No More Learning

_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. "


Poem 229.

The Mermaid was the club-house of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other
choice spirits of that age.


Poem 230.

_Maisie_: Mary. Scott has given us nothing more complete and lovely than
this little song, which unites simplicity and dramatic power to a
wild-wood music of the rarest quality. No moral is drawn, far less any
conscious analysis of feeling attempted:--the pathetic meaning is left
to be suggested by the mere presentiment of the situation. Inexperienced
critics have often named this, which may be called the Homeric manner,
superficial, from its apparent simple facility: but first-rate
excellence in it (as shown here, in 196, 156, and 129) is in truth one
of the least common triumphs of Poetry. --This style should be compared
with what is not less perfect in its way, the searching out of inner
feeling, the expression of hidden meanings, the revelation of the heart
of Nature and of the Soul within the Soul,--the analytical method, in
short,--most completely represented by Wordsworth and by Shelley.


Poem 234.

_correi_: covert on a hillside; _Cumber_: trouble.