THE BRAHMIN CASTE OF NEW ENGLAND 418. This is Chapter I of The Professor's Story, Atlantic Monthly, January, 1860. It was later republished with the title Elsie Venner.

A Brahmin is a member of the sacred or sacerdotal caste of India. From being in the beginning individuals and families distinguished for wis dom, sanctity, and poetic power, they gradually consolidated their influence and became a strictly hereditary class, holding in their hands the ministry of holy things, the custody of the scriptures, and knowledge of their sacred and learned dialect.'

LENORE

as

422. This poem, which perhaps was written early as 1830, was revised by Poe many times. The best study of the variations and of the republishings is to be found in Campbell's edition of Poe's Poems, at present the definitive edition. The pubfication of Lenore in Lowell's Pioneer in 1843 brought him prominently before the New England group of writers. Higginson, could pronounce 'Lenore, as published in The Pioneer perhaps the finest piece of lyric measure in our literature.' And again in his Short Studies of American Authors, while complaining of the later form into which Poe turned the poem, declares that Never in American literature, I think, was such a fountain of melody flung into the air as when Lenore first appeared in The Pioneer.'

15. Peccavimus, we have sinned.

423. The poem was inspired by a boyish devotion of Poe's to Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard, of Richmond, of whom he wrote in later days as the first purely ideal love of my soul,' and again still later, as 'the truest, tenderest of this world's most womanly souls, and an angel to my forlorn and darkened nature.' She died in 1824.

2. Nicaean barks. What this means is uncertain. Critics have ventured many explanations, but at best they give but conjectures. See Campbell's edition of Poe, page 201.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 423. The opening motto from Beranger may be translated, His heart is a suspended lute; as soon as it is touched it resounds.' Undoubtedly these lines had been the inspiration of the poem 'Israfel.' 427. a. 44. l'on Weber, Karl Maria, Baron von Weber, 1786-1826, was a German composer, ⚫íamous as the creator of romantic opera.'

b. 9. Fuseli, Henry Fuseli, 1741-1825, was a Swiss artist who became professor of painting at the Royal Academy, London.

428. a. 26. Porphyrogene, born to the purple. 51. Red-litten, archaic form for red-lighted.

b. 40. Concerning this list of curious books, many of which undoubtedly were merely names to Poe, and some of which do not possess at all characteristics ascribed to them, it is useless to go into detail. One may find the most of them in such a book of reference as the Century Dictionary of Names. To look up carefully, however, each name and allusion would be to defeat the purpose of the writer, which was to give an impression of profound erudition, and so to heighten the effect of mystery and to make still more moving the conception the reader was to gain of the deranged hypochondriac the center of the

at

piece. 431. b. 43. 'Mad Trist,' a title undoubtedly invented by Poe. No such book is known.

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE 432. This story appeared in Graham's Magazine, as the first of a series of analytical stories and was therefore opened with a study of 'The mental features discoursed of as the analytical.' It was this tale that first introduced Poe to the French public.

I have given only a part of the story, the analytical part, since it was this feature of the work that has made it the world classic it undoubtedly has become. Every detail of the story may be gathered from the part that is given. Dupin, the original of the modern Sherlock Holmes, has made a careful examination of the rooms where the murder was committed, has completed his analysis and now discloses his findings to his friend, who is the prototype of the Dr. Watson of the Sherlock Holmes tales.

432. b. 43. Je les ménagais, I humored him cautiously.

433. a. 18. Outré, strikingly odd.

435. a. 30. A posteriori, argument based upon that which follows, or is subsequent. Argument from effect to cause.

438. Dupin's conjectures quickly become certainty. The detective has put an advertisement in the papers requesting the owner of an orang-outang to come and claim his property. A sailor appears

and, confronted by the evidence given by Dupin, tells the whole story. He had just arrived from the East Indies and he had had with him a pet orang-outang which had been given him on the voyage by a dying companion. On the morning in question the animal had been watching its master while he was shaving, had seized the razor and had made a bolt into the street. The sailor had pursued and the orang-outang had climbed the lightning-rod, leaped into the room Occupied by the two women, and had gone through the motions of shaving the elder lady. Made frantic by the screams and the struggles of the women and by the excited voice of the sailor who had climbed the rod, he had completed the atrocities and had escaped.

HAWTHORNE'S TWICE-TOLD TALES

441. The first issue of Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales was in 1838. The 1842 issue was in two volumes.

442. b. 21. De Béranger, French lyric poet, born 1780; died 1857.

30. In medio tutissimus, ibis, literally, 'You go safest in the middle course.'

443. a. 39. Ratiocination, the process of reasoning, of deducting conclusions from premises.

b. 9. Blackwood, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, established in 1817.

29. John Neal, (1793-1876) was once ranked by Poe as 'at all events, second among our men of indisputable genius.' A man of great energy, he wrote many historical novels, and in his own words produced material of all kinds that would amount to a hundred octavo volumes at least.'

44. Clique, French for set, gang, or party. 444. a. 4. The omitted matter consists of brief criticisms of eight of the tales: Wakefield,' The Wedding Knell,' The Minister's Black Veil,' 'Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe,' 'Dr. Heideg ger's Experiment,' 'The White Old Maid,' 'The Hollow of the Hills,'Howe's Masquerade,' with several illustrative quotations.

In Godey's Lady's Book, November, 1847, Poe under the title Tale-Writing,' a review of Haw

thorne's Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse, expands his theory of the short story and the short poem. See Harrison's Virginia edition of Poe, Vol. 13, page 141.

THE RAVEN

Poe's account of the composition of the poem has caused in his Philosophy of Composition' much discussion. That the poem may owe something to an obscure poet named Chivers, and also something to Mrs. Browning and to Coleridge need trouble no lover of Poe. The Raven' is unique and its place is as as is that of even The Ancient Mariner.' 28. Lenore, the name, a favorite one with Poe, introduced here however, to rhyme with 'more' and nevermore,' was derived from the well-known ballad by the German poet Burger.

secure

37. Astarte's, undoubtedly referring to the moon, though in his poem 'Eulalie' he had used it as referring to the planet Venus. Astarte was

the Greek for the goddess Ashtoreth, the female counterpart of Baal. Baal was associated with the sun; Ashtoreth with the moon. She was often represented by a crescent.

39. Diana, in Roman mythology was the goddess of the moon.

447. 95. Griswold omitted this last stanza from the 1850 edition of Poe, and most later editors have followed him.

VIEWS OF DIVINE GOVERNMENT 458. While in reality this is an essay on the peculiarities of the early Puritanic social system of New England, it is a chapter from a novel· · Chapter 23 of The Minister's Wooing. 458. b. 48. Dr. Hopkins, Rev. Samuel Hopkins, 1721-1803, a theologian greatly influential in his day. He held pastorates at Housatonic, Massachusetts, and Newport, R. I. His chief work was his System of Theology, 1791.

49. Edwards the Younger, Jonathan Edwards, son of the more distinguished Jonathan Edwards, who was at his death the President of Princeton College. Edwards the Younger, (1745-1801), was president of Union College from 1799 until his

death.

459. b. 37. President Edwards, Jonathan Edwards the Elder, (1703-1758) who preached his famous sermon 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' while pastor of the Congregational Church at Northampton, Mass.

460. a. 1. David Brainerd, (1718-1747) a missionary to the Indians. His biography was wrtten by Jonathan Edwards in 1749.

THE RELIEF OF LEYDEN

462. The first siege of Leyden by the Spanish army under Valdez was begun May 26, 1574. As August drew to an end the besieged had reached the point of desperation. Then on September 1 ap. peared the Zealand fleet under Admiral Boisot and to allow it to approach the city the dykes were cut and the ocean let in upon the low lands that sur rounded it. But the winds were contrary, allowing not enough water to flow in to float even the light-draft ships that composed the armada.

rescuing

466. Chapter V of The United Netherlands tells of the attempt in 1584 just after the death of the Prince of Orange that the Prince of Parma made to capture Antwerp the hinge on which the fate of the whole country, perhaps of all Christendom, was to turn.' The extract given recounts one of the episodes of the siege. Parma did what the Netherlanders considered impossible, threw a great bridge across the Schelde River and thereby seemed to render the capture of the city inevi table.

SIC VITA

481. This poem was reproduced in the Week in troduced with the words: It is but thin soil where we stand; I have felt my roots in a richer ere this. I have seen a bunch of violets in a glass vase tied loosely with a straw, which reminded me of myself.' According to Sanborn: This poem was written on a sheet of paper wrapped round a bunch of violets, tied loosely with a straw, and thrown into the window of a friend. It was read at Thoreau's funeral by his friend Bronson Alcott.'

INDEPENDENCE

482. The last fourteen lines of this poem had originally appeared in the Dial of October, 1842, under the title The Black Knight.'

18. Noblest, nobles of' in the Dial version. 28. In the Dial this line reads, Only the promise of my heart.'

WALDEN

483. b. 44. Gave not of the text, etc. The Canterbury Tales, The Prologue,' lines 77, 78. 484. a. 5. Philanthropic, a play here on the Greek etymology of the word,- phil from the meaning love or lover and anthropic, from the Greek meaning man.

b. 47. Kirby and Spence, The Introduction to Entomology, by William Kirby and William Spence, appeared in 1815-26 and was long the leading authority upon its subject. 485. b. 41. Ebriosity, a rare word. Inebriety is commonly used.

486. a. 1. The Ved, or Veda, from the root word meaning knowledge or science, the name given to the books which contain the Hindu sacred literature. Thoreau had early become interested in Oriental literature and had read widely in the various sacred books of the East as is evidenced everywhere in his book A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers.

Ellery

488. a. 32. Mr. Poet, probably William Channing nephew of Channing, the famous divine. This poet, who was one of Thoreau's most inti mate friends, wrote in later years the biography entitled, Thoreau, the Poet Naturalist. One notes in this dialogue between the Hermit and the Poet that Thoreau has read and loved Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler.

490. b. 48. Luther, Blanchard, Buttrick, Davis, Hosmer, who figured in the fight at Lexington and Concord. Thoreau, living as he did at Concord, would naturally know intimately all the details of the battle.

491. a. 35. Hotel des Invalides, a famous establishment in Paris founded in 1670 for disabled and infirm soldiers.

45. Huber, François Huber, died 1831, Swiss naturalist.

46. Eneas Sylvius, better known as Pope Pius II, 1458-64.

dent 1845-1849. The Fugitive-Slave Bill was passed by Congress in 1850.

494. a. Franklin. Sir John Franklin died in the Arctic regions in 1847. During the following ten

years thirty-nine relief expeditions were sent to find him. In 1857 Lady Franklin sent an expedi tion under Capt. McClintock which was able to find evidences of the total destruction of the Franklin party and their equipment.

4. Grinnell, Henry, an American merchant fitted out at his own expense one of the expeditions which went in search of Franklin.

6. Mungo Park, explorer who died in Africa in 1806. Lewis and Clark, in charge of the exploring expeditions sent by the Government to explore the northwest of the United States., 1804-06.

7. Frobisher, English navigator, died 1594. 50. Symmes' Hole. An eccentric theory was propagated early in the century by one Symmes that the earth is hollow and can be entered at the poles.

495. a. 41. Extra-vagant, a play upon the etymology of the word,- Extra, Latin for beyond, and vagant from the Latin to wander.

b. 26. Kabir, a Hindu religious reformer. His teachings were an interpretation of the older Hindu and Mussulman philosophies and were greatly influential.

497. a. 43. Tintinnabulum, from the Latin meaning bell. See Poe's The Bells, Line 11.

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS

The Biglow Papers were introduced to the public by a subterfuge of the same general nature as that employed by Irving for his Knickerbocker's History of New York. The book purports to be poetic effusions sent by one Hosea Biglow, an illiterate Yankee youth, for publication in the Boston Courier. Before they were sent away, however, they were represented as being scrutinized by the learned minister of the young poet's town Jaalem, Parson Homer Wilber, A. M., who loads them with ponderous editorial explanations and learned notes.

501. b. 27. Tenues in auras, into thin air.

28. Longum iter, etc., through precept the road is long, through example short and efficient, or more freely, To teach by precept is a slow process, to teach by example is swift and sure. 502. a. 14. Aliquid sufflaminandus, erat, To some extent he should be restrained.

16. Aqua fortis, nitric acid.

23. Est ars etiam maledicendi, there is an art even in slandering, or in speaking evil.

1. Guvener B., George N. Briggs, Governor of Massachusetts 1844-1851. During the campaign of 1847, the campaign referred to in the poem, he ran on the Whig ticket against General Cushing who was then in Mexico. Briggs won by a ma. jorty of 14,060.

5. Johr, P. Robinson, 1799-1864, an influential member of the Whig party who made a great sensation in 1847 by going over to the Democratic side and supporting Cushing.

15. Gineral C. Caleb Cushing, Commander of Massachusetts troops in Mexico, and candidate for Governor on the Democratic ticket.

22. Goes in fer the war. The war with Mexico was opposed by the New England abolitionists. In the introduction to the second series of the Biglow Papers, 1866, Lowell wrote: Thinking the Mexican war, as I think it still, a national crime committed in behoof of slavery, our common sin, and wishing to put the feeling of those who thought as I did in a way that would tell, I imagined to myself such an up-country man as I had often seen at antislavery gatherings, capable of district-school English, but always instinctively falling back into the natural stronghold of his homely dialect when heated to the point of selfforgetfulness.'

503. a. 31. Patriae fumus, etc. The smoke of one's own fatherland is brighter than the flame in a foreign land.

34. Ubi libertas, ubi patria, where there is liberty there is my fatherland.

b. 6. Quasi noverca, as a stepmother.

difficulty they secured passage on the British mail steamer Trent. On November 8, 1861, Commodore Wilkes of the U. S. sloop of war San Jacinto halted the Trent, took off the ambassadors and their secretaries, and transferred them to the Federal prison at Boston. The event caused great excitement in England and the British government demanded that immediate liberation of the four men together with a suitable apology for the aggression could alone satisfy the British nation. The men were accordingly liberated, but no apology was offered. The action was explained in the words of a contemporary editorial in Harper's Weekly: they were surrendered 'because it was infinitely better that we should endure a certain amount of humiliation at the hands of Great Britain than that we should jeopard the great cause of the Union by throwing the naval power of England into the rebel scale.'

516. 373. Vattel, 1714-1767, Swiss diplomat, author of The Law of Nations, a famous treatise on international law.

413. Abram thought 't was right. 'Lincoln acknowledged that the seizure of Mason and Slidell was a violation of the rights of Great Britain as a neutral, and on the first of January, 1862, released the commissioners.'

445. Fibre o' cotton. The blockade of the Southern ports stopped the shipment of cotton to England and caused great distress in the manufacturing centers of the kingdom. It was largely on account of the cotton that the working people of England were inclined to sympathize with the South.

COMMEMORATION ODE

in

518. Lowell read this poem at the memorial exercises held July 21, 1865, to commemorate, Lowell's words, the ever sweet and shining memory of the ninety-three sons of Harvard College who died for their country in the war of nationality.' 519. 147. Stanza VI was not read at the commemoration exercises but was written and added shortly afterwards.

520. 236. Thinking of dear ones. In a privately printed edition of the Ode, 1865, Lowell gives the names of eight of his relatives who were among the dead: General Charles Russell Lowell, Lieutenant James Jackson Lowell, and Captain William Lowell Putnam were of the poet's own family.

262. Section IX, as it is usually printed in the later editions of the poem, did not appear in the Atlantic Monthly which is the text most nearly like that actually read by Lowell at the original occasion.

48. An Elzevir, a book printed by the celebrated Dutch firm of Elzivir in the seventeenth century. Copies are now rare and valuable.

55. Anthology, literally a collection of flowers, but now used as the name of a collection of the finest things of literature.

56. aia, an exclamation of extreme grief or hor ror found in Greek tragedy. 533. a. 2. Bruyère, born 1645, a French moralist. 535. b. 22. Cervantes, hero of Don Quixote, perhaps the supreme idealist of all literature. 536. b. 49. Hervey, undoubtedly James Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs, 1745, a work very popular during the eighteenth century.

b. 57. Seneca was a stoic; Voltaire's view of life was cynical.

537. a. 7. Martial, born 43 A. D., is known chiefly for his biting epigrams.

DICKENS READING

551. The Easy Chair was begun in Harper's Magazine by D. G. Mitchell in October, 1851, and was conducted by him until it was taken over by Curtis in 1854. Except during two months in 1875 when he was sick and when T. B. Aldrich wrote the papers so completely in Curtis's style that no one suspected any change, the genial Howadji had full control of the department until his death in 1892. The Chair was then discontinued for eight years. In December, 1900, W. D. Howells brought back the Chair and up to the present time (1919) has occupied it with rare grace and wisdom.

Dickens was twice in America. He came over in January 1842, returning the following July, and he came again in November, 1867, read in most of the larger cities and returned early the next May.

551. b. 21. Schnuspel. In Book II. ch. 3, Carlyle wrote: O, if all Yankee-land follow a small good "schnuspel the distinguished Novelist" with blaz ing torches, dinner-invitations, universal hep-hep-hurrah, feeling that he, though small. is something: how might all Angle-land once follow a heromartyr and great true son of Heaven!' 553. a. 50. Dickens' American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit, written after his first tour, had been not at all flattering to Americans.

b. 31. The speedy end. Dickens died June 9. 1870. The hardships and exposures which he endured during the severe winter which he passed in America undoubtedly shortened his life.

RIP VAN WINKLE

554. Joseph Jefferson's dramatization of Rip Van Winkle was made in 1859 and long was one of the most popular of American plays.