No More Learning

_stout Cortez_: History requires here Balboa: (A. T. ) It may be noticed,
that to find in Chapman's Homer the "pure serene" of the original, the
reader must bring with him the imagination of the youthful poet;--he
must be "a Greek himself," as Shelley finely said of Keats.


Poem 169.

The most tender and true of Byron's smaller poems.


Poem 170.

This poem, with 236, exemplifies the peculiar skill with which Scott
employs proper names: nor is there a surer sign of high poetical genius.


Poem 191.

The Editor in this and in other instances has risked the addition (or
the change) of a Title, that the aim of the verses following may be
grasped more clearly and immediately.


Poem 198.

_Nature's Eremite_: refers to the fable of the Wandering Jew. --This
beautiful sonnet was the last word of a poet deserving the title
"marvellous boy" in a much higher sense than Chatterton. If the
fulfilment may ever safely be prophesied from the promise, England
appears to have lost in Keats one whose gifts in Poetry have rarely been
surpassed. Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, had their lives been
closed at twenty-five, would (so far as we know) have left poems of less
excellence and hope than the youth who, from the petty school and the
London surgery, passed at once to a place with them of "high collateral
glory. "


Poem 201.
It is impossible not to regret that Moore has written so little in this
sweet and genuinely national style.


Poem 202.

A masterly example of Byron's command of strong thought and close
reasoning in verse:--as the next is equally characteristic of Shelley's
wayward intensity, and 204 of the dramatic power, the vital
identification of the poet with other times and characters, in which
Scott is second only to Shakespeare.


Poem 209.

Bonnivard, a Genevese, was imprisoned by the Duke of Savoy in Chillon on
the lake of Geneva for his courageous defence of his country against the
tyranny with which Piedmont threatened it during the first half of the
seventeenth century. This noble Sonnet is worthy to stand near Milton's
on the Vaudois massacre.


Poem 210.

Switzerland was usurped by the French under Napoleon in 1800: Venice in
1797 (211).


Poem 215.

This battle was fought Dec. 2, 1800, between the Austrians under
Archduke John and the French under Moreau, in a forest near Munich.
_Hohen Linden_ means _High Limetrees_.


Poem 218.

After the capture of Madrid by Napoleon, Sir J. Moore retreated before
Soult and Ney to Corunna, and was killed whilst covering the embarcation
of his troops. His tomb, built by Ney, bears this inscription--"John
Moore, leader of the English armies, slain in battle, 1809.