XXV. The Riding to the Tournament.

I. Tournament. In the middle ages, when the Normans ruled England, in the days of chivalry, the knights used to meet for a mock fight. Mounted and clad in complete armour, they charged one another with blunted spears, and tried to knock one another from their horses. This poem describes the various classes of people that used to go to enjoy the sight of a tournament.

2. The hawks we bore. Some of the visitors carried hawks on their wrists. This refers to a custom, common in Old England, of hunting herons and other birds by means of tame hawks, who were carefully trained to fly after the heron (called the quarry), and attack it and kill it in the air. The hawks were afterwards caught by the falconer, who fastened their feet by little straps called jesses, and put on little hoods over their eyes. See Extract XXIX.

3. Yeoman: the owner of a small farm. In feudal times it denoted a servant of the next degree above a garçon or groom.

4. Visor part of the helmet covering the face, with per-· forations in it for the knight to see through.

5. Jester. Nobles and rich men at this time had a servant called a jester, whose business it was to do amusing and silly things to make people laugh. He wore a cap covered with bells, and crested with a red piece of cloth quilted like a cock's-comb, and carried a bladder to hit people with, or a bauble, that is, a stick with a fool's head and an ass's ears carved on it. The jester was often called the "fool."

6. A pilgrim: one who goes on a journey to pray at the shrine of some saint, or at the sacred places in the Holy Land. Literally, pilgrim means one who passes through different lands, from Latin per, through, and ager, a land, our acre. The word formed from these, peregrinus, became in Italian pellegrino, in French pèlerin. Here we see that the pilgrims were monks, because of their hood and cowl. Pilgrims in England generally went to pray at the grave of Thomas-à-Becket at Canterbury.

7. Burghers: citizens of a burgh or borough.

8. Beads: In those days all people in England were Roman Catholics. Catholics often repeat the same prayer a great many times, and they count the number of prayers recited by telling off a number of wooden counters strung together, called a rosary. Bead originally meant a prayer (Anglo-Saxon béd), hence one of a series of little balls pierced for stringing together to help the memory in counting the prayers recited. With us a bead has lost this sense, and means any perforated ball. So a bedesman is an old pensioner bound to pray for the soul of his benefactor. 9. Chalumeau: a straw-pipe, a shepherd's flute.

XXVII. The Schoolmaster.

1. Counterfeited: pretended.

2. Presage: tell beforehand.

3. Gauge a verb meaning to measure the contents of a cask. Pronounced as though to rhyme with wage.

XXVIII. A Storm among the Ice-fields.

1. Aurora Australis: the strange beautiful light that overspreads the heavens in the Southern hemisphere. It is generally a pink glow like the reflection of a fire. It corresponds to the Aurora Borealis of the Northern hemisphere, and means literally, the dawning of the South.

2. Alabaster: a soft, white marble.

3. The symbol of the crescent: that is, the ice took the shapes of the graceful domes and minarets found in Turkish and Moorish buildings. A crescent and star form the device of Mohammedan nations.

XXX. The Armada.

1. Castile the chief province of Spain, here used to mean Spain itself. Aurigny's Isle—the Island of Alderney.

2. Halberdiers: soldiers armed with a halberd or pole-axe. 3. Her Grace: Queen Elizabeth. All classes of people in England flocked to the standard of the Queen, that is, enlisted themselves to help her drive off the attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

4. The gay lilies. These lines mean that on the flag of Queen Elizabeth there was the figure of a crowned lion

treading down the lilies. The armorial bearings of Elizabeth represented on the flag, contained a lion with a crown standing upright, and supporting a shield on which the arms of England and France are quartered. His paw

rests on the lilies that were the symbol of France, and which were first introduced into the English Arms by Edward III., who claimed to be King of France. The phrase lion of the sea is apparently used to denote the power of England on the sea. The poem then goes on to say that this same figure of the lion was emblazoned on the flags that were borne at the battles of Crécy and Agincourt.

5. That famed Picard field. This refers to the battle of Crécy in the North of France (Picardy), 1346, in which the English defeated the King of France. The French were helped by the blind King of Bohemia, of whom Froissart relates that he begged some knights to lead him into the battle, that he might strike one blow with his sword. "On the morrow they were all found on the ground with their horses all tied together." Bohemia's plume refers to the white ostrich feathers borne by the king, with the motto ich dien, I serve, and now the device of our Prince of Wales. By a favourite figure of speech in poetry the chief mark of these men is mentioned instead of their names. Thus the lion of England is said to have turned to flight the plume of Bohemia. In prose we should say the King of England defeated the King of Bohemia. So the phrase Genoa's bow refers to the archers or bowmen of Genoa, who were the first to advance and the first to run away.

Cæsar's eagle shield: an eagle (the bird attendant on Jupiter) was adopted as a device for the military standards of the Romans and for the shields of the Emperors. Cæsar, originally the family name of the first Roman Emperors, has been since used as a title for any one claiming Imperial power. Here it refers to the son of the King of Bohemia, who survived the battle to become the famous Emperor Charles IV.

6. Semper eadem : Latin words-for ever the same. This was the motto on a scroll underneath the Arms of Elizabeth.

7. From Lynn to Milford Bay. Note, that the summons

to arms extends throughout England,-from Eddystone lighthouse off the coast of Cornwall, to Berwick bounds -the extreme north of England; and, in the other direction, from Lynn, in Norfolk, to Milford Bay, in Pembrokeshire. Compare the phrase in the Bible, " From Dan to Beersheba." 8. Mendip's sunless caves: the miners from the lead and copper mines in the Mendip Hills, in Somersetshire.

9. Longleat's Towers: the seat of the Marquis of Bath, near Warminster, in Wiltshire.

10. Cranbourne's Oak. Cranbourne is a town in Dorsetshire. Cranbourne Chace was an extensive hunting-ground reaching almost to Salisbury. By the oak is meant the forests of Cranbourne Chace. So Belvoir's lordly terraces refers to the seat of the Duke of Rutland, on the borders of Leicestershire. Note how the poet brings out the fact that we should first notice about each place, and so describes as well as names it: thus we have the mines of Mendip, the oaks of Cranbourne, the terraces of Belvoir.

11. The royal city : London, so called because it is the capital city of England and the seat of Government. 12. Gaunt's embattled pile. Lancaster Castle. John of Gaunt was Duke of Lancaster, hence the Castle of Lancaster is poetically spoken of as Gaunt's. A building is often called a pile in poetry.

XXXI. The Gold-diggings.

1. Eldorado: literally "the golden," the Spanish name for a rich country supposed to exist in the north of South America. Here gold and jewels might be gathered without trouble; but unfortunately, though many travellers sought it in the 16th century, no one was able to find this land.

2. The Eucalyptus or gum-tree is the characteristic tree of Australia. It grows to the enormous height of more than two hundred and fifty feet, and is an evergreen. Its leaves grow edgeways, so that it gives little shade. Some kinds shed their bark every year.

3. Polyglot having many languages. The Greek polys means many. So polytechnic means comprehending many

arts.

4. Mandarin: a Chinese commander. It is a Portuguese word from Latin, mando= to command.

5. Ferruginous: containing iron.

6. Race. A rapid part of a river. The stream of water brought to turn a waterwheel is also called a race.

7. Handelaer uit de Keape de Goede Hoep: merchants from The Cape of Good Hope. The words Anketel and Vander Poel are the names of the merchants.

8. Sydney: the capital of New South Wales. Near it is Botany Bay, which used to be a convict settlement. The people of Sydney have refused to take convicts since 1840. In Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, a penal settlement was established at Hobart Town in 1804.

XXXIV. The Force of Prayer.

1. Bootless useless, without profit or advantage. Anglo Saxon bòt: a remedy.

Bene: a petition. Anglo Saxon bén : a prayer.

2. Falconer: one who takes care of, and trains the falcons used in the chase.-See Note 2. Extract XXV.

3. Wharf: the river in which young Romilly was drowned. The 'Strid' or narrow passage through which the Wharf forces itself, and in trying to jump which the poor boy met with his accident, is now a favourite place for picnics. It is not far from Ilkley in Yorkshire.

4. Old Wharf might heal her sorrow: that is, she might drown herself for grief.

5. Priory: a great convent. The ruins of Bolton Priory may still be seen not very far from the "Strid".

XXXVI. Staffa and Iona.

1. The bark: the vessel.

2. Staffa: an island near Mull, in the Hebrides, celebrated for its cavern called Fingal's Cave, the ground, sides, and roof of which are composed of black pillars of rock.

3. Cormorant: a very greedy sea-bird described in Extract VII. Literally, a sea-crow,-from Latin, corvus marinus: French, cormoran.

4. As as if.

5. Iona's holy fane: Iona is an island near Staffa, famous