No More Learning

_The assault_: was an attack on London expected in 1642, when the troops
of Charles I. reached Brentford. "Written on his door" was in the
original title of this sonnet. Milton was then living in Aldersgate
Street.

_Emathian Conqueror_: When Thebes was destroyed (B. C. 335) and the
citizens massacred by thousands, Alexander ordered the house of Pindar
to be spared. He was as incapable of appreciating the Poet as Lewis XIV.
of appreciating Racine: but even the narrow and barbarian mind of
Alexander could understand the advantage of a showy act of homage to
Poetry.

_the repeated air \Of sad Electra's poet_: Amongst Plutarch's vague
stories, he says that when the Spartan confederacy in 404 B. C. took
Athens, a proposal to demolish it was rejected through the effect
produced on the commanders by hearing part of a chorus from the Electra
of Euripides sung at a feast. There is however no apparent congruity
between the lines quoted (167, 8 Ed. Dindorf) and the result ascribed to
them.


Poem 73.
This high-toned and lovely Madrigal is quite in the style, and worthy
of, the "pure Simonides. "


Poem 75.

Vaughan's beautiful though quaint verses should be compared with
Wordsworth's great Ode, No. 287.


Poem 76.

_Favonius_: the spring wind.


Poem 77.

_Themis_: the goddess of justice. Skinner was grandson by his mother to
Sir E. Coke;--hence, as pointed out by Mr. Keightley, Milton's allusion
to the _bench_.

_what the Swede intends, and what the French_: Sweden was then at war
with Poland, and France with the Spanish Netherlands.


Poem 79.

_Sydneian showers_: either in allusion to the conversations in the
"Arcadia," or to Sidney himself as a model of "gentleness" in spirit and
demeanour.


Poem 84.

_Elizabeth of Bohemia_: Daughter to James I.