento, though Browning was not sure that was the right name for it.

263. IN A GONDOLA. In 1838 Browning visited Venice and Asola for the first time, and some of his impressions were worked into this poem and Pippa Passes; but later visits to Venice led him to think he had imperfectly seen it at this time. He wrote of the origin of this poem: "The first stanza was written to illustrate Maclise's picture [The Serenade], for which he was anxious to get some line or two. I had not seen it, but from Forster's description gave it to him in his room, impromptu. When I did see it I thought the_serenade too jolly, somewhat, for the notion I got from Forster, and I took the subject in my own way." To another he wrote: "I chanced to call on Forster the other day, and he pressed me into committing verse on the instant, not the minute, in Maclise's behalf, who has wrought a divine Venetian work, it seems, for the British Institution. Forster described it well, but I could do nothing better than this wooden ware (all the 'properties,' as we say, were given, and the problem was how to catalogue them in rhyme and unreason). Singing, and stars and night, and Venice streets and joyous hearts are properties, do you please to see. And now tell me, is this below the average of catalogue original poetry ?"

264: 6, the Three, those opposed to the meeting of the lovers, being "Himself," who was perhaps the husband, and Paul and Gian, the woman's brothers.

266: 28, Lido's graves, Jewish tombs.

267: 6, Giudecca, canal in Venice. (34) lory, parrot.

268: 22, Schidone's eager Duke, imaginary painting by Bartolommeo Schidone, who worked in the manner of Correggio, 1560-1616. (24) Haste-thee-Luke, English of the Italian nickname, Luca-fa-presto, that of Luca Giordano, a famous painter of his time, 1632-1705. He worked very rapidly, painted a great number of pictures, and amassed wealth and fame. (26) Castelfranco, so named from place of birth of Giorgio Barbarelli, 1478-1511. (29) Tizian, Tiziano Vecellio, 1477-1516, usually known as Titian.

269. WARING. Alfred Domett, born at Camberwell Grove, Surrey, May 20, 1811; studied at Cambridge; went to London and devoted himself to literature; became a lawyer in 1841, but the next year went to New Zealand, became a magistrate; in 1848 became the Colonial Secretary for the southern part of North Island, then held other important offices; was a member of the legislature; and finally became Prime Minister in 1862. In 1871 he returned to London, where he lived until his death, November 12, 1877. He wrote various prose and poetical works, mostly about New Zealand. Born in the same neighborhood as Browning, they were intimate friends in youth.

ii. 13, If Waring meant to glide away. In his Living Authors of England, Thomas Powell describes the event which gave origin to the writing of Waring, the " young author" mentioned being himself: "We have a vivid recollection of the last time we saw him. It was at an evening party, a few days before he last sailed from England; his intimate friend, Mr. Browning, was also present. It happened that the latter was introduced that evening, for the first time, to a young author who had just then appeared in the literary world. This, consequently, prevented the two friends from conversation, and they parted from each other without the slightest idea, on Mr. Browning's part, that he was seeing his old friend Domett for the last time. Some days after, when he found that Domett had sailed, he expressed in strong terms, to the writer of this sketch, the selfreproach he felt at having preferred the conversation of a stranger to that of his old associate.'

iv. 13, Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous; a transposition of Virgil's description of Polyphemus, Eneid, iii. 657, Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen adentum; a horrid monster, misshapen, huge, from whom sight had been taken away.

vi. 1, Ichabod, 1 Samuel iv. 21. (10) Vishnu-land, India, Vishnu being the second person of the Hindu Trinity. Avatar, incarnation. (24) lambwhite maiden, Iphigenia, carried to Taurus by Diana, when Agamemnon, her father, was about to sacrifice her for the sake of favorable winds for his expedition to Troy. (28) Dian's fane; Diana was worshipped in the Taurica Chersonesus. (54) Caldare Polidore, celebrated painter, 1492-1543, painted friezes in the Vatican. (57) Purcell, English musical composer, 1658-1695. Rosy Bowers, one of Purcell's celebrated songs, written in his last sickness.

276. THE TWINS. A poetical rendering of a passage in the Table Talk of Martin Luther, which in William Hazlitt's translation is numbered three hundred and sixteen, and is among the sayings "Of Justification: " ""Give and it shall be given unto you; this is a fine maxim, and makes people poor and rich.. There is in Austria a monastery which, in former times, was very rich, and remained rich so long as it was charitable to the poor; but when it ceased to give, then it became indigent, and is so to this day. Not long since, a poor man went there and solicited alms, which was denied him: he demanded the cause why they refused to give for God's sake? The porter of the monastery answered: We are become poor;' whereupon the mendicant said: 'The cause of your poverty is this: Ye had formerly in this monastery two brethren, the one named Date (give), and the other Dabitur (it shall be given you). The former ye thrust out; and the other went away of himself.. Beloved, he that desires to have anything must also give; a liberal hand was never in want or empty.'

281. THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN. This poem was written for the son of William Macready to give him something to illustrate when he was ill. It was included in the third number of Bells and Pomegranates to fill out the sheet. The story is interpreted as a myth of the wind in Baring-Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, and in Fiske's Myths and Myth-Makers. Browning found it in Nathaniel Wanley's Wonders of the Little World; or, A General History of Man,

published in 1678; but he probably also used the version given in Richard Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, published in 1605, in which work the story is told as follows:

"There came into the Towne of Hamel in the Country of Brunswyicke [Hanover] an old kind of companion, who for the fantasticall Coate which he wore, being wrought with sundry colours, was called the pide piper: for a piper he was, besides his other qualities. This fellow forsooth offered the towns-men for a certaine somme of money to rid the Towne of all the Rats that were in it (for at that tyme the Burgers were with that vermine greatly annoyed). The accord in fine being made the pide Piper with a shril Pipe went Piping thorow the streets, and forthwith the Rats came all running out of the Houses in great numbers after him; all which hee led into the River of Weaser, and therein drowned them. This done, and no one Rat more perceived to be left in the Towne; hee afterward came to demand his reward according to his bargaine, but being told that the bargain was not made with him in good earnest, to wit, with an opinion that ever he could bee able to doe such a feat: they cared not what they accorded unto, when they imagined it could never be deserued, and so never to bee demanded: but neverthelesse seeing hee had done such an unlikely thing indeed, they were content to give him a good reward; and so offred him farre lesse then he lookt for: but hee therewith discontented, said he would have his full recompence according to his bargain; but they utterly denyed to give it him; he threatened them with revenge; they bad him doe his worst ; whereupon he betakes him againe to his Pipe, and going thorow the streets as before, was followed of a number of boyes out at one of the Gates of the City; and comming to a little Hill, there opened in the side thereof a wid hole, into the which himself & all the children, being in number one hundreth and thirty, did enter; and being entred, the Hill closed up againe, and become as before. A boy that being lame and came somewhat lagging behind the rest, seeing this that hapned, returned presently backe and told what he had seene; forthwith began great lamentation among the Parents for their Children, and men were sent out withall diligence, both by land and water, to enquire if ought could be heard of them, but with all the enquiry they could possibly use, nothing more than is aforesaid could of them be understood. In memory whereof it was then ordained, that from thence-forth no Drumme, Pipe, or other instrument, should be sounded in the street leading to the gate thorow which they passed; nor no Ostery to be there holden. And it was also established, that from that time forward, in all publike writings that should be made in that Towne, after the date therein set downe of the yeere of our Lord, the date of the yeere of the going forth of their Children should be added, the which they have accordingly ever since continued. And this great wonder hapned on the 22. day of July, in the yeere of our Lord, 1376."

289. THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. This poem took its rise from a line, "Following the Queen of the Gypsies, O!" the burden of a song which the poet, when a boy, heard a woman singing on a Guy Fawkes' Day. As Browning was writing it, he was interrupted by the arrival of a friend on some important business, which drove all

thoughts of the Duchess, and the scheme of her story, out of the poet's head. But some months after the publication of the first part when he was staying at Bettisfield Park, in Shropshire, a guest, speaking of early winter, said, "The deer had already to break the ice in the pond." On this a fancy struck the poet, and, on returning home, he worked it up into the conclusion of the poem as it now stands. In writing to Miss Barrett, under date of May 3, 1845, Browning said: “And The Flight of the Duchess,' to leave nothing out, is only the beginning of a story written some time ago, and given to poor Hood in his emergency at a day's notice, the true stuff and story is all to come, the Flight and what you allude to is the mere introduction, but the Magazine has passed into other hands, and I must put the rest in some Bell or other, — it is one of my Dramatic Romances." On July 25, in answer to Miss Barrett's comments and criticisms, he wrote: "So much for this Duchess,' which I shall ever rejoice in wherever was a bud, even in that strip of May-bloom, a live musical bee hangs now. I shall let it lie (my poem) till just before I print it, and then go over it, alter at the places, and do something for the places where I (really) wrote anyhow, almost, to get done. It is an odd fact, yet characteristic of my accomplishings one and all in this kind, that of the poem, the real conception of an evening (two years ago, fully), - of that, not a line is written, though perhaps, after all, what I am going to call the accessories in the story are real though indirect reflexes of the original idea, and so supersede properly enough the necessity of its personal appearance, so to speak. But as I conceived the poem, it consisted entirely of the Gipsy's description of the life the Lady was to lead with her future Gipsy lover, - a real life, not an unreal one like that with the Duke. And as I meant to write it, all their wild adventures would have come out, and the insignificance of the former vegetation have been deducible only, as the main subject has become now; of course it comes to the same thing, for one would never show half by half, like a cut orange."

290: 43, red Berold, the old Duke's favorite hunting-horse.

291: 3, merlin, species of hawk. (5) falcon-lanner = falco laniarius, long-tailed species of hawk.

292:2, lathy, long and slim. (13) urochs, wild bull; buffle, buffalo. 294: 35, St. Hubert, patron saint of huntsmen.

295:4, Venerers, Prickers, and Verderers, huntsmen, light-horsemen, and guardians of the venison, and of the forest laws. (18) wind a mort, announce the taking of the deer. (28) sealed, seeled, term in falconry, meaning to close up the eyes of a hawk or other bird.

296: 33, fifty-part canon; in a letter to Professor Hiram Corson the poet said: "A canon in music is a piece wherein the subject is repeated, in various keys; and, being strictly obeyed in the repetition, becomes the 'canon -the imperative law · to what follows. Fifty of such parts would be indeed a notable peal; to manage three is enough of an achievement for a good musician."

299: 16, helicat, hell-cat, hag or witch. (31) imps, repairs a wing by inserting feathers, Old English impen or ympen, to ingraft. (40) curveter, leaping horse.

300: 13, tomans, Persian coins. (23) token, presentiment or fore

warning. (34) you, ethical dative, of which the poem has many examples.

308: 16, I have seen, in imagination. (35) morion, a kind of helmet. 309: 37, Orson the wood-knight, described in the fifteenth century Romance of Valentine and Orson. Corson says that Orson was the twin brother of Valentine and son of Bellisant. The brothers were born in a wood near Orleans, and Orson was carried off by a bear (French ourson, a small bear), which suckled him with her cubs. When he grew up, he became the terror of France, and was called The Wild Man of the Forest. Ultimately he was reclaimed by his brother Valentine, overthrew the Green Knight, his rival in love, and married Fezon, daughter of the Duke of Savary, in Aquitaine.

310. A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. This poem is not based on any historical incident, though it gives a faithful description of the love of learning of the time mentioned in the title, as inanifested in the pioneers of the Renaissance. Such men were Cyriac of Ancona, Filelfo, Pierre de Maricourt, and many other scholars. The word "grammarian" then had a larger meaning than now, for it signified a student in the wider sense, one devoted to letters or general learning. The aim of this poem, says R. H. Hutton in his Literary Essays, "is to bring out the strong, implicit faith in an eternal career, which there must be in any man who devotes his life wholly to the preliminary toil of mastering the rudiments of language." The speaker is the leader of the company who are bearing the Grammarian to his grave. The parts in parenthesis are the directions of the leader to his companions as they pass up the mountain with the corpse.

311:46, Calculus, stone.

312: 2, Tussis, cough. (9) hydroptic, dropsical. (43) Hoti, Greek particle or, conjunction, that. (44) Oun, Greek particle obv, then, now then. (45) enclitic De, Greek de, of which Browning wrote in a letter to the London Daily News, November 21, 1874: "In a clever article this morning you speak of the doctrine of enclitic De,' — 'which, with all deference to Mr. Browning, in point of fact does not exist.' No, not to Mr. Browning: but pray defer to Herr Buttmann, whose fifth list of 'enclitics' ends with the inseparable De' — or to Curtius, whose fifth list ends also with 'De (meaning "towards" and as a demonstrative appendage).' That this is not to be confounded with the accentuated De, meaning but,' was the 'doctrine' which the Grammarian bequeathed to those capable of receiving it." 313. THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY. In the note following the title the author says this poem is a glimpse from the burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay at Paris, A. D. 1314, as distorted by the refraction from Flemish brain to brain, during the course of a couple of centuries." Molay was the last Grand Master of the Knights Templars, one of the most powerful and popular of Middle-Age military organizations. The Knights Templars, or "Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ," or "The Knighthood of the Temple of Solomon," as they called themselves, were organized very early in the twelfth century, as a result of the Crusades and the conquest of Jerusalem. They were a secular order intimately bound to the Church, and devoted to service in rescuing the Holy Land from the infidel. So long as the Crusades continued they grew in wealth and honor, came to have