the Oxus unmolested. To reconcile us to the improbability of this tale, we are informed that Rustum could have no idea his son was in existence. The mother of Sohrab had written to him her child was a daughter, fearing to lose her darling infant if she revealed the truth; and Rustum, as before stated, fought under a feigned name, an usage not uncommon in the chivalrous combats of those days.'

NOTE 6, PAGE 94.

Balder Dead.

'Balder the Good having been tormented with terrible dreams, indicating that his life was in great peril, communicated them to the assembled Æsir, who resolved to conjure all things to avert from him the threatened danger. Then Frigga exacted an oath from fire and water, from iron, and all other metals, as well as from stones, earths, diseases, beasts, birds, poisons, and creeping things, that none of them would do any harm to Balder. When this was done, it became a favourite pastime of the Æsir, at their meetings, to get Balder to stand up and serve them as a mark, some hurling darts at him, some stones, while others hewed at him with their swords and battle-axes, for do they what they would, none of them could harm him, and this was regarded by all as a great honour shown to Balder. But when Loki beheld the scene he was sorely vexed that Balder was not hurt. Assuming, therefore, the shape of a woman, he went to Fensalir, the mansion of Frigga. That goddess, when she saw the pretended woman, inquired of her if she knew what the Æsir were doing at their meetings. She replied, that they were throwing darts and stones at Balder without being able to hurt him. ""Ay," said Frigga, "neither metal nor wood can hurt Balder, for I have exacted an oath from all of them."

"What!" exclaimed the woman, "have all things sworn to spare Balder?”

"All things," replied Frigga, "except one little shrub that grows on the eastern side of Valhalla, and is called

Mistletoe, and which I thought too young and feeble to crave an oath from."

'As soon as Loki heard this he went away, and, resuming his natural shape, cut off the mistletoe, and repaired to the place where the gods were assembled. There he found Hödur standing apart, without partaking of the sports, on account of his blindness, and going up to him said, “ Why dost thou not also throw something at Balder?"

""Because I am blind,” answered Hödur, "and see not where Balder is, and have, moreover, nothing to throw with."

666 Come, then," said Loki, “do like the rest, and show honour to Balder by throwing this twig at him, and I will direct thy arm toward the place where he stands."

'Hödur then took the mistletoe, and, under the guidance of Loki, darted it at Balder, who, pierced through and through, fell down lifeless.'-Edda.

NOTE 7, PAGE 131.

Tristram and Iseult.

'In the court of his uncle King Marc, the king of Cornwall, who at this time resided at the castle of Tyntagel, Tristram became expert in all knightly exercises.-The king of Ireland, at Tristram's solicitations, promised to bestow his daughter Iseult in marriage on King Marc. The mother of Iseult gave to her daughter's confidante a philtre, or love-potion, to be administered on the night of her nuptials. Of this beverage Tristram and Iseult, on their voyage to Cornwall, unfortunately partook. Its influence, during the remainder of their lives, regulated the affections and destiny of the lovers.

'After the arrival of Tristram and Iseult in Cornwall, and the nuptials of the latter with King Marc, a great part of the romance is occupied with their contrivances to procure secret interviews.-Tristram, being forced to leave Cornwall on account of the displeasure of his uncle, repaired to Brittany, where lived Iseult with the White Hands. He married her-more out of gratitude than

love.-Afterwards he proceeded to the dominions of Arthur, which became the theatre of unnumbered exploits. 'Tristram, subsequent to these events, returned to Brittany, and to his long-neglected wife. There, being wounded and sick, he was soon reduced to the lowest ebb. In this situation, he dispatched a confidant to the queen of Cornwall, to try if he could induce her to accompany him to Brittany, &c.' DUNLOP'S History of Fiction.

NOTE 8, PAGE 167.

That son of Italy who tried to blow.

Giacopone di Todi.

NOTE 9, PAGE 172..

Recalls the obscure opposer he outweigh'd.

Gilbert de la Porrée, at the Council of Rheims, in 1148.

NOTE IO, PAGE 173.

Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried.

The Montanists.

NOTE II, PAGE 174.

Monica.

See St. Augustine's Confessions, book ix, chapter 11.

NOTE 12, PAGE 175.

My Marguerite smiles upon the strand.

See, among 'Early Poems,' the poem called A MemoryPicture, p. 23.

NOTE 13, PAGE 199.

The Hunter of the Tanagræan Field.

Orion, the Wild Huntsman of Greek legend, and in this capacity appearing in both earth and sky.

NOTE 14, PAGE 200.

O'er the sun-redden'd western straits.

Erytheia, the legendary region around the Pillars of Hercules, probably took its name from the redness of the West under which the Greeks saw it.

NOTE 15, PAGE 222.

Of the sun-loving gentian, in the heat.

The gentiana lutea.

NOTE 16, PAGE 246.

Ye Sun-born Virgins! on the road of truth.

See the Fragments of Parmenides:

κοῦραι δ ̓ ὁδὸν ἡγεμόνευον,

ἡλίαδες κούραι, προλιποῦσαι δώματα νυκτός,

εἰς φάος.

NOTE 17, PAGE 291.

The Scholar-Gipsy.

'There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there; and at last to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the gipsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others: that himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned.'-GLANVIL'S Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1661.

NOTE 18, PAGE 299.
Thyrsis.

Throughout this poem there is reference to the preceding piece, The Scholar-Gipsy.

NOTE 19, PAGE 305.

Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing.

Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them to death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save Daphnis, took upon himself the reaping-contest with Lityerses, overcame him, and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this tradition was, like the Linus-song, one of the early plaintive strains of Greek popular poetry, and used to be sung by corn-reapers. Other traditions represented Daphnis as beloved by a nymph who exacted from him an oath to love no one else. He fell in love with a princess, and was struck blind by the jealous nymph. Mercury, who was his father, raised him to Heaven, and made a fountain spring up in the place from which he ascended. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifices.-See Servius, Comment. in Virgil. Bucol., v. 20, and viii. 68.

NOTE 20, PAGE 312.

Ab, where is he, who should have come.

The author's brother, William Delafield Arnold, Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab, and author of Oakfield, or Fellowship in the East, died at Gibraltar on his way home from India, April the 9th, 1859.

NOTE 21, PAGE 313.

So moonlit, saw me once of yore.

See the poem, A Summer Night, p. 278.

NOTE 22, PAGE 313.

My brother! and thine early lot.

See Note 20.