would be a curious experiment to shake the same bough again, and see if the ripe fruit were better or worse than the early windfalls.'- The Autocrat's Autobiography.

40. Dr. Thomas Reid, 1710-1796, principal founder of the Scotch school of philosophy.

49. Body of scientific young men, etc., the Société d'Observation Médicale of Paris, of which M. Louis was president, and MM. Barth, Grisotte, and our own Dr. Bowditch were members. They agreed in admiring their justly honored president, and thought highly of some of their associates, who have since made good their promise of distinction.

About the time these papers were published, the Saturday Club was founded, or, rather, found itself in existence, without any organization, almost without parentage. It was natural enough that such men as Emerson, Longfellow, Agassiz, Pierce, with Hawthorne, Motley, Sumner, when within reach, and others who would be good company for them, should meet and dine together once in a while, as they did, in point of fact, every month, and as some who are still living, with other and newer members, still meet and dine. If some of them had not admired each other they would have been exceptions in the world of letters and science. The club deserves being remembered for having no con. stitution or by-laws, for making no speeches, reading no papers, observing no ceremonies, coming and going at will without remark, and acting out, though it did not proclaim, the motto, "Shall I take mine ease ia mine inn? There was and is nothing of the Bohemian element about this club, but it has had many good times, and not a little good talking.'-Holmes's note.

399. a. 8. Shakespeare and Jonson, etc. The group that was wont to gather in the Mermaid Inn. Strictly it was not a society at all, but frequent gatherings of congenial souls.

10. Addison and Steele, etc. For a long time Addison was a kind of literary dictator gathering about him in the coffee-house of his choice a group of kindred spirits.

12. Johnson and Goldsmith, etc. This was the famous Literary Club of which so much is said in Boswell's Life of Johnson

17. Irvings and Pauldings, etc. The two Irving brothers, Washington and William, together with James K. Paulding, issued in 1807-8 the hilarious magazine Salmagundi. In 1827-30, three other congenial young New Yorkers, Guilian C. Verplanck, Robert C. Sands, and Bryant, edited an annual called The Talisman.

b. 21. Esprit, spirit, wit.

51. Zimmerman, The Treatise on Solitude is not so frequently seen lying about on library tables as in our younger days. I remember that I always respected the title and let the book alone.'- Author's note.

55. William Pinckney, 1764-1822, American lawyer and statesman. Minister to England, 1806-11. 400. a. 23. Know thyself, variously attributed to Bion of Smyrna, Solon of Athens. Thales, etc.

43. Littératrice, a feminine author. It was an agreeable incident of two consecutive visits to Hart

ney.

ford, Conn., that I met there the late Mrs. Sigour The second meeting recalled the first, and with it the allusion to the Huma, which bird is the subject of a short poem by another New England authoress, which may be found in Mr. Griswold's conection.'- Author's note.

b. 16. Babbage's calculating machine. Charles Babbage, born 1792, English mathematician, spent many years and much money perfecting a calculat ing machine which is the parent of many modern devices.

19. Frankenstein monster, an allusion to Mrs. Shelley's romance Frankenstein, The medical stu dent Frankenstein is represented as having discov ered the secret of life and as having succeeded # animating a creature built up out of scraps of the dissecting room,- a monster that fills the rest of his life with terror.

401. a. 30. Phryne, a beautiful Athenian maiden, who, tried on a capital charge, was defended by her lover. When his eloquence could not move the judges, he bade her uncover her bosom and thus secured her acquittal.

32. Non omnis moriar, I shall not wholly die. Horace, Odes III, 30, line 6.

33. I have taken all knowledge, said by Lord Bacon.

b. 11. Verbicide, word-slaughter. 17. Prima facie, at first view.

58. Deodand, a thing given to God. In ancient English law, any chattel, like a cart for instance, that had accidentally killed a man, was forfeited to the king to be applied to pious uses. 402. a. 24. Banquet of Saturn. In the Greek my thology Saturn is represented as having been given his father's kingdom on condition that he should bring up no male children. As a result of this agree ment he always devoured his sons as soon as they were born.

29. Lords Temporal, the secular nobility as of posed to the church officials, Bishops, etc.

...

53. New dragon. . . . Cadmus, an allusion to two Greek legends, the sowing of the dragon's teeth by Jason and the reaping of an army of men there from, and the invention of letters by Cadmus of Thebes.

b. 13. Pons asinorum, bridge of asses, a name sometimes given to the fifth proposition of the book of Euclid, if a triangle has two of its sides equal, the angles opposite to these sides are also equal 'This proposition affords a difficulty to the learner, because it is the first one involving any mathe matical puzzle.'

18. Napoleon never lived, referring to the Hu toric Doubts Relative to Napoleon Bonaparte by Richard Whatley.

403. b. 8. Tupper, and Sylvanus Cobb, junior, Mar tin Farquhar Tupper, author of Proverbial Philoso phy, was somewhat of a joke in staid literary cir cles. Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., 1823-1887, wrote wild and sentimental romances for Bonner's New Yor Ledger.

17. C'est le Dernier pas qui coute, it is the last stroke that counts.

404. a. 39. Cook's Voyages, James Cook, 1728-1779

the English navigator who explored the Pacific, 1772-1775, and 1776-1779.

b. 19. Best passage, etc. The passage referred to is as follows:

Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time, Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe! Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter'd spear Closed her bright eye, and curb'd her high career; Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, And Freedom shrieked -as Kosciusko fell!'

Sarmatia was the ancient name of Poland. 405. a. 10. Smibert, born Edinburgh, 1684. Came to America 1729 and settled in Boston. He was the first portrait painter who came to America from Europe and he painted many of the leading citizens of Boston.

a. 11. Copley, American painter, born in Boston, 1737. His American portraits belong, the most of them, to his earlier life. He spent his last years in London.

24. Stuarts, Gilbert Stuart, American portrait painter, 1755-1828.

41. Malbone, American portrait painter, 1777-1807. 50. Hic liber est meus, conventional Latin for This book is mine.

51. Hogarth, English painter and engraver, 16971764.

52. Barrow, Isaac Barrow, 1630-1677. Anglican divine and scholar. His works were edited by Dean Tillotson in 1683-9.

53. Tillotson, John Tillotson, 1630-1694, Archbishop of Canterbury and greatest preacher of his generation. His sermons, edited by Barker, filled fourteen volumes.

b. 19. Our dear professor, in later editions didascalos, explained later by Holmes to be Profesor James Russell Lowell.

406. a. 52. Hoosac tunnel, a tunnel through a range of the Green Mountains about a mile from North Adams, Massachusetts. It was begun in 1855 and finished in 1875. It is 54 miles long.

53. Cumming, General William Cumming, Union leader in the nullification struggle. His windy quarrel with George McDuffle was greatly caricatured.

54. Miller, William Miller, founder of the sect of the Adventists, or Millerites. He maintained, according to the Scriptures, the world would end October 24, 25, 1844.

407. a. 53. Fioriture (usually used in the plural fioritura) in music, flourishes, embellishments, trills, and turnings.

409. a. 1. Goodwood-cup. The Goodwood racecourse, at the seat of Duke of Richmond and Gordon, near Chichester, Sussex, England, was estab lished in 1802. The principal race at the annual meet was run for the Goodwood cup. Eclipse, Plenipotentiary, etc., are names of race horses in ternationally famous in their day.

2. Au contraire on the contrary.

26. Morgan, one of the most famous breeds of trotting-horses America has produced.

417. Written for the meeting of the class of 1829. January 6, 1859. The member of Congress alluded to was George T. Davis, whom Thackeray declared the most agreeable dinner-companion whom he met in the United States'; the Reverend' was James Freeman Clarke; the Judge' was B. R. Curtis of the Supreme Court of the United States; The Justice' was George T. Bigelow, Chief Justice of Massachusetts; the boy with the grave mathematical look' was Benjamin Pierce, the mathematician of Harvard; the youngster of excellent Pith' was Rev. S. F. Smith, the author of America. That boy laughing' was Reverend Samuel May, the genial abolitionist.

A HYMN OF TRUST

418. As published in the Atlantic it was prefaced thus: 'It was evening, and I was going to the sick-chamber. As I paused at the door before entering, I heard a sweet voice singing. It was not the wild melody I had sometimes heard at midnight: no, this was the voice of Iris, and I could distinguish every word. I had seen the verses in her book; the melody was new to me. Let me finish my page with them.'

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 publication 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.

ISRAFEL

The angel Israfel is described in Sale's "Preliminary Discourse" on the Koran as being one of the four angels who stand highest in God's favor and as having "the most melodious voice of all God's creatures."- Campbell.

26. Houri glances, the Houris, according to Mohammedan belief, are beautiful black-eyed nymphs that inhabit paradise.'

TO HELEN

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.

TO ONE IN PARADISE

This first appeared in Poe's story The Visionary (later entitled 'The Assignation ') in Godey's Lady's Book, January, 1834. The title originally was To Ianthe in Heaven.' To whom it was addressed is unknown.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 423. The opening motto from Beranger may translated,His heart is a suspended lute; as soot as it is touched it resounds.' Undoubtedly ther lines had been the inspiration of the poem • Israfel. 427. a. 44. Von Weber, Karl Maria, Baron vec Weber, 1786-1826, was a German composer, 'iz mous as the creator of romantic opera.'

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

55. The Haunted Palace,' written probably in 1837. It had previously appeared in the Balt more Museum, April, 1839. In a letter to Gris wold in 1841 Poe explained By "The Haunted Palace" I mean to imply a mind haunted by phan toms a disordered brain.'

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 a 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 Di tionary 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 inpression of profound erudition, and so to heighte the effect of mystery and to make still more mor ing the conception the reader was to gain of the deranged hypochondriac at the center of the piece. 431. b. 43. Mad Trist,' a title undoubtedly in vented 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 men tal features discoursed of as the analytical.' l 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 on doubtedly 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 caz tiously.

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 on the orang-outang which had been given him 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.

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

43. 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.'

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.

some

Poe's account of the composition of the poem in his Philosophy of Composition has caused much discussion. That the poem may owe thing 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 secure 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.

445. 47. Plutonian, devoted to Pluto, ruler of the infernal regions.

94. Aidenn, the Arabic Aden, one of the names of the Mohammedan paradise.

ULALUME

446. The best study of the poem with variorum readings, and estimates by various critics is to be found in Campbell's edition of Poe's Poems.

5. Most immemorial year, doubtless 1847. His wife died in January of this year and following her death he was critically ill for several months 6. Auber Weir, names invented by Poe. 14. Scoriac, a word coined by Poe from the name scoria, fragments of lava.

16. Yaanek, invented by Poe. 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 She Ashtoreth with the moon. was often represented by a crescent.

sun;

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.

448. This is generally believed by authorities upon the life of Poe to have been his last poetical composition, written just before he set out his fateful journey to Baltimore. The view universally held to-day among students of Poe is that "Annabel Lee was written in memory of Virginia Clemm, the poet's child wife.'-Campbell.

TOPSY

449. a. 3. Miss Ophelia is a New England woman the embodiment of the Yankee' ideas concerning slavery, who has gone to live with her cousin, Augustine St. Clare, the o ner of a large plantation in the black belt' of the South.

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 written 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 appeared 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 surrounded it. But the winds were contrary, allowing not enough water to flow in to float even the light-draft ships that composed the rescuing armada.

THE FIRE SHIPS OF ANTWERP

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 inevitable.

SYMPATHY

480. The explanation of this poem, given on Emerson's authority, but necessarily somewhat conjectural, is that a reference is made. under the character of the "gentle boy' to the girl with whom both Henry and John Thoreau were in love.'-Sanborn. The poem appeared later in the l'eck on the Concord and Merrimac as a part of the essay on Friendship. In the case of all the poems, save Independence,' I have used the Dial

text.

SIC VITA

481. This poem was reproduced in the Week troduced with the words: It is but thin soil wher we stand; I have felt my roots in a richer en this. I have seen a bunch of violets in a glas vase tied loosely with a straw, which reminded #t of myself.' According to Sanborn: "This peen was written on a sheet of paper wrapped round i bunch of violets, tied loosely with a straw, an thrown into the window of a friend. It was re at Thoreau's funeral by his friend Bronson Akcom

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

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

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

488. a. 32. Mr. Poet, probably William Ellery Channing nephew of Channing, the famous divine. This poet, who was one of Thoreau's most int: mate friends, wrote in later years the biography entitled, Thoreau, the Poet Naturalist. One note: 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, Her mer, 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 estab lishment 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.

b. 9. Presidency of Polk, etc. Polk was presi