Canto 2, line 297.

[78] This line affords a striking instance of the sound conveying an echo to the sense. I would defy the most unfeeling reader to repeat it over without accompanying it by some corresponding gesture imitative of the action described.

[79] A term usually applied in allegoric and technical poetry to any person or object to which no other qualifications can be assigned.--_Chambers's Dictionary._

[80] Infancy is particularly interested in the diffusion of the new principles. See the 'Bloody Buoy.' See also the following description and prediction:

'Here Time's huge fingers grasp his giant mace, And dash proud Superstition from her base; Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes, &c. &c. &c. &c. 'While each light moment, as it passes by, With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye, Feeds from its baby-hand with many a kiss The callow nestlings of domestic bliss.' _Botanic Garden._

[81] The oldest scholiasts read--

A _dodecagamic_ Potter.

This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous,--but the alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of later commentators.

[82] To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction between _Whale_ and _Russia_ oil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to the Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is indeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to discriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct genera.

[83] One of the attributes in Linnæus's description of the Cat. To a similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus is to be referred;--except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is supposed only to quarrel with those of others.

[84] This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of all our countrymen of being in the daily practice of solemnly asseverating the most enormous falsehood, I fear deserves the notice of a more active Attorney General than that here alluded to.

[85] _Vox populi, vox dei._ As Mr. Godwin truly observes of a more famous saying, _of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally destitute of philosophical accuracy_.

[86] Quasi, _Qui valet verba_--_i.e._, all the words which have been, are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter's progenitor who selected this name seems to have possessed _a pure anticipated cognition_ of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his posterity.

[87] A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic Pantisocratists.

[88] See the description of the beautiful colours produced during the agonizing death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long poem in blank verse, published within a few years. That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual hardening of a strong but circumscribed sensibility, of the perversion of a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding.

[89] It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and Peter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a sort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than Peter, because he pollutes a holy and now unconquerable cause with the principles of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one ridiculous and odious. If either Peter Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more indignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied in the moral perversion laid to their charge.

[90] 'A noticeable man with large grey eyes.'--_Lyrical Ballads._

[91] Dairy-maid to Mr. Gill.

[92] Peter Bell resembleth Harry Gill in this particular:

'His teeth they chatter, chatter, chatter,'

I should have introduced this fact in the text, but that Harry Gill would not rhyme. I reserve this for my blank verse.

[93] Harry Gill was the original proprietor of Barbara Lewthwaite's pet lamb; and he also bred Betty Foy's celebrated pony, got originally out of a Nightmare, by a descendant of the great Trojan horse.

[94] Mr. Sheridan, in his sweet poem of the _Critic_, supplies one of his heroes with as singularly clustering a relationship.

[95] I have here changed the shape of the moon, not from any poetical heedlessness, or human perversity, but because man is fond of change, and in this I have studied the metaphysical varieties of our being.

[96] I have a similar idea in my Poem on finding a Bird's Nest:

'Look! _five_ blue eggs are gleaming there.'

But the numbers are different, so I trust no one will differ with the numbers.

[97] I have also given these lines before; but in thus printing them again, I neither tarnish their value, nor injure their novelty.

[98] See my Sonnet to Sleep:--

'I surely not a man ungently made.'

[99] See my story of the Leech-gatherer, the finest poem in the world,--except this.

[100]

'Ah!' said the Briar, 'blame me not.' _Waterfall and Eglantine._

Also,--

'The Oak, a Giant and a Sage, His neighbour thus address'd.'

[101] '_Long Susan_ lay deep lost in thought.'--_The Idiot Boy._

[102] See what I have said of this man in my excellent supplementary _Preface_.

[103] I cannot resist quoting the following lines, to show how I preserve my system from youth to age. As Simon was, so he is. And one and twenty years have scarcely altered (except by death) that cheerful and cherry-cheeked Old Huntsman. This is the truth of Poetry.

'In the sweet shire of Cardigan, Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall; An old man dwells--a little man-- I've heard he once was tall; Of years he has upon his back, No doubt, a burthen weighty; He says he is threescore and ten, But others say he's eighty.'

These lines were written in the summer of 1798, and I bestowed great labour upon them.

[104] Andrew Jones was a very singular old man. See my Poem,

'I hate that Andrew Jones--he'll breed,' etc.

[105] 'Let thy wheelbarrow alone,' etc. See my Poem to a Sexton.

[106] The reference here and in a subsequent verse is to a song very popular at the time:

'All round my hat I vears a green villow, All round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day, And if any van should arsk you the reason vy I vears it, Say, all for my true love that's far, far away.

''Twas agoin of my rounds on the streets I first did meet her, 'Twas agoin of my rounds that first she met my heye, And I never heard a voice more louder nor more sweeter, As she cried, "Who'll buy my cabbages, my cabbages who'll buy?"'

There were several more verses, and being set to a very taking air, it was a reigning favourite with the 'Social Chucksters' of the day. Even scholars thought it worth turning into Latin verse. I remember reading in some short-lived journal a very clever version of it, the first verse of which ran thus:

'Omne circa petusum sertum gero viridem Per annum circa petasum et unum diem plus. Si quis te rogaret, cur tale sertum gererem, Dic, "Omne propter coroulum qui est inpartibus."'

Allusions to the willow, as an emblem of grief, are of a very old date. 'Sing all, a green willow must be my garland,' is the refrain of the song which haunted Desdemona on the eve of her death (_Othello_, Act IV., Scene 3). That exquisite scene, and the beautiful air to which some contemporary of Shakespeare wedded it, will make 'The Willow Song' immortal.

[107] Madame Laffarge and Daniel Good were the two most talked about criminals of the time when these lines were written. Madame Laffarge was convicted of poisoning her husband under extenuating circumstances, and was imprisoned for life, but many believed in her protestations of innocence--this, of course, she being a woman and unhappily married. Daniel Good died on the scaffold on the 23rd of May, 1842, protesting his innocence to the last, and asserting that his victim, Jane Sparks, had killed herself, an assertion which a judge and jury naturally could not reconcile with the fact that her head, arms, and legs had been cut off and hidden with her body in a stable. He, too, found people to maintain that his sentence was unjust.

[108] The two papers here glanced at were _The Age_ and _The Satirist_, long since dead.

[109] The expression of contemptuous defiance, signified by the application of the thumb of one hand to the nose, spreading out the fingers, and attaching to the little finger the stretched-out fingers of the other hand, and working them in a circle. Among the graffiti in Pompeii are examples of the same subtle symbolism.

[110] Well known to readers of Thackeray's _Newcomes_ as 'The Cave of Harmony.'

[111] Sir Peter Laurie, Lord Mayor; afterwards Alderman, and notable for his sagacity and severity as a magistrate in dealing with evil-doers.

[112] Thin boards.

[113] Burnt.

[114] See the 'six-text' edition of Chaucer.

[115] A town in Spain.

[116] Acquire.

[117] For those that gave him the means to study with.

[118] Care.

[119] Seize upon.

[120] Would not hesitate.

[121] All quotations for the 'Oxford Dictionary' illustrating special uses of English words were written on pieces of paper of a particular size.

[122] Find fault with.

[123] Curious ways.

[124] In accordance with.

[125] Written at the Crystal Palace Aquarium.

Transcriber's Note:

1. Original spelling has been retained.

2. Punctuation errors have been silently corrected.

3. Hyphenated words have been retained as in the original.

4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.

5. Printer's errors in Greek quotations have been corrected:

Εκιᾶς ὄυαρ has been changed to Σκιᾶς ὄναρ in "THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM" on page 157.

Ο δ' Ἔρως χιτῶυα δήσας has been changed to Ο δ' Ἔρως χιτῶνα δήσας. in "LOVE AND THE FLIMSIES" on page 163.