Metrically, the poem is divided into three Pericopes or groups of systems (1-48, 49-96, 97-144). Each Pericope is divided into Strophe, Antistrophe and Epode. Thus, in Pericope I., the Strophe is 1-14, the Antistrophe is 15-28, the Epode is 29-48. The metrical arrangement of the Antistrophe corresponds with that of the Strophe; that of the Epode is a law unto itself and in Gray's time was considered an unintelligible experiment.

I-14. ruthless King. This Ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.' — Gray. hauberk. The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings, interwoven, forming a coat of mail, that sat close to the body and adapted itself to every motion.' – Gray. Cambria. Latin name for Wales. Snowdon. The suffix in this word is of Keltic origin and signifies' hill' or 'mound.' It appears as a prefix in Dumbarton, Dunstable. Glo'ster; Mortimer. 'They both were Lord Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the King in this expedition.' — Gray.

15-28. Loose his beard, etc. This image was taken from a wellknown picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being, in the vision of Ezekiel.' — Gray. Hoel; Llewellyn; Welsh bards.

Plinlim

29-48. Cadwallo, Urien, Modred [Merlyn?], are probably as real as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. mon; in central Wales. Arvon. 'The shores of Caernarvonshire opposite the island of Anglesey.' — Gray. See note on Lycidas, 54.

49-62. agonizing King. Edward 11. (the first English Prince of Wales) was murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327. She-wolf of

France; Isabelle, daughter of Philip the Fair, and wife of Edward 11., is accused of having contrived the murder of her husband. The scourge of heaven; Edward III., who began the Hundred Years' War against the French and defeated them in the great battle of Crécy (1346).

63-76. Mighty Victor. The vigorous faculties of Edward III. were seriously impaired some time before his death (1377). He came under the evil influence of an unworthy woman, who is said to have robbed and deserted him on his death-bed. the Sable Warrior; Edward the Black Prince, who died the year before his father. Fair laughs the Morn. Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign [1377-1399]. See Froissard and other contemporary writers.'- Gray.

77-96. Reft of a crown.

Richard II. was deposed by Parliament in favor of his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke, who, it is alleged,

caused him to be starved to death. Shakespeare represents him as assassinated by Sir Pierce of Exton (Richard II. v. 5). Long years of havock; the wars of the Roses. London's lasting shame; Henry vi., George Duke of Clarence, Edward v., Richard Duke of York, etc., believed to be murthered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that Structure is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar.' - Gray. his Consort's faith; 'Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her Husband and her Crown.' - Gray. She appears in Scott's Anne of Geierstein, in the three parts of Shakespeare's Henry VI. and in his Richard his Father's fame; Henry v. the meek Usurper;

III.

Henry VI. Gray calls him 'Usurper' because his grandfather Henry IV. was not the hereditary heir to the crown. But Henry IV. was no usurper, for he was practically elected by Parliament, as was William III. nearly three hundred years later. the rose of snow; her blushing foe; the red rose of Lancaster. See 1 Henry v1. ii. 4. In later times the white rose became the Stuart emblem. Compare the opening lines of the Cavaliers' Chorus in the opera of Villiers, ii. 3:

the device of York.

There's not a flower that blooms a-field
But doth to thee in fragrance yield,
Dear rose, with leaf of driven snow,
Whose beauty takes both friend and foe.

A nation's king hath died for thee,

A nation's grief hath sighed o'er thee;
Watered by England's richest blood,

Thou brav'st the storm of fire and flood.

The bristled Boar was the badge of Richard III., who caused his two little nephews to be murdered in the tower.

97-110. Half of thy heart; Eleanor of Castile, the devoted wife of Edward III. She died many years before her husband. Arthur. 'It was the common belief of the Welsh nation, that King Arthur was still alive in Fairy-Land and should return again to reign over Britain.' — Gray. genuine Kings. Consult an English History for Henry VII.'s claim to the throne (1485). III-124. a Form divine. Queen Elizabeth.

lion-port goes comically with virgin-grace. Gray is stiff at a compliment, compared with the subtle and graceful Shakespeare:

between the cold moon and the earth Cupid all armed. A certain aim he took

At a fair vestal thronéd by the west;

Taliessin.

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from the bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft

Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the imperial vot'ress passed on

In maiden meditation, fancy free.

Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 2. 97-105.

Taliessin, Chief of the Bards, flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high veneration among his Countrymen.' - Gray.

125-134. These lines refer to Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. Determine the particular lines that refer to each poet.

135-144. repairs the golden flood. Compare Lycidas, 169.

Few poets would have the artistic self-restraint to end this poem where Gray ended it. Thomson, for instance, on such a subject could hardly have contented himself with less than a thousand lines. Even Shelley, sometimes, 'cannot get done.' Gray's practice was based upon a sound theory which he states in a letter to Mason, as follows: The true lyric style, with all its flights of fancy, ornaments, and heightening of expression, and harmony of sound, is in its nature superior to every other style; which is just the cause why it could not be borne in a work of great length, no more than the eye could bear to see all this scene that we constantly gaze upon the verdure of the fields and woods, turned into one dazzling expanse of gems.'

the azure of the sea and skies

BORN at Pallasmore in County Longford, Ireland, in 1728. His father was a poor clergyman and with difficulty sent his son to Trinity College, Dublin, where he entered at the bottom of his class. In 1749 he was graduated in the same honorable position; after a year and a half's intermittent study of medicine at Edinburgh, he spent some two years strolling over western Europe. How he supported himself during much of this time is a mystery; possibly the twentieth chapter of The Vicar of Wakefield and parts of The Traveller may furnish a clue. Between 1756 and 1759 he tried clerking it in a chemist's shop, practising medicine, proof-reading, school-teaching, and hack-writing. In only the last did he succeed; in the Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759) he emerges from the purlieus of Grub-Street and in The Citizen of the World he has left us some of the most delightful Essays in English. While we may well object to the unphilosophic conclusion of The Traveller we are charmed by its pen-pictures of Italy, Switzerland, Holland and France, its easy and melodious versification, its sweet and genial humanity. The manuscript of The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) was sold by Johnson for £60 to release Goldsmith from an arrest for debt. His excellent comedy The Good Natured Man brought him further pecuniary relief- but temporary only, for Goldsmith had now accustomed himself to a manner of living that could dispense with the comforts of life, but must have the luxuries. In poetry, Goldsmith reaches his culmination in The Deserted Village; in comedy, it would be difficult to find a writer, French or English, who can better the skilful construction and easy, natural dialogue of She Stoops to Conquer (1773). Goldsmith's later years were honored by the friendship of such men as Garrick, Reynolds, Burke and Johnson. Johnson really loved him. When Goldsmith died in 1774, owing two thousand pounds, it was Johnson who gave us the key to his friend's character in saying 'Was ever poet so trusted before?'

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

LIFE AND TIMES. Of the numerous books on Goldsmith, The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith by John Forster is the most scholarly extended study. But perhaps Goldsmith would not have thanked the author for his attitude of persistent and sentimental compassion. Among the shorter works, the life by Dobson (Gt. Wr.) contains much trifling and uninteresting detail; Black's Life of Goldsmith (E. M. L.) is artistically proportioned, exquisitely sympathetic and admirably sane. Boswell has many anecdotes of Goldsmith, all colored by Bozzy's lack of the sense of humor and by his jealousy of anybody who got nearer to Johnson than did Bozzy himself.

CRITICISM. — Macaulay; Essay on Goldsmith. Brings out clearly the fact that Goldsmith's misfortunes were due more to himself than to the neglect of society. In nearly every other respect, shows a complete misunderstanding of Goldsmith's character.

De Quincey; Essay on Goldsmith. A review of Forster's Life of Goldsmith, in sympathy with the general tone of that work. Contains also, in characteristic DeQuincey style, digressions on the state of the literary body in France, and on the relation of literature to politics.

Thackeray; Sterne and Goldsmith in The English Humorists. Contains little about Goldsmith's works, but shows a loveable estimate of his character. Fitzgerald; Principles of Comedy. Those interested in Goldsmith's dramatic genius will find some excellent criticism here.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

This poem, published in 1770, was dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Six years later Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, from which, had Goldsmith lived, he could have learned that the economic change he laments was a blessing in disguise for those poor emigrants to whom it seemed a curse. But we do not read The Deserted Village for its Political Economy: we read it for its idyllic sweetness; for its portraits of the village preacher, of the village schoolmaster, of the country inn; for its pathetic description of the poor emigrants; for the tender and noble feeling with which Goldsmith closes the poem in his Farewell to Poetry.

1-34. Sweet Auburn! Attempts to identify Sweet Auburn' with any particular village are futile and unnecessary. The description is idealized, as any one who has had even small experience in the making of verses can see. lent (16) = yielded. simply (25)

artlessly. Smutted (27) would not be used in serious poetic diction to-day. No description of Rustic Mirth to compare with these thirty-four lines had been written in England since Milton's L'Allegro. If one might point out a flaw in this gem, it would be the too frequent personification of abstract terms, such as gambol (21) and sleights (22).

35-50. The hollow-sounding bittern. The bittern has a hollow, throaty cry, and generally builds its nest on the ground. Perhaps this line is a reminiscence of Isaiah XIV. 23: I will also make it a possession for the bittern and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts.' the lapwing, sometimes called the 'pewit,' from its cry.

51-56. Princes and lords. Compare Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night, 165; also his song, For A' That and A' That (p. 113 of this book). Lines 55 and 56 point a real moral. The strength of a country lies largely in its yeomanry or small-farmer class. In this respect, France leads the world.