350 aiblins (Twa Dogs, 147), darklins, backlins, &c. See a paper by Dr Morris in Philol. Sz. Transactions for 1862-3. 34. were. Comp. the famous FUIMUS Troes, FUIT Ilium (Æn. ii. 318). 35. the lawn. See Gray's Elegy, too. 40. stints thy smiling plain = deprives thy plain of the beauty and luxuriance which once characterized it. A various form of stint is stunt. 42. Obs. the alliteration here. 43. glades. Glade, ultimately connected with glitter, denotes a break or open space in a wood, where the light shines. Goldsmith does not hyphen or link together the parts of his 44. hollow sounding. compounds; see below, 360; Traveller, 85. bittern. See Isaiah xiv. 23, xxxiv. 11. 45. lapwing. Lap=flap. 51. fares the land. So below, 295. 52. [What does he mean by men decay? That they decay morally, or numerically? See the following lines.] 53. See Cotter's Sat. Night, 165: "Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.” 103. 55. See Introduction. 57. Perhaps it was most nearly so in the 15th and 16th centuries. 58. rood is but another form of rod, which to begin with denoted the pole used in landmeasuring. So perch is properly a measuring pole (of less length than the rod). In ecclesiastical language Rood = the Cross. (So there is no idea of any transversity in the Greek σTavρós.) Hence Holyrood, rood-loft, by the holy rood (Rich. III. III. ii.), Rondee (at Chester), &c. 60. [Why her?] 66. unwieldy. Spenser uses weeldlesse in F. Q. IV. iii. Wieldly, obsolete now, occurs in Chaucer's Troil. and Cress. 74. manners Lat. mores. See Trav. 230. 76. forlorn. See note in Hymn Nat. 196. lorn is connected with lose. Comp. rear and raise, chair and chaise, &c. 84. [What part of the sentence is my latest hours to crown?] 92. [What part of the sentence is I felt?] 93. an hare. Our present rule that a rather than an is to be used before a word beginning with a consonant or a sounded h is of comparatively modern date. In Oldest English (what is commonly called A. S.) the shortened form does not occur. In Medieval writers an is the more common form: thus in the Ormulum we find an man, in Mandeville's Travels, an hors, &c. (Stratmann); but a also is found. The distinction between the numeral and the article was only then completely forming. In Chaucer's writings it seems fairly formed; he has oo, oon, on for the former: a and an, as now, for the latter. Before he commonly prefers the form an, as an hare (C. T. 686), an holy man (Ib. 5637), an housbond (Ib. 5736) &c This was perhaps due to French influence. In the Authorized Version of the Bible we have an house (1 Kings ii. 24, and often elsewhere), an husband (Num. xxx. 6, &c.), but also a husband elsewhere, an hundred again and again, an host, Psalm xxvii. 3, an hair, an habitation, an hand, an hymn, &c., &c., but a horse. It must be remembered that the language of the A. V. is older than the time of James I.; it belongs rather to the age of Henry VIII., in some points perhaps to a still older age, as the Wickcliffite translation had much influence on all succeeding versions. Shakspere's usage is pretty much that which is now followed; as 'a hauke, a horse, or a husband." Much A. about N. III., Fol. of 1623,— "a hare," Hen. IV. I. iii. But with regard to many words custom fluctuated. In the case of the word hare perhaps euphony would seem to favour the fuller form of the article. 95. [What part of the sentence is my long vexations past? Translate the phrase into Latin, and Greek.] 104. TOO. [What does age mean here?] hounds and horns. Titus Andr. II. iii. 27. 105. surly is probably cognate with sour. 106. spurn is connected with spur, which means radically a foot-mark. In the primitive sense of to push away with the foot, spurn is common in Shakspere, as K. John, II. i. 24, &c. 107. latter end. 115. See Van. of H. W. 355. careless = Lat. securus, and old Eng. secure. 121. bayed. Bay is from the old French abayer = aboyer, "de ad. baubari. De là le subst. abois, proprement extrémité où est réduit le cerf, le Sanglier, sur les fins, lorsque les chiens l'entourent en aboyant" (Burguy). 122. the vacant mind. So Shaksp. Comp. Lat. vacuus. "The wretched slave Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest," &c. [Give other instances of this use of spoke.] 124. pause, is used technically of "a stop or intermission in music" (Johnson). It is often employed in our older writers in this sense of the nightingale's singing. 126. fluctuate in the gale. Comp. the common use of float, which is ultimately connected with fluctuate, flow, &c. 128. bloomy is used also by Milton and Dryden. 130. plashy puddle-like. = Comp. the Dutch plas, and our splash. 132. [In what other senses is mantling used?] 137. Copse coppice = old Fr. copeiz, which is derived from couper, which is derived from the Lat. colaphus a fist-blow, (Brachet). [The garden. Why the?] 139. [What is meant by the place disclose?] Comp. Wordsworth's To a Highland Girl at Inversnaid: "These trees-a veil just half withdrawn." sense. 140. mansion the Lowland Scotch manse; but last century poets use it in a general Mansio was properly the house of the lord of the manor. 105. 141. See the Traveller, 10-22. Comp. Chaucer's Prologue, 479-530.-Crabbe sketches the opposite sort of parson in his Village, Book I: "And doth not he, the pious man, appear, He 'passing rich, with forty pounds a year?' 142. Forty pounds seems to have commonly been a curate's income about the middle of the last century. Churchill, when a curate at Rainham, "prayed and starved on forty pounds a year," to use his own words. [Explain passing here.] 143. See Heb. xii. 1. Remote from towns, &c. See London, 6, &c. 144. place, not village or place of abode, but post, position. The word was especially used of political appointments; comp. place-man, place-seeker, &c. 146. Like the famous Vicar of Bray. [Explain to here?] 148. [What part of the sentence is this line?] 155. The broken soldier. Comp. "fracti bello," Æn. ii. 13, "infractos adverso Marte,” Æn. xii. 1; see also Hor. Sat. I. i. 5.-Campbell's Soldier's Dream: "And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay." bade. Bidden and Bid (as Merch. of V. II. v. 11) are the common, and the correct forms. See note on the Traveller, 358. 156. talked the night away. Comp. the exquisite phrase in Callimachus' Epigram (ia the Greek usage of the word) on hearing of the death of his friend Heracleitus: ἐμνήσθην δ' ὁσσάκις αμφότεροι ἥλιον ἐν λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. 157. [What is the force of done here?] 162. [What is the precise meaning of charity here?] 171. parting. See Gray's Elegy, 89. 172. dismayed strictly, deprived of might, un-strengthened. 174. fled the struggling soul. See V. of H. W. 149. 181. [What part of the sentence is the service past?] 106 189. [Explain cliff here?] The 198. truant is said to be of Keltic origin. In Breton there is truant “gueux, vagabond" (Burguy). In Kymric tru, miserable. Hence Medieval Latin formed trutannus. old meaning was simply a vagabond. Then it came to mean wandering away from the place where one ought to be, the place of one's duty, which is commonly its sense in Shakspere. In Merry W. of W. V. i., it occurs in the special sense in which it is now generally used: "Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what 'twas to be beaten till lately." (Comp. micher, 1 Hen. IV. II. iv.) In mod. Fr. truand = vagrant. 201-4. These two couplets furnished Webster with mottoes, and something more, for his two excellent pictures. 205. aught simply, a-whit: as awhile a-while, another an-other, &c. 207. The Village all, &c. So Ovid uses vicinia for vicini: Fast. ii. 655: "conveniunt celebrantque dapes vicinia supplex." Comp. Twa dogs, 125: "When rural life, o' every station, Unite in common recreation." 208. cypher and zero are probably various corruptions of one and the same word. See Max Müller's Chips from a German Workshop. 209. tides here times, seasons; as in King John, III. i. 85: "Among the high tides in the Calendar," &c. "Christ-tide, I pray you," says Ananias in the Alchemist, when Face talks of Christmas. We still speak of Whitsuntide; and have a proverb that "time and tide wait for no man,' when perhaps tide has the secondary meaning of opportunity. Tide is cognate with Germ. Zeit. What is now the common meaning of the word—a meaning derived from the primitive sense-would scarcely be pertinent here. [What is meant by terms here?] 210. gauge measure the capacities of vessels. Gauger has acquired the special meaning of one who so measures vessels containing excisable liquors. ale." 221. nut-brown draughts. As if we should say "pale draughts" for "draughts of pale 226. Etymologically parlour belongs to the same group with parliament, parlance, parley, and parole. The cómmon stem is the Low Lat. parabolare.-Parlour originally denoted the speaking-room of a monastery, that is, the room where conversation was allowed, called also locutorium. The word seems now to be beginning to fall out of use, superseded by dining-room and breakfast-room. [What is meant by the parlour splendours, &c. ?] Of this department of village life Goldsmith could write from abundant experience. See the account of his early days given by Irving and by Forster. He had certainly often made one in such a company as he depicts at the Three Pigeons in She Stoops to Conquer. 107. 229. [What is the sense of debt here?] 232. the twelve good rules. See Crabbe's Parish Register, Part i. of the pictures possessed by "the industrious swain:" These rules were: "There is King Charles and all his golden rules Who proved Misfortune's was the best of schools." 1. Urge no healths. 2. Profane no divine ordinances. state matters. 4. Reveal no secrets. 5. Pick no quarrels. 6. Make no companions. 7. Maintain no ill opinions. 8. Keep no bad company. 9. Encourage no vice. no long meals. 11. Repeat no grievances. 12. Lay no wagers. Jonson wrote rules for the Devil Tavern (close by Temple Bar on the river side). = 3. Touch no 10. Make the royal game at goose perhaps, the game of the Fox and the Geese, but why called royal? 235. chimney here = fire-place. See note to L'Alleg. 111. 239. [What part of the sentence is obscure?] 241. Comp. Horace's "addit cornua pauperis" of the wine-jar (Od. III. xxi. 18). See Tam o' Shanter, 57. 243. The farmer's news. The farmer's necessary visits to the neighbouring market town would naturally make him the newsman. The barber's tale. The endless garrulity of barbers who, at least in the country, practised as surgeons also, is a perpetual matter of joke or disgust with the novelists of George II.'s time. So too in the Arabian Nights, &c. 244. woodman. Now a tree-feller, once sportsman, hunter; as in Merry W. of W., V. v.: Am I a woodman, ha? speak I like Herne the hunter?" So Meas. for Meas. IV. iii. 170, Cymb. III. vi. 28., Comus, &c. the woodman's ballad some praise of the greenwood, or perhaps some tale of Robin Hood, the hero of foresters. Perhaps it was not till after the middle of the last century that Ballad acquired what is now its general meaning, viz. a narrative piece. Johnson in his Dict. gives no special sense. Formerly it denoted a song of any kind, as in As you like it, II. vii. 148: "And then the lover Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Older writers call Solomon's Song the Ballet of Ballettes. singing ballads and layes (Dreame). 246. lean to hear. Chaucer speaks of the birds Comp. Wordsworth's exquisite lines of a far other listening; "And she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round," &c. 248. [Explain the mantling bliss.] A A 250. Comp. Jonson's "O leave a kiss but in the cup," &c. It was also a Greek custom; see Bekker's Charicles, Sc. ii. 254. gloss is probably from the same root as glass. This gloss is quite distinct from the gloss which means an explanatory note. 258. Comp. Par. Lost, V. 899, Hamlet, I. v. 77. 266. See Introduction. 268. an happy land. See note to "an hare," above, l. 93. 269. [Explain freighted.] 108. 276. [What part of the sentence is pour?] 277. Comp. Hor. Od. II. xv. 280. Comp. 1. 40. 281. But "sports" are not always "solitary" in the Squire's park! See the Introduction to The Princess, &c. &c. 283. He seems to mean that the country does not keep back the amount of its own products that is needed for its own consumption, but exports and barters away what is necessary it should retain for what is altogether superfluous. 284. for, i. e to be exchanged for. 285. [Explain all here.] 286. [What is the force of the fall, as compared with its fall?] 288. [What is meant by secure to please?] 295. [What does he mean by bless here?] 296. [What part of the sentence is this line?] = 298. vistas orig., views, prospects, sights, from the Lat. video. 305. The enclosure of Commons, a measure by no means always dictated by mere greed, but sometimes in the highest degree prudential and considerate, has always been an extreme popular grievance. See Latimer's Last Sermon preached before King Edward VI., Ballads on the Condition of Eng. in Hen. VIII. reign, &c., Part I. ed. Furnivall, p. 54, &c., &c. Some 1600 or 1700 Inclosure Acts are said to have been passed before the beginning of the present century. Goldsmith ignores the fact that "half a tillage stinted the plains," where the old Commons lay extended. If the enclosure were made without proper compensation to the Commoners, then assuredly nothing can be more shameful. 109. 316. artist = here our artisan. Contrariously artisan was formerly used somewhat in the sense of our artist; as in the Guardian: "Best and happiest artisan Best of painters, if you can, With your many-colour'd art "What are the most judicious artisans but the mimicks of nature?" Wotton's Architect, apud Johnson's Dict.. See also Trench's Sel. Gloss. 336. she left her wheel. See Mrs Browning's A year's Spinning. Burns' Bessie is wiser; see his lines Bessy and her Spinnin Wheel. 344. Altama the Altamaha or Alatamha in Georgia, U. S. Bancroft mentions a settlement made on it near Darien by certain Gaels; see Hist. United States, II. 1008, 12mo. ed. 1861. to. See note to Hymn Nat. 132. 345. He seems to forget that there are other parts of America besides the Tropical For a description of the New World made in a very different spirit, see Kingsley's Westward Ho! 345. [What part of the sentence is terrors?] 352. [What does he mean by gathers death here?] |