5. The unfortunate Louis XVI of France: (born 1754). A well-meaning man, but of a dull intellect ; he cared only for making locks and colouring maps, while his country was going to ruin. In the French revolution of 1789-93, he and his queen Marie Antoinette were guillotined.

V. A Naturalist at School.

1. Thomas Edward: a poor hard-working Scotch shoemaker, who succeeded by the force of courage and perseverance in becoming a distinguished naturalist. "It may be said of him that he has endured as much hardship for the cause of science, as soldiers do in a prolonged campaign.” Without neglecting his work or his family, "he spent most of his nights out of doors, amidst damp and wet and cold."

VI. The Old Oak-tree at Hatfield Broadoak.

1. Who gave the district half its name: Hatfield Broadoak, or Hatfield Regis, is a parish seven miles S.E. of BishopStortford, in South Essex. "It derives its name from a remarkably fine oak, and there were formerly many oak-trees in the district."-Lewis Topograph. Dict. of England.

2 Vandals: "when we remember how the Vandals and Goths, two rude Northern hordes, swept across Europe, blotting out for a time the results of centuries of Roman civilization, and destroying for ever many of the fairest creations of the Grecian chisel, we are able to understand how it has come about that the wanton and ignorant destruction of works of art should go by the name of Vandalism; and also how the first clumsy efforts of the Goths to imitate, or adapt to their own purposes the Roman edifices, should be called Gothic."-Words and Places.

The reference here is to the barbarous condition of the inhabitants of England when St. Augustine landed with the band of missionaries sent by Pope Gregory the Great, in A.D. 597.

3. Chaucer once pondered o'er his rhyme: Geoffrey Chaucer, one of our greatest poets, died A.D. 1400. The outlaw, Robin Hood, lived in the 12th century. The life of the old tree is very gracefully connected with that of our country by a series of references of a picturesque character to our history. The tree had grown when wolves peopled the forest: it did not fall till long after Waterloo. If this seems an astonishing age for a tree, the poet expressly tells us that he is dreaming,

4. He sent his kin to sea with Drake: i.e., other oak trees were felled to furnish the planks of the ships that defeated the Spanish Armada.

5. Nunc dimittis: the first words of the Latin version of the Song of Simeon : "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace."

VII. Themistocles.

1. Themistocles : born about B.C. 514, was the leader of the Athenians during the great invasion of Greece by the Persian Xerxes. It was Themistocles who persuaded the Athenians to build the ships by which chiefly the Persians were defeated in the battle of Salamis (B.C. 480). It was he too who induced the Athenians to build fortifications. Later on he was exiled from Athens; and no doubt his father's lessons about the galleys came to his mind. He died in Persia while under the protection of the Persian king.

2. Solon: the celebrated lawgiver of Athens. Born probably about B.C. 638.

3. calumniate : bring a false accusation against him.

4. old galleys: long, low-built ships of war, propelled by means of rows of huge oars worked by slaves. Most had beaks," with which to strike an enemy's ship, like our modern "rams."

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5. Aristides, surnamed “the Just,” an Athenian statesman and general, the rival of Themistocles, who about B.C. 483 was ostracised, that is, banished, through the enmities which he had made by his honourable opposition to corruption.

6. The battle of Marathon, B.C. 490,

7. Trophy: a sign and memorial of victory erected on the battle-field.

VIII. The Famine.

1. Hiawatha, one of the names of "a personage of miraculous birth, whom the North American Indians believed was sent among them to clear their rivers, forests, and fishinggrounds, and to teach them the arts of peace.' "The scene of this poem is among the Ojibways, on the S. shore of Lake Superior."

2. Laughing-water: the wife of Hiawatha. There is "a waterfall or a stream running into the Mississippi, called Minnehaha or Laughing-water." The Indian girl here is named after it.

3. Gitche Manito: "the Great Spirit, the Master of Life." 4. Nokomis: the grandmother of Hiawatha. 5. Pauguk: death.

IX. Locusts.

1. Kraal: The Dutch name of a Hottentot village or hut.

2. Boor: Dutch boer, a farmer. The word means literally a tiller of the soil, and forms the latter part of our word neighbour.

3. holocaust an entire burnt sacrifice. From two Greek words meaning burnt whole.

4. some writers dispute that point. For the use of locusts as food compare Lev. xi. 21, 22. They are said to have the taste of shrimps.

5. Carnivora (line 2, p. 45): the species of animals that eat flesh. Latin, caro, carnis, flesh; and vorare, to devour.

6. echellon. When the divisions of a battalion or regiment do not march behind one another, but on parallel lines, right and left of the preceding division, so as to give the whole the appearance of a ladder or set of stairs, they are said to march en echellon. French, échelle, from Latin, scala, a ladder.

X. The Sands of Dee.

1. As in Morecambe Bay, and other estuaries on the west coast, the mouth of the Dee is left during a great part of the day a waste of sand divided by an uncertain channel. The tide washes in very quickly in such places, and renders it dangerous to go far out on the sands.

XII. Saturn and Thea.

1. These two. Saturn, the Greek Cronus, was the ruler of gods and men in the golden age before Jupiter or Zeus, his son, supplanted him.

Thea, or Theia, was the sister of Saturn and of Hyperion her husband, by whom she became the mother of the Sun, the Moon, and the Dawn. That is, all light proceeded from her and Hyperion. The Greeks had a beautiful custom of personifying the various agencies and phenomena of nature, and of thinking of them as gods or goddesses.

2. gold Hyperion the sun-god. See above.

3. Peers: appears. So Shakespeare→

"When daffodils begin to peer."

Winter's Tale, IV. 3, 1.

Not to be confused with to peer, to pry into.

4. of influence benign on planets pale. The circumstances and characters of men were formerly supposed to be caused by the agency of the planets.

It is the stars,

The stars above us, govern our conditions.

King Lear, IV. 3.

A subtle force from the heavenly bodies was said to flow in upon (influence) men, and the study of this was called Astrology. In particular, the relative position of the stars at the moment of birth was held important as determining the future lot of the child. Thus, in our older writers, Saturn and Mars are spoken of as "wicked planets": under Mars are born furious and cruel men, soldiers, butchers, hangmen, and surgeons-all who shed blood in any way. The god Saturn, who is not to be confused with the planet Saturn, is here said to wish to exercise a beneficent influence.

5. strings in hollow shells : lutes formed of strings stretched over hollow shells.

XIV. Burning of Drury Lane Theatre.

1. The Theatre in Drury Lane, London, was rebuilt and re-opened in 1812, after its destruction by fire. Horace and James Smith, two brothers, wrote a series of absurd addresses supposed to have been spoken on the opening night. Each address was a parody on the style of some well-known author. In the one printed here (by Horace Smith), the peculiarities of the style of Sir Walter Scott (especially as exemplified in Marmion, published 1808), are cleverly imitated and exaggerated.

1. cuisses: armour for the thighs, from the French cuisse, a thigh; from Latin coxa, a hip.

3. dight: arrayed or adorned. From Anglo-Saxon, dihtan, to arrange, set in order. Compare "The clouds in thousand liveries dight."-Milton, L'Allegro, 62.

4. This once belonged to sable prince: the directions were

that this address was to be "spoken by Mr. Kemble in a suit of the Black Prince's armour, borrowed from the Tower."

5. Augusta: London was so named in Roman times. But the old Celtic name, Londunum or Londinium, originally the fortified hill on which St. Paul's Cathedral stands, (from dun, a hill fortress), has survived the grand name the Romans tried to give it. Augusta was a title of the mother, wife, daughter, or sister of a Roman Emperor.

6. Rufus' Hall: Westminster Hall.

7. Catherine St.: here begins a list of streets and buildings in the neighbourhood of the theatre, each with a little bit of description attached to it, after the manner of Sir Walter Scott.

8. Vin'gar Yard: a narrow court leading out of Catherine St., near Drury Lane. Here again Scott's love of mentioning localities is caricatured. Compare Marmion, I. I.

Day set on Norham's castled steep,

And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,

And Cheviot's mountains lone.

9. The Sun, etc. : these are names of various fire insurance companies. Until the year 1833, each of them had its own independent establishment of firemen and engines.

10. The donjon keep: "The donjon, in its proper signification, means the strongest part of a feudal castle; a high square tower, with walls of tremendous thickness, situated in the centre of the other buildings, from which, however, it was usually detached. Here, in case of the outward defences being gained, the garrison retreated to make their last stand. The donjon contained the great hall, and principal rooms of state for solemn occasions, and also the prison of the fortress; from which last circumstance we derive the modern and restricted use of the word dungeon.”—Sir Walter Scott.

11. Were the last words of Higginbottom: a direct imitation of the lines on the death of Marmion:.

A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fixed his glazing eye:

With dying hand, above his head,

He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted "Victory!

Charge! Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"

Were the last words of Marmion.