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A TENNYSON DICTIONARY

THE CHARACTERS AND PLACE-NAMES CONTAINED
IN THE POETICAL AND DRAMATIC WORKS
OF THE POET, ALPHABETICALLY
ARRANGED AND DESCRIBED

WITH SYNOPSES OF THE POEMS AND PLAYS

By
ARTHUR E. BAKER, F.R.Hist.S., F.L.A.,

Author of
“A Brief Account of the Public Library Movement in Taunton,” “A Concordance to the Poetical and Dramatic Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson,” etc.

LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD
New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO

Dedicated
To the Memory of
CLARA,
Who, after an illness borne with fortitude and patience,
passed away on May 31st, 1914.

The success which has attended the publication of my Tennyson Concordance in 1912, has prompted me to undertake the compilation of this Dictionary.

The book is intended as a work of reference for all lovers of Tennyson’s works. Its principal function is to identify and describe the multitudinous characters, place-names, etc.—whether fictitious or historical—created or utilized by the Poet; anything, therefore, in the nature of criticism is entirely outside its scope.

The two chief features claimed for this compilation are brevity and accuracy. The Synopses furnish a short explanatory account of the Poems and Plays, and the Dictionary proper a short description of the characters and place-names, together with the names of towns, rivers, horses, birds, flowers, etc. In all there are some 2,040 entries.

A list of the books consulted or quoted throughout the work is appended; and for the valuable information obtained from them I take this opportunity of expressing my acknowledgments.

A. E. B.

ACHILLES OVER THE TRENCH.

A rendering of the Iliad xviii. 202, recounting the help given to Achilles by Pallas and the consequent rout of the Trojans.

ADELINE.

Five stanzas written to a certain ‘spiritual Adeline’ to describe her charms.

AKBAR’S DREAM.

A supposed conversation in blank verse between Akbar, the great Mogul who ruled India from 1565 to 1605 A.D., and his intimate friend Abul Fazl. The poem is prefaced by a quotation from the writings of Abul Fazl. Akbar was one of the most tolerant rulers who ever lived. No creeds were condemned by him, and he invented a new religion which aimed at being a sort of epitome of the best in all beliefs. In this poem, he tells Abul Fazl that the cause of a temporary depression is the shadow cast by an evil dream. He then expounds his theory of life and religion to Abul. His opinion is that God is in all creeds and that the one intolerable thing is intolerance. But now and then a doubt asserts itself—as when he is troubled by dreams such as the one that he has recently dreamed. In it, he thought he had built

in which people of all creeds might worship, and in which might dwell

But while he and Abul stood looking at, and rejoicing in their work there was tumult, and in burst Akbar’s well-loved son Saleem, and slew both his father and Abul. ‘Death’ however ‘had ears and eyes,’ and Akbar saw his son despoiling the fair building and ruining a life-work. After a time came some people from the west, ‘an alien race,’ and again built up the law of toleration and equity, abolishing such monstrous practices as súttee and child-marriage. The poem ends with a morning hymn to the

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ALEXANDER.

A Sonnet to Alexander, describing him as

ALL THINGS WILL DIE.

A lament that the inevitable end of all things, however beautiful and full of life, is death. Even the blue river, and the south winds will cease,

AMPHION.

The supposed writer of this rather merry poem had been left a park by his father. The poem voices his regret that he was not born in the days when ‘Old Amphion’ sat down and sung, and ‘left a small plantation;’ In those days, Nature was

and trees sprang up at the twanging of a fiddle. But ‘in such a brassy age’ as the present, ‘months of toil, And years of cultivation’ are needed to make

ANCIENT SAGE.

An ancient sage gives a young man of fashion good advice in the form of a commentary on a despairing song which the latter had written. The youth is bidden to give up pleasure, and devote himself to temperance and good works.

AUDLEY COURT.

A short poem in blank verse. The writer and his friend ‘Francis Hale, the farmer’s son,’ are crowded out of the Bull and the Fleece Inns, and so are forced to picnic at Audley Court. After they have eaten of home-made bread and pastry, they discuss politics, the king, and matters nearer home. Lastly, they end the picnic by entertaining one another with songs. Francis sings a song, the refrain of which is ‘Let me live my life,’ while his friend’s choice falls upon a mournful song of one Ellen Aubrey. After this the two friends return at nightfall to the quiet town

The poem was suggested by Abbey Park at Torquay, and closes with a description of Torquay, as it was in Tennyson’s youth, ‘the loveliest sea-village in England.’

AYLMER’S FIELD.

A narrative poem in blank verse. The story is supposed to have been told to the writer by an old vicar of the place where the events narrated in the story took place. Sir Aylmer Aylmer was a typical [Pg 3]country squire. He lived in a magnificent house, and took great pride in his ancestry. The Aylmers had always been friendly with the vicars of the place—an office which was always held by the eldest son of the Averill family, and so descended from father to son with great regularity. At the time the story opens, sir Aylmer and his wife had an only daughter, just five years younger than Leolin Averill, the younger brother of Averill Averill, who was then vicar. Leolin and Edith Aylmer grew up together, and as they grew older their childish comradeship changed to love. Sir Aylmer suspected nothing—indeed he deemed it impossible that an Averill should dream of linking himself with an Aylmer. One day, however, he overheard some conversation between his daughter and Leolin Averill which revealed the fact that they were indeed lovers. He and his wife rated their daughter severely, and forbade Leolin to have anything more to do with her. Leolin, in a passion of grief and anger, sought his brother Averill and confided to him his intention of making a great name and returning to marry Edith. In accordance with this resolve he went to London and worked at the law, occasionally receiving letters, secretly sent, from Edith. But one day sir Aylmer intercepted one of these letters and the correspondence was stopped. Edith, denied all intercourse with her lover, gradually pined and died. On the day of her death, Leolin was found stabbed by his own hand with a dagger Edith had given him. The elder Averill preached a savage indictment of the cruel parents from the text, ‘Behold your house is left unto you desolate.’ The passionate sermon wrought such remorse in sir Aylmer and his wife that they, too, died. Aylmerston in Norfolk is said to be the scene of the poem.

BALLAD OF ORIANA.

Describes a soldier’s woe, who after pledging his troth to the beautiful Oriana, went bravely into battle, only to see his betrothed, who was watching him from the castle, pierced through the heart by an arrow.

BANDIT’S DEATH.

The bandit carries a woman to his cave after murdering her husband, Piero. She lives in hatred of the murderer, but her dislike is lessened by the arrival of a son. With the police on his track, the Bandit accidentally strangles the child as he utters a cry. He is sorry for his action, but the woman, her loathing revived, stabs him as he sleeps, and cutting off his head, puts it in a cloth, and carries it away with her.

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BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH.

Describes the defeat and slaughter of the army of Anlaf and Constantius the traitor, by Athelstan and his brother Edmund.

BEAUTIFUL CITY.

A short description of Paris, ‘the centre and crater of European confusion.’

BECKET.

A play in blank verse in five acts preceded by a Prologue.

BEGGAR MAID.

A fair beggar maid came [Pg 5]barefooted before king Cophetua, who so admired her beauty that he swore an oath that he would make her his queen.

BLACKBIRD, THE.

The writer, unlike his neighbours, welcomes the blackbird into his garden, but laments the fact that, in the spring, the bird’s beautiful song is seldom heard, as he is too intent on feeding.

BOÄDICEA.

An ‘experiment’ describing how queen Boädicea

Her speech is a wild denunciation of the Roman tyrants of Britain and a fierce call to arms. In answer to her exhortation the people arose, and

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK, ETC.

The writer, as he watches the sea ever breaking against the rocks, envies the fisherman’s boy and the sailor lad who are both happy, while he longs

The scene of the poem is Clevedon Church, which overlooks the Bristol Channel.

BRIDESMAID, THE.

A sonnet describing how the bridesmaid, who shed tears at her sister’s wedding, was comforted by the assurance that she too, would make a happy bride.

BROOK, THE.

A poem in blank verse describing the memories aroused in a certain Lawrence Aylmer by the sight of the brook he has known since childhood. Here he parted with a poet friend, and here too, he met with Katie Willows, whose father Philip he kept occupied with talk while Katie met her lover. But now

Just as this conclusion is reached, the old dreamer looks up and is astonished to find himself face to face with a girl so like the old Katie that he is startled and inquires her name. ‘Katie Willows’ she says, and explains the seeming miracle by stating that she is the daughter of Katie Willows the first, but now returned from Australia. Through the poems runs the well-known lyric, beginning:

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the supposed reply of the brook to the poet’s question

BUONAPARTE.

A patriotic sonnet to Napoleon glorying in the way Britain

‘taught him lowlier moods’ at Trafalgar and in Egypt.

BY AN EVOLUTIONIST.

The soliloquy of a man who has reached old age with his animal strength, and being largely decayed but

CAPTAIN, THE.

A ‘legend of the Navy’ in ballad metre. This short poem is the story of a sea captain who earned the hatred of his crew by his cruelty, and yet thought to

One day he sighted a ship of France, and gave orders to advance towards her and give battle. The crew waited till they were alongside and then allowed the enemy to shoot them down and destroy their ship, thus revenging themselves on their cruel captain at the cost of their own lives.

CARESS’D OR CHIDDEN BY THE SLENDER HAND.

One of the early sonnets, describing how

CHARACTER, A.

Five stanzas, half playful description of man who

CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE AT BALACLAVA.

A stirring practical description of ‘that ride into the Russian column.’

CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

A graphic description of the famous charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, when, owing to an improperly given command, six hundred cavalry rode to almost certain death in a hopeless attempt to capture the Russian guns.

CHARITY.

A woman, whose lover deserts her to marry an heiress, finds out what true charity is, when, after the husband has been killed in a railway accident, the young widow helps and tends her in her hour of need.

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CHURCH-WARDEN AND THE CURATE, THE.

An amusing poem in dialect in which a churchwarden, formerly a Baptist, gives some useful advice to a young curate. It was suggested by a story told to the poet by the Rev. Canon Rawnsley. The story is thus:

‘I returned to my father’s parish, Halton Holgate, near Spilsby, in Lincolnshire, from my ordination, and found my father’s churchwarden, G. R., upon the platform. He saw I had a white tie on, and he said cheerily, “Well, Mr. Rownsley, I can seä by that white thing round youre throat that they’ve gone and maäde a parson on you!”

‘“Well well,” he added, “God Omighty knows theer mun beä parsons as well as farmers, and you’d be a fool i’ the crewyard along o’ the beästs, I reckon, and I should mebbe beä as big a fool in the pulpit o’ Sunday. Now, doant be stunt, I’m youre feyther’s churchwarden, and I’m goäin’ to giv’ you a bit o’ my moind.”’

Rawnsley: Memories of the Tennysons.

CIRCUMSTANCE.

A single stanza tracing ‘two children in two neighbouring villages,’ through their life to the second generation and ending with the reflection

CITY CHILD, THE.

Two stanzas describing the ‘city childs’—‘the dainty little maidens’—desire for the pleasures of the country.

CLARIBEL.

Two stanzas descriptive of the beautiful bower ‘where Claribel low-lieth.’

CLEAR-HEADED FRIEND, WHOSE JOYFUL SCORN.

Three stanzas, addressed to a friend, who, the poet declares, ‘will not live in vain’ and goes on to predict a glorious future for his evidently gifted friend.

COLUMBUS.

A speech put into the mouth of Columbus. He has discovered a new world and is now dying in chains for his pains. He is evidently speaking to a court noble come to visit him. He tells of all his struggles to convince people that the earth was a sphere, of the inward certainty, through all, that he was chosen of God to do his great work for Spain, and of his vow that whatever wealth he brought from the new world should be used in a Crusade. He bitterly resents his chains and the worthless men who have entered into the heritage of the land he discovered. Nevertheless, the poem ends on a fine note of patriotism:—

COME NOT, WHEN I AM DEAD.

Two stanzas in which the poet exhorts his child not to come to weep over his grave but to

CROSSING THE BAR.

The beautiful and last poem beginning

in which the poet compares his own death to the outgoing of a ship over the harbour bar into the open sea.

CUP, THE.

A tragedy in blank verse in two acts.

The theme of the tragedy is taken from Plutarch’s Moralia.

DAISY, THE.

A memory, written at Edinburgh, of what was apparently a honeymoon journey in Italy. [Pg 9]The writer—writing to his companion of the journey—recalls all the beautiful things they had seen together in Italy and how, as they were leaving the country, he plucked a daisy to give her—

Though he is now ‘ill and weary, alone and cold,’ the daisy, in fancy, takes him once more to his love’s side in Italy.

DAWN, THE.

A poem in five stanzas, prefaced by a quotation from an Egyptian priest—‘You are but children.’ The poet expresses the view that the present is but the dawn of time—

All time till present has been but ‘red of the Dawn’ and now it is but ‘turning a fainter red.’ The Day, that is to see a better race of men, is yet to come.

DAY-DREAM, THE.

A young man deeply in love with the Lady Flora, tells her his vision of the ancient legend of the Sleeping Beauty. He describes, in beautiful language, the Sleeping Palace and the Sleeping Beauty within it, who is awakened, after a hundred years, by a kiss from the Fairy Prince, who thus breaks the spell and sets the palace buzzing with renewed life and activity. The Prince then rides off with the Princess, and both are happy in their love for one another.

The Moral, the young man says, is hard to find, but many people would find a meaning suited to their minds, and ‘to hook it to some useful end’ would ‘cramp its use.’

He goes on to reflect on the pleasantness of falling asleep for some time and waking up to find things bettered and fresh wonders to behold. He says that he would gladly slumber for a hundred years himself, if, at the end of that time he could awake the Lady Flora with a kiss.

DEAD PROPHET, THE.

A fierce attack upon those who make dead famous men into ‘copy,’ dissecting their lives with a keen eye under the pretence of reverence for the dead. The poem is the story of an imaginary ‘dead prophet’ and the indignities heaped upon his body by the old hag ‘Reverence.’

DEATH OF ŒNONE, THE.

The beautiful shepherd-prince, Paris, husband of the nymph Œnone, had been chosen by the gods to judge which of the three goddesses Herè, Pallas or Aphroditè, was the most beautiful, and to award a golden apple to his choice. Aphroditè [Pg 10]promised him the beautiful Helen of Troy to wife if he would give her the apple. He did so, and deserted Œnone for Helen, thus causing great war and bloodshed. In this poem the poet tells the story of his return, sore wounded, to be cured of his mortal hurt by Œnone, who refuses pity to him who had no pity for her. Paris then falls dead, and is reverently cremated by the shepherds who had known him in his youth. At dawn, Œnone, who all night has been troubled by the vision of her husband’s disfigured face, goes forth, and, finding a smouldering funeral pyre inquires for whom it has been built. On hearing whose body lies there, she casts herself upon the pyre and, remembering only her early happiness, dies with her husband.

DEATH OF THE DUKE OF CLARENCE AND AVONDALE.

An address to the mourners for the Duke of Clarence, who died just before his projected marriage to the princess May. Tennyson bids the mourners ‘mourn in hope’ for

DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR, THE.

A lament for the old year—here personified as an old man dying at the stroke of twelve, while the new year is spoken of as ‘his son and heir,’ who ‘blithe and bold’

DEDICATION, A.

A dedication of some writing given by the author to a very dear friend, exhorting him to

through all mistrust, and scorn and criticism.

DEDICATORY POEM TO THE PRINCESS ALICE.

A short dedication of the Defence of Lucknow to the dead princess Alice, daughter of queen Victoria. The poet makes the princess’s known patriotism a pretext for dedicating

at her dead feet.

DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW.

A patriotic poem descriptive of the gallant defence of Lucknow by a ‘handful of men’ written as though the writer had been one of the besieged army. At the end of every stanza is the triumphant refrain

The poem describes in vivid [Pg 11]language the horrors of the siege, the death of the Commander ‘Lawrence, the best of the brave,’ and the unbounded joy of the whole garrison at the appearance of a relieving force with Havelock and Outram in command.

Lucknow was one of the decisive sieges of the Indian Mutiny.

DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE.

A monologue spoken by Demeter the earth-goddess at the return of her daughter Persephone from the dark home of her husband, the monarch of Hades. Persephone, according to the Greek legend of the Spring, had been stolen away while playing in a field, and taken to be the bride of ‘dark Aïdoneus,’ king of Hades. But so great was Demeter’s sorrow for her child that she neglected to bless the land with increase. So Zeus decreed that for nine months in the year Persephone should live with her mother—the other three to be spent with her husband in the underworld. Demeter, however, is but ‘ill-content,’ and looks forward to the time when Persephone shall spend the whole year with her. The theme is taken from Ovid.

DE PROFUNDIS.

A poem in two parts, named respectively The Two Greetings and The Human Cry. The first part is subdivided, and contains a father’s greeting, first, to the physical being of his child, after the ‘nine long months of antenatal gloom,’ and secondly to the spiritual being of the child ‘half-lost In thine own shadow and this fleshly sign.’ The Human Cry is a shorter poem in two stanzas. In it, the poet voices the adoration of man towards God—

DESERTED HOUSE.

A short poem in five stanzas, describing—in the simile of a deserted house—a dead body. It is called a house from which

The last verse is an expression of the hope of immortality—

Nevertheless the human longing also finds voice in the last line—

DESPAIR.

A man and his wife having lost faith in a God and hope of a life to come, and being miserable in this, resolve to end themselves by drowning. The [Pg 12]woman is drowned, but the man rescued by a minister of the sect he had abandoned.

DIRGE, A.

A poem in seven stanzas the refrain of which is ‘Let them rave.’ The dead need be troubled by no discordant voices—

for the grave is quiet and only

DORA.

A narrative poem in blank verse, founded on a story in Miss Mitford’s Our Village. In it, the poet tells the story of a man who brought up his brother’s daughter with his own son. He had planned a marriage between them, and when the time was ripe he broached the subject to his son William, who refused to marry his cousin Dora, and left his father’s house to marry a certain Mary Morrison. The indignant father forbad Dora to see or communicate with William or his wife or child. William died in poverty, leaving his widow and small son. Dora helped them by stealth, and at last persuaded Mary to let her have the child in the hope that her uncle’s heart might be moved to compassion. But after he had agreed to adopt the boy he sent Dora away in great anger. Mary, however, refused to allow Dora to sacrifice herself for the sake of the boy, and they went together to ask for the child again. The father was so moved by his daughter-in-law’s appeal and by the winsomeness of his grandson that he was reconciled to Dora and Mary—

DOUBT AND PRAYER.

A short prayer in which the poet prays God

Through sorrow and even sin, the soul finds God, but the poet here prays that death may not come to him

DREAMER, THE.

A certain man dreamed he heard the lament ‘a voice of the Earth’ of one who said—

The dreamer thought he answered with a song, counselling the wailing voice to remember that—

DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN, A.

The poet had been musing on Chaucer’s Wild Tales till he imagined himself living in the [Pg 13]past. This poem is an account of the dream that followed. The poet dreamed he was in a wood in which he met with many fair dead women—Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Jephtha’s daughter, and Fair Rosamond. They each told him of the joys and sorrows of their respective lives, and he was at last awakened by Cleopatra’s sharp scornful taunt of Rosamond for having so ‘tamely died.’ The dreamer closes the poem with the regret that he awakened before he had seen other fair women—

or Joan of Arc, or Eleanor of Castile.

DYING SWAN, THE.

A description in two stanzas of the wonderful death-song of a swan. Tennyson apparently believed the popular saying that ‘a swan only sings at its death.’

EAGLE, THE.

Six lines, descriptive of a view seen from a mountain top by an eagle.

EARLY SPRING.

A ‘Spring Song’ in eight stanzas.

EDWARD GRAY.

A ballad, containing the story of Edward Gray who was beloved by Ellen Adair. He, however,

In his absence she pined and died. Edward Gray is untouched by the lovableness of other women—his heart is buried with Ellen Adair.

EDWIN MORRIS.

This poem is the story of a man who stayed for nine months by a lake. While here he made friends with ‘Edwin Morris and Edward Bull the curate.’ Also, he fell in love with a millionaire’s daughter, Letty Hill. One evening he was found making love to Letty, and her relatives forbad him the place, and married her

They then brought a lawsuit against Letty’s lover, and he left the place

ELEÄNORE.

A poem in eight stanzas written in praise of a ‘Serene, imperial Eleänore!’

ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1782.

A short poem addressed to England personified as ‘Strong mother of a Lion-line.’ The writer bids England be proud [Pg 14]of the American rebels who

ENOCH ARDEN.

A long narrative in blank verse. In it, the poet tells the story of Enoch Arden. He and Philip Ray—the miller’s son—lived in a seaside town and both loved Annie Lee. She flirted impartially with both, but at last Enoch won and married her, for ‘Philip loved in silence.’ Enoch was a sailor’s orphan and pursued his father’s trade. When two children had been born to him, Enoch’s good fortune deserted him. He broke a limb in an accident and lost his job. As he lay recovering he was haunted by the thought of his wife and children starving because he was unable to work for them. Then came an offer from the captain of a China-going vessel to take Enoch as boatswain and he went, first selling his boat to provide money for Annie and bidding them all a sorrowful farewell. After his departure, the third and sickliest child was born, but scarcely lived a few weeks. Philip Ray, who had not seen Annie since Enoch left, thinking to be of comfort to her, asked her to let him educate the remaining boy and girl as Enoch would have wished. Annie consented and Philip became a second father to her children, though scruples kept him from seeing Annie often. But the years went by and Enoch did not return, and at last Philip convinced Annie that Enoch was dead, and they were married. A child was born, and they were very happy. Meanwhile Enoch was not dead, but prospering much. After he had made and lost a fortune, Enoch at last returned to his native town, eagerly anticipating seeing Annie again. He learned from a gossip called Miriam Lane of Annie’s marriage with Philip. The news was too much for his already failing strength, and he died without making himself known to Annie, first giving Miriam Lane a curl of his son’s hair, which Annie had given him—to give the boy’s mother.

EPIC, THE.

An introduction to the beautiful Morte d’Arthur. On Christmas Eve four college friends sat about the fire and wine after the rest of the guests had departed. They talked of the decay of Christmas customs and of the Christian religion. One of their number, Everard Hall, was known at college as a toper and a poet of parts. His friends laughingly inquired of [Pg 15]him what he had done with an epic he had written about king Arthur. He replied that he had burnt it, deeming it of little interest. One of the young men had, however, rescued the eleventh book from the flames and forthwith produced it. The poet was then constrained to read the Morte d’Arthur.

EPILOGUE.

A short poem dedicating ‘the Sleeping Beauty’ series of poems to a certain ‘Lady Flora.’

EPITAPH ON CAXTON.

Written for the Caxton window in St. Margaret’s. The poet praises Caxton as a seer praying for ‘Light more light,’ but seeing only the glory and not the disadvantages of the spread of learning.

EPITAPH ON GENERAL GORDON.

Written for the cenotaph in Westminster Abbey. The poet addresses Gordon as ‘Warrior of God,’ whose bones lie in the far-away Soudan.

EPITAPH ON LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

Lines written in memory of this enthusiastic admirer of Tennyson and friend of Byron.

FAITH.

Two stanzas encouraging men to

FALCON, THE.

A play in blank verse in one scene. Count Federigo degli Alberighi has been in love with the Lady Giovanna since she was fifteen. He had gone to the war, thinking she cared nothing for him, and in his absence and believing him dead she had married another. She is now a widow with one son, and Federigo is living with his old nurse and foster-brother in poverty—having sold all his possessions to give gifts to Giovanna. To the consternation of the inmates of Federigo’s cottage, the lady appears one morning announcing that she will stay for breakfast. There is nothing in the larder, and Federigo reluctantly gives an order to kill his much loved falcon for the lady’s entertainment. He is horrified—when the bird is dead—to learn that she had come to beg no other thing than the falcon for her son who is sick. All, however, ends well with a mutual declaration of love and a hopeful certainty of the boy’s recovery. The theme of the story is taken from Boccaccio’s Decamerone.

FAREWELL, A.

Four stanzas in which the poet bids farewell to a ‘cold rivulet’ ‘for ever and ever.’

FAR-FAR-AWAY.

A song written for music with a refrain ‘far-far-away.’

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FATIMA.

A woman’s passionate love-song. She enumerates the delights of her love and her longing for her lover’s coming and ends with a determination to

FIRST QUARREL, THE.

A narrative poem, written in dialect in the first person. The narrator is a woman who tells the story of her life to a sympathetic friend. She is an Isle of Wight girl. When quite a young girl she was the sweetheart of a boy of the same village. When the boy—Harry—began to grow up, a farmer relative sent for him and after saying good-bye to Nelly—the girl—he went to Dorsetshire to work on his kinsman’s farm. While there, he got into trouble with another girl. But when he returned, he and Nelly were married and were very happy. Work, however, ‘was scant in the Isle,’ and Harry crossed the Solent in search of employment. He wrote his wife saying he had got a six weeks’ job and was coming back to kiss her good-bye on the following day. While she was tidying the house ready for his return, she came across a box containing a letter written to Harry by the other girl. This so angered her that she would have nothing to say to her husband when he came in and refused to be mollified by his gentle assurances of love and trust, and the complete deadness of the past. After trying in vain to reassure her, Harry leaves her, and she refuses to say good-bye. He sends her a letter to say he had work in Jersey and is going by the boat that night—‘and the boat went down that night.’ So the first quarrel proved the last.

FLEET, THE.

Lines written in praise of the British Navy after a newspaper attack upon it.

FLIGHT, THE.

A girl rouses her sister on her wedding morning, and they fly together from a hateful marriage proposed by a mercenary father.

FLOWER, THE.

A ‘fable’ of one who sowed a seed that, grown into a flower, was dubbed a weed. It grew tall and beautiful, the seeds were in demand, it became easy to get and so again a weed.

FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL.

A fragment, in which the poet declares his conviction that

FORESTERS, THE.

A play in blank verse in four [Pg 17]acts. The plot is adapted from the legends of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. It opens with the outlawry of Robin by Prince John, Regent for Richard I, and ends with the return of Richard and the marriage of Robin and Marian.

FORLORN.

A short poem in which a mother chides her daughter for contemplating a marriage of which she is unworthy.

FORM, THE, FORM, THE.

An early sonnet in which the frivolous soul of a ‘slight coquette’ is described.

FRATER AVE ATQUE VALE.

Lines written in praise of Catullus—‘tenderest of the Roman poets.’ This poem was written while Tennyson was staying in Italy, and contains descriptions of lake scenery.

FREEDOM.

A political poem in which the poet gave expression to his conviction that innovations and reforms should be gradually introduced.

GARDENER’S DAUGHTER, THE.

An artist tells the story of his love for the gardener’s daughter, and shows a picture of her in her youth. A narrative poem in blank verse.

GOD AND THE UNIVERSE.

Two stanzas in which the poet expresses his fear of God and imagines God to reply reassuringly.

GODIVA.

A poem in blank verse in which the poet tells the story of the sacrifice made by Lady Godiva on behalf of the people of her husband’s city, Coventry.

GOLDEN YEAR, THE.

An account, in blank verse, of a poet who wrote some verses anticipating the return of the golden age. A friend of the poet declares

GOOSE, THE.

A short humorous poem. An old woman is given a goose—which lays golden eggs—by a stranger. After prospering, she grows tired of the clatter made by the goose and drives it out to the original owner.

GRANDMOTHER, THE.

A monologue in which an old woman who has outlived all her children recounts the chief events of her life to a grandchild. The poem was suggested in a letter from Benjamin Jowett giving the saying of an old lady, ‘The spirits of my children always seem to hover about me.’

HANDS ALL ROUND.

A ‘convivial lyric’ in which the poet calls for healths to be [Pg 18]drunk to England, her colonies and other friendly powers.

HAPPY.

The words of the wife of a leprous Crusader who has been formally separated from the community. The wife refuses to leave him, and swears that she will live and die at his side.

HAROLD.

A five-act play in blank verse. The plot is concerned with incidents happening between Harold’s—then earl of Wessex—first setting out for Normandy, where he was to swear the rash oath to help William of Normandy to the English throne, and the defeat of the English and death of Harold at the battle of Senlac, 1066.

HELEN’S TOWER.

Lines written at the request of Lord Dufferin for the Tower built in memory of Helen, mother of Lord Dufferin. The poet expresses in these lines his conviction that were the ‘granite girth’ of the Tower as strong as the love between mother and son which caused it to be built, it would endure ‘Doomsday fire.’

HENDECASYLLABICS.

An experiment in ‘a metre of Catullus’ addressed to ‘you chorus of indolent reviewers,’ and humorously conveying the poet’s request and critics to be lenient to the new metre.

HIGHER PANTHEISM, THE.

A short poem expressing the poet’s belief in the ‘Immanence of God in the Universe.’ The poem contains the beautiful and well-known couplet

IDYLLS OF THE KING.

An epic series of poems founded on Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.

IF I WERE LOVED, AS I DESIRE TO BE.

An early sonnet in which the poet declares that, with love at his desire, he would fear nothing in heaven or earth.

IN MEMORIAM, A. H. H.

A long poem in a unique metre written to the memory of the poet’s greatest friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, who died at Vienna. The body was brought back to be buried at Clevedon—the home of the Hallams. The poem contains Tennyson’s expressed thoughts on Life and Death and God and Man, as well as his passionate grief and love for Arthur Henry Hallam.

IN MEMORIAM, WILLIAM GEORGE WARD.

Six lines beginning—

IN THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL.

A nurse’s description of the illness and eventual death under an operation of a little girl in a children’s hospital.

IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON.

A lament for three dead friends, memories of whom are revived by the garden where they had walked with the poet.

IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ.

The poet’s memories of a dead friend who had formerly been with him at Cauteretz.

ISABEL.

Three stanzas in praise of Isabel—a pattern of purity and holy calm.

ISLET, THE.

A woman urges her lover to go with her to a beautiful island he has described for her. He refuses because

JUNE BRACKEN AND HEATHER.

Nine lines, dedicating a book to a friend who has

[Pg 22]

KAPIOLANI.

Six stanzas in praise of Kapiolani, chieftainess of the Sandwich Isles, who defied the priesthood of the Island goddess, Peelè, and so won the people to Christianity.

KATE.

Two stanzas in which is described a lady who bears strong resemblance to Shakespeare’s Kate—the Shrew.

KRAKEN, THE.

A sonnet describing some sort of horrible sea monster called the Kraken.

LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE.

Nine stanzas addressed by a poet to a certain nobly-born but haughty lady. He assures her that

LADY CLARE.

A narrative poem. Lady Clare discovers on the eve of her marriage that she is not lady Clare, and that the real owner of her lands and wealth is her husband-to-be. She hastens to tell him the truth. He appreciates her honesty but declares that he will marry her and that she shall ‘still be Lady Clare.’

LADY OF SHALOTT, THE.

The story of a mysterious lady who viewed the outer world solely through the medium of a mirror, because a curse would fall upon her if she ever looked through the window. She fell in love with the reflection of sir Lancelot as he passed towards Camelot, and, risking the curse, allowed a boat to carry her down stream in the same direction. She presently arrived at Camelot—a corpse. An Italian romance upon the Donna di Scalotta is said to have suggested this poem.—Palgrave’s Lyric Poems of Tennyson.

LEONINE ELEGIACS.

In praise of ‘sweet Rosalind.’

LETTERS, THE.

Six stanzas in which the poet tells the story of a man and woman, formerly affianced, separated by slanders. The woman returns his letters, but he replies with such a burst of invective against her whole sex, that he frightens her into a reconciliation that ends in marriage.

LILIAN.

Four stanzas in which the poet praises ‘Airy, fairy Lilian.’

LITERARY SQUABBLES.

A short lament that such things as petty strife between literary men should exist.

[Pg 23]

LOCKSLEY HALL.

The soliloquy of a rejected lover. He recounts the incidents of his courtship, the ambitions of his youth, and the plans he has formed to induce forgetfulness of his unhappy love. These are rejected, and he leaves Locksley Hall—the scene of his courtship—with a noble resolution to live his life worthily.

LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER.

A sequel to Locksley Hall. The young lover has now become an old man and the changes wrought by age are emphasized by the poet.

LORD OF BURLEIGH.

The story of the marriage of a village girl with the Lord of Burleigh and of her subsequent death from the effects of

LOTOS-EATERS, THE.

Some mariners find an enchanted isle ‘In which it seemed always afternoon.’ Bewitched by the magic lotos plant, they grow weary of wandering and declare that they ‘will no longer roam.’ The poem is founded on Odyssey ix. 82 seq.

LOVE AND DEATH.

A few lines in which the poet recounts the meeting of Love and Death and the former’s declaration—

LOVE AND DUTY.

A blank verse poem. Two lovers, parted by their sense of duty, contemplate a lonely future with a faint hope of love’s fulfilment in some future age.

LOVER’S TALE, THE.

Argument. Julian, whose cousin and foster-sister Camilla, has been wedded to his friend and rival Lionel, endeavours to relate the story of his own love for her and the strange sequel. He speaks of having been haunted by a vision and the sound of bells tolling for a funeral, and at last ringing for a marriage; but he breaks away overcome, as he approaches the event, and a witness to it completes the tale in the Golden Supper. Eleven months after her marriage to Lionel, Camilla, supposedly dead, is borne to the vault. Julian, going for a last farewell to his cousin, finds her alive. After some time has passed he gives a great feast, at which he contrives the meeting of Lionel and the wife he had thought dead.

LOVE THOU THY LAND.

An exhortation in the metre of In Memoriam to a wise love of England.

LUCRETIUS.

Lucilla, wife of Lucretius, dissatisfied with her husband’s attitude towards herself, bought a love-philtre and mingled it with his drink. It, however, [Pg 24]clouded his brain with insane fancies, and in a fit of madness he committed suicide, to the despair of his repentant wife.

MADELINE.

Three stanzas in praise of ‘Ever varying Madeline.’

MAKING OF MAN, THE.

Two stanzas in which the poet expresses a belief in the—as yet incompleted—evolution of man.

MARGARET.

Five stanzas in praise of ‘Sweet pale Margaret.’

MARIANA.

A poem in which the forlorn state of Mariana in waiting for her faithless lover is described. The character and circumstance are taken from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.

MARIANA IN THE SOUTH.

Another description of the sad betrothed of the faithless Angelo in Measure for Measure.

MAUD: A MONODRAMA.

A morbid man grows to love Maud the playmate of his youth. She, too, loves him. But he quarrels with her brother, she dies and he goes away. After her death, he is ill and for a time loses his reason, and fancies himself dead. He at length comes to a better frame of mind and finds consolation in fighting for his country. Part of the poem—the verses beginning ‘Come into the garden, Maud’—has been set to music and is well-known as a song.

MAY QUEEN, THE.

A poem in three parts. In the first a young girl requests her mother to call her early in the morning of may-day for she is to be may-queen. In the second part—called New Year’s Eve—the former may-queen supposes herself to be dying, and bids farewell to her mother with many regrets for the happy life she leaves. In the Conclusion, however, she is still alive though it is spring time again. She thinks that her death really is near and declares herself glad to go where

MECHANOPHILUS.

A short poem written in the time of the first railways. The poet marvels at present invention and anticipates great things to come.

MERLIN AND THE GLEAM.

Merlin speaks, though all his life he has had for guidance the gleam—a lodestar revealed to him by the great magician and prophet who has taught him his Art.

MERMAID, THE.

Three stanzas, descriptive of an imaginary mermaid loved by many mermen and married by a sea-king.

[Pg 25]

MERMAN, THE.

The poet’s idea, expressed in a poem of three stanzas, of the merry life of a merman under the sea.

MILLER’S DAUGHTER, THE.

A man happily married to a miller’s daughter goes through his former life in retrospect with his wife—now growing old with him. He says that his life has been so happy that

MILTON.

An experiment in Alcaics. The poet praises Milton in glowing words.

MINE BE THE STRENGTH OF SPIRIT.

A sonnet expressing the poet’s desire for a spiritual strength corresponding with the tremendous strength of a river in the physical world.

MINNIE AND WINNIE.

A ‘child-song’ beginning—

and ending with—

MONTENEGRO.

A sonnet to Montenegro, which is thus addressed—

MORTE D’ARTHUR.

A beautiful description in blank verse of the mysterious passing and last words of the British hero-king.

MOVE EASTWARD, HAPPY EARTH.

A fragment in which the poet exhorts the earth to move eastward more quickly in order that his wedding day may come the sooner.

MY LIFE IS FULL OF WEARY DAYS.

A dying man bids farewell to his friend and leaves the last request—

NORTHERN COBBLER.

A dialect poem in which the Northern Cobbler tells a friend the story of how he cured himself of drunkenness.

NORTHERN FARMER, OLD STYLE.

A poem in dialect. A northern farmer who is failing, has been visited by doctor and parson and is equally scornful of both. He reviews his life and decides to disregard the doctor and take his beer as usual. The poem was suggested by a story told to the poet by his great-uncle of a Lincolnshire farm-bailiff, [Pg 26]who on his death-bed said: ‘God A’mighty little knows what He’s aboot, a-takin’ me, an’ ’Squire ’ll be so mad an’ all!’

NORTHERN FARMER, NEW STYLE.

A dialect poem in which a more modern northern farmer gives his son advice as to marriage—

The poem was suggested by the remark of a rich neighbour, ‘When I canters my ’erse along the ramper I ’ears proputty, proputty, proputty.’

NOTHING WILL DIE.

One of the poet’s earlier efforts in which he declares that though the world may change yet nothing will die.

OAK, THE.

Three short stanzas in which the poet exhorts his readers to imitate in their own lives the stages in the life of an oak tree.

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

A beautiful funeral ode, on the death of the great duke. The poet expresses an ‘Empire’s lamentation,’ recounts the great deeds and fine qualities of the duke and ends with the prayer

ODE SUNG AT THE OPENING OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.

An Ode written for the opening of the Exhibition. The poet regrets that the Prince Consort—upon whose suggestion the Exhibition was founded—had succumbed to an attack of typhoid fever, and foreshadows the time when the ‘arts of peace’ shall have entirely superseded for all time the ‘works of war.’

ODE TO MEMORY.

An invocation to Memory which the poet personifies as a friend with whom—

ŒNONE.

The very beautiful lament of the nymph Œnone, deserted by her lover, the shepherd-prince, Paris. She relates the story of the Three Goddesses and Paris’s judgment in favour of Aphroditè and of the consequent love of Paris for Helen of Troy. Œnone ends her tragic story with the declaration

OF OLD SAT FREEDOM ON THE HEIGHTS.

A five stanza poem in which [Pg 27]Freedom is described, personified as ‘Grave mother of majestic works.’

ON A MOURNER.

A poem in seven stanzas in which the poet describes the ways in which Religion and Nature combine to console a mourner.

ON ONE WHO AFFECTED AN EFFEMINATE MANNER.

Four lines, the gist of which seems to be—‘man woman is not woman man.’

ON THE JUBILEE OF QUEEN VICTORIA.

Eleven stanzas in which the poet recounts the glories of the Queen and of her reign, and ends with a forecast of a happy future.

ON TRANSLATIONS OF HOMER.

An experiment in Hexameters and Pentameters.

OPENING OF THE INDIAN AND COLONIAL EXHIBITION BY THE QUEEN.

Lines written by the poet, as Laureate, for the royal opening of the above Exhibition.

OWD ROÄ.

An old native of the North of England tells his son—in dialect—the story of the way in which ‘old Rover’ saved his (the son’s) life in a fire. The grateful father declares that his intention is ‘to maäke ’is owd aäge as ’appy’ as he possibly can. ‘Owd Roä’ is the northern version for Old Rover. The poem is the poet’s version of a report that he had read in a newspaper about a black retriever which saved a child from a burning house.

OWL, THE.

A song in two stanzas addressed to a white owl who ‘in the belfry sits.’

PALACE OF ART, THE.

‘A sort of allegory’ in which the poet tells the story of a gifted soul who had a passion for Beauty que beauty—‘Art for Art’s sake.’ She dwells for some time secure in a palace of perfect beauty but is at length cast out to bemoan her error in excluding Love from her scheme of life.

PARNASSUS.

A description in three stanzas of the Mountain of the Gods. The poem is prefaced by a quotation from Horace.

PLAY, THE.

A quatrain descriptive of the gradual unwinding of the plot of a drama.

POET, THE.

A short poem setting forth the mission of a Poet.

POET’S MIND, THE.

Two stanzas, beginning—

The poet goes on to describe the nature of a poet’s mind and warns off all alien spirits from what he declares is ‘holy ground.’

[Pg 28]

POET’S SONG, THE.

Two stanzas in which the effect of the song of a poet on birds and beasts is described.

POETS AND CRITICS.

An exhortation to poets bidding them disregard critics and

In two stanzas.

POETS AND THEIR BIBLIOGRAPHIES.

Tennyson congratulates the ancient poets that they lived

POLAND.

An early sonnet expressing a passionate sympathy with the woes of Poland.

POLITICS.

A short poem of a single stanza addressed to

i.e., politicians, exhorting them not to be swayed by the cries of the multitude.

PREFATORY POEM TO MY BROTHER’S SONNETS.

A poem written as a preface to the dead poet’s dead brother’s sonnets. It contains tender memories of the dead and earnest hopes that the living poet may follow the example of the dead one.

PREFATORY SONNET TO THE ‘NINETEENTH CENTURY.’

A sonnet as described in the title.

PRINCESS, THE: A MEDLEY.

A story in blank verse—interspersed with lyrics of great beauty—of a certain princess Ida ‘proxy wedded’ in infancy to a neighbouring prince. The princess however, on attaining marriageable age, elects to found a college for women from which men are rigidly excluded. To this house of learning the prince and his two friends gain access disguised as girls, would-be students. After many amusing adventures, the sex of the three friends is discovered and the prince woos and weds Ida after all.

PROGRESS OF SPRING.

A poem in nine stanzas describing the gradual coming of Spring to its full perfection.

PROLOGUE TO GENERAL HAMLEY.

Lines addressed to Sir Edward Hamley as a prologue to The Charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava. The short poem is descriptive of the visit of General Hamley to Aldworth and the fine autumnal view from that place.

PROMISE OF MAY, THE.

A play described as a ‘Village Tragedy.’ The hero—a selfish libertine—among other wickednesses, seduces and then deserts [Pg 29]a village girl. After many years he returns to the scene of his crime, determined to make reparation by marrying the surviving elder sister, and rescue her old father from ruin. But the girl whom he had betrayed long ago appears, and with her dying forgiveness, awakes in her seducer a true repentance, such as he had not felt before. The magnanimity of the father completes his moral salvation, and he quits the scene to make expiation by lifelong contrition.

QUEEN MARY.

A five-act play in blank verse, setting forth the tragedy of the reign of Mary Tudor, of her bigoted Roman Catholicism, of her piteous childless marriage with Philip of Spain, and of her painful illness and final death. The tragedy ends with the accession of Elizabeth.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

An early poem in which the poet describes the imaginary adventures of a boy after reading the Arabian Nights.

REQUIESCAT.

Two quatrains in memory of a woman who died while young. The poet is sure that

REVENGE, THE.

A stirring ‘Ballad of the Fleet,’ in which the poet tells the story of Sir Richard Grenville’s single-handed achievement, when his flagship, the little ‘Revenge,’ fought a fleet of fifty-three Spanish galleons for a day and a night before the death from wounds of the heroic Sir Richard, with these words on his lips—

The materials of this ballad were drawn from a ‘Report’ of the fight by Sir Walter Raleigh.

RIFLEMEN FORM!

A recruiting song written to encourage the volunteer movement, before it was properly started.

RING, THE.

A blank verse poem in the form of a conversation between father and daughter on the latter’s wedding morning. The father gives his child the ring which had belonged to her dead mother, and tells the legend which endowed it with certain magic powers. He then relates the full story of the ring’s effect in his own life and that of his daughter’s mother and stepmother.

RIZPAH.

A poem in seventeen stanzas, in which a criminal’s mother, [Pg 30]on her deathbed, tells a woman the story of her son’s crime, his death by hanging and her own theft of his bones in order to bury them in holy ground. She ends with a confident trust in God’s mercy—

The poem was suggested by a story, which appeared in a magazine entitled Old Brighton, of a young man named Rooke who was hanged in chains for robbing the mail in the eighteenth century. ‘When the elements had caused the clothes and flesh to decay, his aged mother, night after night, in all weathers, and the more tempestuous the weather the more frequent the visits, made a sacred pilgrimage to the lonely spot on the Downs, and it was noticed that on her return she always brought something away with her in her apron. Upon being watched, it was discovered that the bones of the hanging man were the objects of her search, and as the wind and rain scattered them on the ground she conveyed them to her home. There she kept them, and, when the gibbet was stripped of its horrid burden, in the dead silence of the night she interred them in the hallowed enclosure of Old Shoreham Churchyard.’

ROMNEY’S REMORSE.

Romney, in his youth, was told that ‘wife and children drag an artist down,’ so he deserted his young wife and child. In this poem the dying Romney expresses his remorse and implores the forgiveness of the wife, who heaps coals of fire upon his head by nursing him when he comes to her in his last illness.

ROSALIND.

A song to Rosalind—whom the poet likens to a bright-eyed falcon—in three stanzas.

ROSES ON THE TERRACE.

The sight of the roses on the terrace brings to the poet memories of a courtship fifty years old.

SAILOR BOY.

A song of a boy who went to sea in obedience to his irresistible desire, and in spite of all ‘danger of the roaring sea.’

ST. AGNES’ EVE.

A beautiful poem in three stanzas. The young virgin-martyr, St. Agnes, soliloquizes on the eve of her death.

ST. SIMEON STYLITES.

The Saint, who spent ‘thrice ten years’ on the top of a column to expiate his sins, in this poem makes his last prayer to God.

ST. TELEMACHUS.

The story, in blank verse, of an heroic man, who in the time of gladiatorial combats in Rome, came from the East to stop these [Pg 31]murderous exhibitions. He was stoned to death, for daring to enter the arena to stop the people’s pleasure. But the emperor forbade such combats for the future.

SEA DREAMS.

A narrative in blank verse. A man—bitter at the loss of money—his wife and infant daughter go to stay at the sea-side. The man and wife dream of the coast, wake, recount their dreams, and the man is prevailed upon to forgive a preacher of the town, against whom he bore a grudge, but who has died suddenly. The slumber song ‘What does little birdie say’ occurs in the poem.

SEA-FAIRIES.

A short poem in which the poet describes the legendary syrens of the sea and their enchanted singing which lured mariners on to dangerous rocks. The theme is taken from Homer.

SILENT VOICES, THE.

The poet beseeches the ‘silent voices’ of the dead to urge him forward—‘On! and always on!’—not drag him back.

SIR GALAHAD.

A short poem in which king Arthur’s youngest and purest knight describes himself and his quest for the Holy Grail.

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

Lines on the cenotaph in Westminster Abbey. The poet praises the ‘heroic sailor-soul’ of the great Arctic explorer.

SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, LORD COBHAM.

Soliloquy of Lord Cobham—one of the earliest protestants—who was burnt for heresy on Christmas Day, 1417.

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

A fragment—a description of king Arthur’s Queen and her lover, Sir Launcelot, as they ride through the woods in Spring.

SISTERS, THE.

A short poem. One of two sisters is seduced by an earl, and after death is avenged by the death of the earl at the hands of the surviving sister.

SISTERS, THE (EVELYN AND EDITH).

A narrative in blank verse. A man tells the story of his love for two sisters. He married one but was never able to make up his mind which he cared for most. His wife was alienated from him by hearing of his former wooing of her sister—since dead.

SNOWDROP, THE.

A single stanza in which the poet welcomes the first appearance of the ‘February fair maid.’

SONNET TO——.

The poet here seems to believe in a former existence, for [Pg 32]he writes in this sonnet to a friend that at the first meeting—

SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE.

Translation into stirring blank verse of Iliad viii. 542–561.

SPINSTER’S SWEET-ARTS, THE.

A dialect poem. The soliloquy of an ‘old maid’ who has named her cats after her one-time sweethearts. She speaks to the cats as though they were indeed the men, and reminds them of her young days of courtship.

SPIRIT HAUNTS THE YEAR’S LAST HOURS, A.

A song in two stanzas in which the poet laments the passing of the old year.

SPITEFUL LETTER, THE.

The soliloquy of a poet on receiving a ‘Spiteful Letter’ from a jealous fellow-poet.

SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND.

Morbid, self-centred reflections about the relation of the soul to God. An early poem.

TALKING OAK, THE.

A youthful poet obtains an account of the doings—in his absence—of the girl he loves from an oak gifted with speech. In return for the information he vows to honour the oak in prose and rhyme and make for his bride a chaplet of oak-leaves. A playful narrative in quatrains.

THIRD OF FEBRUARY, 1852.

Lines written on the political situation at this time. The poet regrets with scorn the suggestion of the House of Lords that English politicians should curb their ‘honest censure’ in order to placate France, who, at this time, was regarded as somewhat of a menace to England.

THROSTLE, THE.

A short set of verses in which the poet sets words to the music of the song-thrush and hails the bird as a ‘wild little poet.’

TIRESIAS.

Tiresias, as a young man, had looked upon Pallas Athene as she came from the bath. He was blind from that time, but also gifted with a fatal gift of prophecy to which none would give ear. In this poem the old and dying Tiresias tells his son the story of his life, and prophesies the ruin of Thebes unless the young man will fight bravely for the city of his birth. The poem was suggested by the Phœnissæ of Euripides.

TITHONUS.

A soliloquy in blank verse, in which Tithonus regrets bitterly the irrevocable gift of immortality [Pg 33]bestowed on him by the gods. The story is told in the Homeric Hymn to Aphroditè.

TO ALFRED TENNYSON, MY GRANDSON.

Lines written to ‘golden-hair’d Ally,’ grandson and namesake of the poet, who is addressed as a ‘Glorious poet who never hast written a line.’

TO DANTE.

Lines written at request of the Florentines. The poet casts at Dante’s feet his tribute of verse.

TO E. FITZGERALD.

Lines written on the death of Edward Fitzgerald, an old and close friend of the poet. In these lines Tennyson introduces a hope of eternal life into his sadness at his friend’s death.

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE.

Lines to a friend who had apparently sent the poet vivid accounts of Greece, for Tennyson declares himself to be transported in spirit to the Greece of the Golden Age. ‘E.L.’ was Edmund Lushington, who married Tennyson’s sister.

TO H.R.H. PRINCESS BEATRICE.

Lines written on the marriage of princess Beatrice, daughter of queen Victoria. The poet rejoices that the princess’s marriage will not entirely separate her from her widowed mother.

TO J. M. K.

A sonnet written to a ‘soldier priest.’

TO J. S.

Lines written to a friend on the death of a brother, who was also a friend of the poet.

TO MARY BOYLE.

Lines written to accompany a copy of The Progress of Spring, sent by the poet to induce his friend to leave London for his own country home.

TOMORROW.

A narrative poem. An old woman recognizes the body of a young man laid in an Irish churchyard as that of the lover of her girlhood days. The man had been lost in a peat bog, and the peat had preserved the body perfectly.

TO ONE WHO RAN DOWN THE ENGLISH.

Four lines in which the poet expresses his hope that the fears of one who depreciated the English may prove false.

TO PROFESSOR JEBB.

Three stanzas dedicating Demeter and Persephone to Professor Jebb.

TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.

Lines to the ‘Patriot Statesman’ in which the poet urges wisdom, foresight and courage.

[Pg 34]

TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA.

Viceroy of India. The poet praises the virtues of the marquis and mourns for Lionel Tennyson, who died in India, and whose memory brought to the poet affectionate memories of lord Dufferin.

TO THE MASTER OF BALLIOL.

Lines written to dedicate The Death of Œnone to the Master of Balliol.

TO THE PRINCESS FREDERICA OF HANOVER ON HER MARRIAGE.

A marriage blessing in which the poet assures the Princess that her dead father’s blessing is upon her.

TO THE QUEEN. I.

A Dedication to queen Victoria of the poet’s collected poems—‘this poor book of song.’ The poem was written on the occasion of Tennyson’s appointment as Poet Laureate, 1850.

TO THE QUEEN. II.

An epilogue to The Idylls of the King, in which with fervent loyalty the poet begs her to accept them as a tribute to the memory of

He prays for blessings for the Queen and England.

TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE.

An invitation to pay a visit to the poet and his family sent by Tennyson to the godfather of Hallam Tennyson.

TO THE REV. W. H. BROOKFIELD.

A sonnet written at the death of an old Cambridge friend. The poet recalls past companionship and prays a blessing for the dead.

TO ULYSSES.

Lines sent by the poet to W. G. Palgrave. Ulysses was the title of a book of Palgrave’s Essays, descriptive of Travels. This poem conveys the poet’s pleasure in this book of Palgrave’s Essays—a ‘various book’—in thanks for which he sends ‘a gift of slenderer value,’ a book of his own.

TOURNEY, THE.

The story of a knight who was victorious in a tourney and won his lady-love. A short poem in three stanzas.

TO VICTOR HUGO.

A sonnet written to Victor Hugo, after Lionel Tennyson had visited the French poet in France.

TO VIRGIL.

A poem in ten stanzas. Tennyson salutes the ancient poet as the

TO W. C. MACREADY.

A sonnet addressed to the [Pg 35]actor on his retirement from the stage.

TO —— WITH PALACE OF ART.

Lines in which the poet dedicated his ‘sort of allegory,’ to a friend who ‘will understand.’

TWO VOICES, THE.

The poem is an account of the agitations, the suggestions, and counter-suggestions of a mind sunk in hopeless despondency, and meditating self-destruction; together with the manner of its recovery to a more healthy condition.

ULYSSES.

A short poem. The soliloquy of the aged Ulysses expressing his unconquerable love of adventure. He leaves his son to manage his kingdom and sets forth once more on his voyaging with undiminished zest. The theme of the poem is from Dante’s Inferno, Canto XXVI.

VASTNESS.

A poem in which the poet declares the whole Creation to be simply an unmeaning vastness unless interpreted by the doctrine of the immortality of life and love.

VICTIM, THE.

A narrative poem. An ancient kingdom was ravaged by plague and famine. The priests consulted the gods and declared that only the sacrifice of the ‘nearest and dearest’ to the king would appease their wrath. The priests took the king’s only son, but at the last moment the queen substituted herself for her son, declaring that she was the dearest to the king.

VILLAGE WIFE, THE.

A poem in Lincolnshire dialect, in which an old ‘village wife’ tells the story of an old book-loving, impractical squire, whose estate was entailed, and was to come to the nearest male relation, passing over the squire’s many daughters. The death of the squire and his only son at the same time leaves the daughters entirely unprovided for, and a stranger becomes squire and owner of the estate.

VISION OF SIN, THE.

A poem in which the poet recounts a vision of a purely sensual soul. It may have been suggested by Shelley’s Triumph of Life.

VOICE AND THE PEAK, THE.

The Peak signifies height, the voice of the Peak is drawn downwards, for ‘the deep has power on the height,’ but the ‘thought of man’ is higher and deeper than either, and will endure long after

VOICE SPAKE OUT OF THE SKIES, A.

A fragment. A heavenly voice declares that the earth will [Pg 36]endure but for a moment. The poet in answer to a beggar’s cry for food, reflects that if the Voice speak truth, the giving and receiving of food is of very little moment.

VOYAGE, THE.

A poem in twelve stanzas. The story of an endless voyage in the wake of a vision—

VOYAGE OF MAELDUNE, THE.

The story of a legendary Irish Chief who called his men together to sail with him to the Isle of Finn to avenge the death of his father. They reached the Isle, but were blown away before they could land. They continued their voyage and landed at various magic islands in all of which they fought. After a while they came to the Isle of Brendan, who blest them and bade them ‘Let the past be past,’ so when they reached the Isle of Finn where the murderer of Maeldune’s father was, they forewent revenge and left the murderer alive.

WAGES.

‘The wages of sin is death,’ but, says the poet, the wages of virtue is ‘the glory of going on.’ Two stanzas.

WALKING TO THE MAIL.

A conversation in blank verse between two men walking to the mail. They discuss a neighbour and politics, and their own youthful doings.

WANDERER, THE.

Four stanzas in which a ‘wanderer’ bids farewell to his friends and passes on.

WAN SCULPTOR, WEEPEST THOU TO TAKE THE CAST.

A sonnet in which the poet contrasts the grief of a sculptor or painter making a portrait of some dead friend with the greater grief of one who mourns the death of love itself—more generous than the death of love’s object.

WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA, A.

A poem written to welcome the young and beautiful Danish bride of the Prince of Wales—afterwards Edward VII. It is full of enthusiasm and praise for the young Princess, now the Queen-mother.

WELCOME TO H.R.H. MARIE ALEXANDROVNA, DUCHESS OF EDINBURGH.

Another poem of welcome for a bride. It was written at the time of the marriage of the duke of Edinburgh with the Russian princess Marie Alexandrovna.

WILL.

Two stanzas in which the poet praises the man who possesses a strong will and pities the man whose will is weak.

[Pg 37]

WILL WATERPROOF’S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.

A monologue of a wine-loving man, seated in his favourite tavern. It is a discourse upon wine and the purely physical pleasures of life, in light, humorous verse.

WINDOW, THE.

A song cycle ‘in the German fashion’ written for music of sir Arthur Sullivan. The story is a series of little songs of the loves of two wrens.

WINDS, AS AT THEIR HOUR OF BIRTH, THE.

A song, in two stanzas, of the freedom of the winds.

WRECK, THE.

A woman, unhappily married, escapes by sea with a more congenial lover than her husband. She is haunted by memories of her only child, and when, after ten days, the boat is wrecked and her lover killed, she cries to be taken back to it. Her remorse comes too late, as the child died on the night of the wreck. The poem is in the form of a story told by the woman herself to her mother.

YOU ASK ME WHY, THO’ ILL AT EASE.

In this poem the poet answers those who question him as to why, in spite of disadvantage, he still chooses to live in England. England is free, ‘a man may speak the thing he will,’ but in spite of his choice of England as a permanent home, the poet desires to visit other lands before he dies.

YOU MIGHT HAVE WON THE POET’S NAME.

A poem written after reading a biography of one who ‘might have won the poet’s name’ but preferred a silent ‘deedful’ life and so escaped the unseemly posthumous publicity which is the lot of poets.

ABADDON.

The angel of the bottomless pit.

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon. Rev. ix. 2.

St. Simeon Stylites.

ABDIEL.

One of the Seraphim, who withstood Satan in his revolt against God.

Milton.

ABEL.

Becket.

ABOMINABLE.

Has reference to Eris, the Greek goddess of strife and discord. She was the only goddess who was not invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and in revenge threw a golden apple among the guests, which led to the Trojan war.

Œnone.

ABSALOM.

Bishop Foliot’s reference to Archbishop Becket.

Becket.

ABÛ SAÎD.

Sufee poet, born A.D. 968, died at the age of 83. He was a mystical poet, and some of his expressions have been compared to our George Herbert. Poet’s Note.

Akbar’s Dream.

ACACIA.

The name of a thorny tree found in Egypt.

The Princess;
Maud.

ACADEME.

= Academy.

Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost uses the same term.

The Princess.

ACANTHUS-WREATH.

The Acanthus is a prickly plant, the leaves of which are reproduced in the capital of Corinthian and Composite Orders.

Lotos-Eaters.

ACHÆANS.

The common name for the Greek nation in the Homeric period.

Achilles over the Trench.

ACHILLES.

Son of Peleus and Thetis, grandson of Æacus, king of the island of Ægina, and the most [Pg 40]famous of the Greek heroes in the Trojan war. When a baby he was taken to the river Styx, for it was said that those who bathed in its waters could never be wounded. Afraid to let go her child for fear he might drown, his mother plunged him into the tide, holding him fast by one heel. This she held so tightly that the waters never wet it, and some time after, when too late to remedy it, the oracle told her he would be wounded in his heel. At Troy he slew Hector, tied the corpse by the heels to his chariot and dragged it three times round the walls of Troy. After several other great fights Achilles was wounded in his heel by a poisoned arrow, shot by Paris, from which he died. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy. Upon his death his arms were awarded to Ulysses, who afterwards saw and conversed with him in Hades. It is supposed that he married Helen after the siege of Troy, but others maintain that he was married after death in the island of Leuce, where many of the ancient heroes lived.

The story of his quarrel with Agamemnon—who deprived him of his favourite mistress, Briseis—is the main subject of the Iliad of Homer. In the Odyssey he is one of the heroes of the underworld visited by Odysseus, and is also one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.

Ulysses;
Achilles over the Trench.

ACRE.

A seaport on the coast of Syria, on a promontory north of Mount Carmel. It was captured by the Saracens in 638, by the Crusaders in 1104, recaptured by the Saracens in 1187, and in 1191, after a two years’ siege and a loss of 300,000 soldiers, it was taken by the Crusaders under Richard Cœur de Lion and Philip Augustus. It was then named St. Jean d’Acre on account of it being the headquarters of the Knights of the Order of St. John. It was again taken by the Saracens in 1291, when 60,000 Christians perished. In 1517 it was captured by the Turks, and in 1799 was besieged by the French under Napoleon, but was successfully defended by the garrison with the aid of English sailors under sir Sydney Smith. In 1832 it was stormed by Ibrahim Pasha, son of the viceroy of Egypt, in whose possession it remained until 1840, when it was captured by a combined English, Austrian and Turkish fleet under sir Robert Stopford.

The Foresters.

ACRISIUS.

In Greek mythology, king of [Pg 41]Argos and father of Danaë (q.v.). Being told by an oracle that his daughter’s son would kill him, he kept her shut up in a tower of brass, where she became the mother of Perseus—who won the Golden Fleece, and cut off the Gorgon’s head—by Jupiter, in the form of a golden shower. Acrisius then ordered his daughter and her child to be cast into the sea, but they were rescued by a fisherman named Dictys. When Perseus was grown to manhood, wishing to show his skill in throwing the quoit, he by misadventure struck the foot of Acrisius with a quoit, which caused his death, and thus the oracle was unhappily fulfilled. Acrisius reigned about 31 years.

Becket.

ACTON (Roger).

See Roger Acton.

ADAIR.

See Ellen, Ellen Adair.

ADAM.

Day-Dream.

ADAM.

Columbus.

ADAM.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere.

ADAMS.

The Princess.

Adam is used here as ‘Galen’ in Canto 1, line 19.

ADAM’S WINE.

A cant phrase for water as a beverage.

Northern Cobbler.

ADDER.

A small serpent of the genus Vipera.

Harold;
Becket.

ADELINE.

Margaret.

ADELINE.

Adeline.

ADMIRAL OF THE OCEAN.

A title conferred upon Columbus and on his heirs and successors for ever, by Ferdinand of Spain.

ÆAKIDES.

See Achilles.

ÆGIS.

In mythology the shield of Jupiter, made of the hide of the goat Amalthæa. Jupiter gave this shield to Pallas, who placed upon it Medusa’s head, which turned into stone all those who fixed their eyes upon it. It was the symbol of divine protection.

Achilles over the Trench.

ÆOLIAN HARP.

A stringed instrument consisting of a box, on or in which were stretched strings, on which the wind acted to produce the [Pg 42]notes. It was usually placed at an open window.

Two Voices.

ÆSOP.

Æsop was a famous Greek fabulist who lived in the sixth century B.C. Little is known of his history except that he was a native of Phrygia and a slave, but subsequently set free by Jadmon of Samos. Visiting the court of Crœsus he gained his confidence to such an extent that he was sent on several missions, on one of which to Delphi he was put to death by the priests. (B.C. 620–560).

Queen Mary.

ÆTNA.

A mountain on the east coast of Sicily, noted for its volcano.

Demeter and Persephone;
Lover’s Tale.

AFRIC (Africa).

A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh.

AGARIC.

A fungus, to which the common mushroom belongs.

Edwin Morris;
Gareth and Lynette.

AGATHA.

A sister of mercy, who persuaded Eva Steer, who was supposed to be drowned, to return home to her father and implore his forgiveness. Agatha rescued Eva when she was about to commit suicide by drowning.

Promise of May.

AGAVE.

A plant, native of the warmer parts of America. It takes from ten to seventy years, according to climate, to attain maturity, the stem rising to a height of 40 feet.

The Daisy.

AGINCOURT.

A village in Pas-se-Calais where one of the more important battles in the Hundred Years’ War was fought; Henry V defeating the French on October 25, 1415.

The Princess.

AGLAÏA.

The child of Lady Psyche. Means brightness, and is the name of one of the Graces.

The Princess.

AGNED-CATHREGONION.

The scene of one of king Arthur’s battles. Some authorities consider it to be a hill in Somersetshire; according to others Edinburgh is the place, as the old name of that city was Agned.

Lancelot and Elaine.

AGRIPPINA.

A cultured and courageous [Pg 43]Roman matron, daughter of Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia, and the granddaughter of the emperor Augustus. She married Germanicus, whom she accompanied on his campaigns, and upon his death brought his ashes to Rome; was subsequently exiled to the island of Pandataria, by Tiberius, where she died in 33 A.D.

The Princess here is pointing out the brows on the marble statue of Agrippina.

The Princess.

AGYPT (Egypt).

Tomorrow.

AÏDONEUS.

A surname of Pluto, king of the Molossi, who imprisoned Theseus because he and Pirithous attempted to ravish his daughter Proserpine, hence the fable of the descent of Theseus and Pirithous into hell.

Demeter and Persephone.

AILMER (John).

Chaplain to Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset, and tutor of lady Jane Grey. In 1522 he was made archdeacon of Stow, but on the accession of Mary was deprived of preferments for opposing in Convocation the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and fled to Zurich. In 1558, upon Elizabeth’s accession, he returned, was made archdeacon of London 1562; D.D. of Oxford 1573; and bishop of London 1577 (1521–1594).

Queen Mary.

AJALON.

A valley in Palestine, and the scene of a battle between Joshua and five Canaanitish kings, during which Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still.

‘Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.’ Joshua x. 12.

Locksley Hall.

AKBAR (Jellal-Ud-Din-Mohammed).

The greatest of the Mogul emperors, who, at the age of 13, succeeded his father Humayun. Assuming the reins of government at the age of 18, he commenced his conquest of Hindustan. He subdued and ruled over fifteen provinces, and his empire extended from Cashmir to Ahmedabad and from Cabul to Dacca. His reign was marked by his daring change of policy from fanatical Mohammedanism to universal tolerance. He consulted Mohammedans, Hindus, Parsees, Jews and Christians, and drew up a new faith upon eclectic principles, by which he hoped to unite all creeds and peoples; he abolished the poll-tax on infidels and the pilgrimage tax on Hindus (1542–1605).

Akbar’s Dream.

AKROKERAUNIAN WALLS.

[Pg 44]

The Acroceraunia: a mountain range along the coast of north-west Greece jutting out into the Ionian sea.

To E. L.

ALBERIGHI (Federigo degli).

See Federigo degli Alberighi.

ALBERT.

The Prince Consort, husband of queen Victoria. Before the Idylls of the King were published the Prince died (1861), and to his memory they were afterwards dedicated.

In the concluding lines of the Dedication Tennyson added some words of comfort to the Queen on the death of the Prince:

The success of the Exhibition of 1851 was mainly due to the efforts of the Prince, who at the time of his death was planning the International Exhibition of 1862. In the Ode sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition, and the Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition by the Queen, the poet alludes to the part played by the Prince in connexion with these two Exhibitions.

It was chiefly owing to the Prince’s admiration of In Memoriam that Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate.

Dedication of Idylls.

ALBERT.

Brother of Olivia, who was betrothed to Walter.

Talking Oak.

ALBION.

Ancient name for Britain, in use among the early Celtic inhabitants. The word means ‘white island’ and was used by the Gauls to describe the white-chalked cliff land they saw to the North.

On the Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

ALCESTIS.

In Greek mythology, daughter of Pelias and Anaxibia, and wife of Admêtus. In order that her father might be restored to youth by Medea, she, with her sisters, put him to death, but Medea refused to redeem her promise, and the sisters fled to Admêtus, who married Alcestis. Their brother Acastus with an army pursued them, and Admêtus being taken prisoner, was redeemed from death by Alcestis who gave herself to save her husband; but Hercules descended to the lower world and brought her back. Alcestis is the subject of one of the tragedies of Euripides.

Romney’s Remorse.

[Pg 45]

ALCOR.

The name of a star in the tail of the Great Bear.

Last Tournament.

ALDER.

A tree related to the birch, usually growing in moist land.

Edwin Morris;
Amphion;
A Farewell;
Balin and Balan.

ALDRED.

Abbot of Tavistock, 1027; bishop of Worcester, 1044; appointed ambassador by Edward the Confessor to the emperor of Germany, Henry III, 1054; and was the first English bishop to visit Jerusalem, which he did in 1058. On his return, he was made archbishop of York, 1060, with leave to hold his former See, but upon visiting Rome the pope refused him the pallium unless he resigned his former post. On the death of Edward (1066) Aldred supported Harold, and officiated at his coronation; but after the battle of Senlac he became a faithful servant of the Conqueror, and crowned William at Westminster before the year was completed in which he had crowned Harold (d. 1069).

Harold.

ALDWYTH.

Daughter of Alfgar, and widow of Griffyth, king of Wales; she subsequently became the wife of Harold.

Harold.

ALENÇON.

Capital of the department of Orne, North France, once famous for its point-lace. The title of a Duchy held by various members of the royal family of France, from Charles II of Valois. In 1048 duke William of Normandy captured the town, and inflicted great cruelty on the inhabitants who had taunted him with his birth, by hanging raw hides over the walls,

The town was taken and retaken in the French Wars during the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI of England; and in 1871 it capitulated to the Germans under the grand duke of Mecklenburg. The only remains of the ancient castle are three towers which form part of the present Town Hall.

Harold.

ALEXANDRA.

Eldest daughter of the late king Christian IX of Denmark; married to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII, at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, on March 10, 1863. The poem was written as a welcome to her upon her arrival in England.

A Welcome to Alexandra.

[Pg 46]

ALEXANDROVNA.

See Marie, Marie Alexandrovna.

ALFGAR.

Son of Leofric, earl of Mercia and Godgifu (Lady Godiva). He and his father supported king Edward the Confessor against earl Godwin at Gloucester, 1051. Was outlawed by the Witan, 1055, and took refuge in Ireland; invaded Herefordshire with Welsh allies but was defeated by Harold; made peace and succeeded as the earl of Mercia, 1057. In the same year he was again outlawed, but regained his earldom with the help of Northmen.

Harold.

ALFRED.

Duke of Edinburgh and duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; second son of queen Victoria and prince Albert; married February 23, 1874, at St. Petersburg to the grand duchess Marie Alexandrovna, only daughter of Alexander II, czar of Russia. The bride and bridegroom made their public entry into London on March 12 of the same year.

A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh.

ALFRED.

King of the West Saxons, born at Wantage. His father was king Ethelwulf, and although the youngest of five sons succeeded to the crown in 872 A.D.—at the age of 22. In the first year of his reign the young king fought nine battles against the Danes who had overrun the greater part of England north of the Thames. After a respite of several years a second invasion took place in 878 under Guthrum, king of the Danes in East Anglia, who overran Somerset without opposition, and Alfred retired to Athelney, where tradition says he burnt the cakes. In the same year he inflicted a defeat on the Danes at Edington in Wiltshire. By the peace of Wedmore, Guthrum consented to become a Christian and to acknowledge the supremacy of Alfred of the country south of the Thames and the greater part of Mercia. He subsequently devoted himself to legislation, the administration of government, and to the encouragement of learning, being himself a man of letters. It is to him we owe the foundation of England’s greatness on the seas (849–901).

An Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington;
Harold.

ALFWIG.

Abbot of New Minster and uncle of king Harold. With twelve of his monks, joined Harold at the battle of Senlac, and after the battle was found among the slain, his body being recognized by the habit of his order.

[Pg 47]

Harold.

ALICE.

A lady in waiting to queen Mary.

Queen Mary.

ALICE.

Daughter of a wealthy miller, betrothed to a man whose parents at first thought he ‘might have looked a little higher.’ They were married, and in later years her husband expressed a wish that they might die together.

Miller’s Daughter.

ALICE.

The nurse of the supposed lady Clare. On the eve of the wedding of lady Clare and lord Ronald, Alice revealed to her the secret of her birth, namely, that she was the daughter of her own nurse.

Lady Clare.

ALICE.

May Queen.

ALIF.

The first letter of the Arabic alphabet.

Akbar’s Dream.

ALINGTON.

A castle—near the river Medway—originally built in Saxon times by a family named Columbary, but was razed afterwards by the Danes. After the conquest it was given to bishop Odo, and on his disgrace to earl Warrenne. It afterwards passed to the Cobham family, and from them to the Brents, by whom it was alienated to sir Thomas Wyatt, who made it his residence, and where was born his son and successor, sir Thomas Wyatt, Junior, who was subsequently deprived of his estates and executed for treason against Mary.

Queen Mary.

ALIOTH.

The name of a star in the tail of the Great Bear.

Last Tournament.

ALLA.

The word used by the Arabs to denote their chief god, and adopted by Mahomet as the name of the one true God.

Akbar’s Dream.

ALLAN.

A farmer, father of William, to whom he wished to wed his niece Dora.

Dora.

ALLEN (Francis).

See Francis, Francis Allen.

ALLEN.

A labourer to farmer Steer.

Promise of May.

ALLEN (Sally).

See Sally, Sally Allen.

ALLENDALE (Earl of).

Allen-a-Dale of Nottingham was to be married to a lady who returned his love, but her [Pg 48]parents compelled her to forego him for an old knight of wealth. Allen told his tale to Robin Hood, who, in the disguise of a harper, went to the church where the wedding ceremony was to take place. ‘This is no fit match; the bride shall be married only to the man of her choice,’ exclaimed Robin, and sounding his horn Allen and twenty-four bowmen entered the church. The bishop, however, refused to marry the woman to Allen until the banns had been called three times, whereupon Robin pulled off the bishop’s gown, and placed it upon Little John, who called the banns seven times, and performed the ceremony.

The Foresters.

ALL-HEAL.

A name applied to various plants, as the mistletoe, the great valerian, etc.

Vastness.

ALLY.

Alfred Tennyson, grandson of the poet, to whom the poem is inscribed.

To Alfred Tennyson.

ALMESBURY.

A town in Wiltshire on the river Avon, about eight miles from Salisbury. Elfrida, widow of Edgar, founded here in 980 a Benedictine nunnery in atonement for the murder of her son-in-law, king Edward, but there had been a more ancient British monastery at the same place, called after king Ambrosius who lies buried there. Mary, daughter of king Edward I, took the veil here in 1285, and two years later, Eleanor, queen of Henry III and the mother of Edward I, was admitted. It was at this town that Guinevere (q.v.) after the death of Arthur, took the nun’s habit.

‘And when queen Guenever understood that king Arthur was slain, ... she went to Almesbury, and there she let make herself a nun, and wore white clothes and black.’

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book XXI, chap. vii.

Guinevere;
Passing of Arthur.

ALMSHOUSES AT NOTTINGHAM.

Part shall go to the almshouses at Nottingham, part to the shrine of our Lady.

The Foresters.

ALOE.

A genus of plants, some classed as trees, others as shrubs, of considerable medicinal importance.

The Daisy.

ALPHEGE OF ENGLAND.

Monk of Deerhurst, bishop of Worcester 984; archbishop of Canterbury 1006. Inaugurated the Council of Enham, which made enactments against heathenism and the selling of slaves. By confirming Olaf Tryggwesson in his Christianity and obtaining from him in 994 a promise not to invade England, he incurred the hatred of [Pg 49]the Northmen, and during the invasion of the Danes in 1011 was captured, and upon refusing to ransom himself was put to death. His body was translated to Canterbury by Knut, and in 1078 he was canonized (954–1012).

Becket.

ALPS.

The great mountain range in Europe, forming the boundary between France, Germany and Switzerland on the north and west, and Italy on the south.

The Daisy.

ALRASCHID.

See Haroun Alraschid.

ALVA (Duke of).

A distinguished soldier and a descendant from one of the ancient families of Spain. When only 17 years of age he was selected for a military command by Charles V, and was present at the battle of Pavia, 1535. In 1547 he gained a victory over John of Saxony at the battle of Muhlberg and subsequently took part in the siege of Wittenburg and presided at the court-martial which tried and condemned to death the Elector. In 1552 he invaded France and was engaged for several months in an unsuccessful siege of Metz. In his campaign against pope Paul IV in 1556, Alva was completely successful and was at the gates of Rome when we was compelled by Philip to negotiate a peace, and to ask pardon for having opposed the pope in the war. In 1567 he was sent to the Low Countries to reduce the Netherlands to the Spanish yoke, which they were attempting to throw off. By his tyranny he filled the provinces with terror and scenes of carnage, for which his memory is held in detestation to this day. In 1573 the oppressed country was relieved of his presence, and on returning to Spain was treated with distinction by Philip. Falling into disgrace he was banished from court, and confined in the castle of Uzeda, where he remained for two years. Appointed in command of an army he invaded Portugal in 1581, defeated Antonio and subdued the kingdom (1508–1583).

Queen Mary.

AMARACUS.

= Marjoram, a mint-like plant, used as a seasoning in cookery.

Œnone.

AMARANTH.

The unfading Amaranth, so called because its flowers do not soon wither; early employed as an emblem of immortality.

Lotos-Eaters;
Romney’s Remorse.

AMARYLLIS.

A genus of bulbous-rooted [Pg 50]plants, including the narcissus, jonquil, daffodil, agavè, etc. Amaryllis is the name of a country girl in Theocritus and Virgil.

The Daisy.

AMAZON.

In Greek mythology a race of warrior females, said to have inhabited the neighbourhood of the Caucasus.

The Princess.

AMBROSIA.

The food of the gods which conferred immortality upon those who partook of it.

The Princess;
Demeter and Persephone.

AMBROSIAL.

An epithet used by Homer of the hair of the gods.

Claribel;
Œnone;
In Memoriam.

AMBROSIALLY.

= Delicious.

Œnone.

AMBROSIUS.

A monk.

Holy Grail.

AMMON.

A tribe, occupying the region to the east of Jordan, who hired Balaam to curse Israel. They were continually at war with the Israelites until subdued by Judas Maccabæus.

Dream of Fair Women.

AMMONIAN OASIS.

Refers to Alexander’s visit to the famous temple of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert.

Alexander.

AMMONITES.

Huge fossil snake-shaped stones, known in the middle ages as ‘Cornu Ammonis,’ so-called from the Ammonian Horn of Ammon.

The Princess.

AMOMUM.

An Indian spice plant. It is mentioned in Virgil’s Eclogue.

The Cup.

AMPHION.

In Greek mythology son of Zeus and Antiope, and twin-brother of Zethus. He was born on mount Citheron, where Antiope had fled to avoid the resentment of Dircê (q.v.), and the two children were exposed, but were brought up by shepherds. It is said that Amphion invented the lute and built Thebes by the music of it, which was so melodious that the stones danced into walls.

[Pg 51]

When the two children had grown to manhood they united to avenge the wrongs which their mother had suffered at the hands of Dircê. They captured Thebes, slew Lycus, and tied Dircê to the tail of a wild bull which dragged her through precipices until she expired. Amphion married Niobe (q.v.) who, boasting that she was greater and more deserving of immortality than Latona was changed into a stone, and in despair Amphion killed himself.

Amphion.

AMPHISBÆNA.

A fabled serpent having two heads and able to move either backwards or forwards.

Queen Mary.

AMURATH.

The Third, sixth sultan of the Turks (1574–1595). His first act on ascending the throne was to invite all his brothers to a banquet and strangle them.

In 1579 a commercial treaty between Amurath and Elizabeth was ratified.

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

AMY.

The fiancée of an impetuous boy lover—her cousin—who found that his love had been disdained. Amy forsook him to satisfy the wishes of her father, and married for money. On account of his unhappy love affair he spoke of flight into a far country, and a marriage amid some savage tribes, but the bonds of culture and comfort were too strong for him, and the project of wild adventure was abandoned as quickly as it was formed. Amy died at the birth of her first child, and sixty years afterwards her once boy lover says:

Locksley Hall;
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.

ANAKIM.

Sons of Anak, a race of giants inhabiting the mountains of Hebron, and who were conquered by Joshua. Joshua xi. 21–22.

The Israelites said they were grasshoppers as compared with the Anakim. Numbers xiii. 33.

In Memoriam.

ANATOLIAN GHOST.

Anatolian spectre stories.

To Ulysses.

[Pg 52]

ANEMONE.

A plant of the crowfoot family.

Dream of Fair Women;
To the Rev. F. D. Maurice;
City Child.

ANDREW, SAINT.

See St. Andrew.

ANGELO (Michael).

A famous Italian sculptor, painter and poet.

In Memoriam.

ANGLE.

A German race of people who invaded Britain in the fifth century and settled in Northumbria and East Anglia. From them the name of England was derived.

Battle of Brunanburh;
Harold;
Becket.

ANGUISANT.

King of Erin, subdued by king Arthur, fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.

Coming of Arthur.

ANGLIA.

Harold.

ANGLIAE.

Harold.

ANGLIAM.

Harold.

ANJOU.

An ancient province of France. In 1127 the eleventh count of Anjou married Plantagenet, the daughter of Henry I of England and became the father of Henry II, who took it from his brother Geoffrey in 1156. It was taken from king John by Philip Augustus of France in 1205, and united to the French kingdom in 1328 by Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois.

Becket.

ANLAF.

A Danish king who invaded England and, joining forces with Constantius, king of the Scots, was defeated by Athelstan (q.v.) and his brother Edmund Atheling (q.v.) at the battle of Brunanburh, A.D. 937.

Battle of Brunanburh.

ANNE.

The Foresters.

See Allendale (Earl of).

ANNE (Queen).

See Boleyn.

ANNE.
ANNE WHARTON.

Wife of lord Wharton, and a friend of lady Jane Grey.

Queen Mary.

ANNE—ANNIE.

[Pg 53]

An old woman—who had survived all her children—relates to her grandchild Annie the story of her life.

Grandmother.

ANNIE.

Eldest daughter of the village squire.

Village Wife.

ANNIE.

One of the inmates of a children’s hospital, who suggested to one of her fellow sufferers who was about to undergo an operation, that she should pray for help to ‘the dear Lord Jesus.’

In the Children’s Hospital.

ANNIE.
ANNIE LEE.

See Enoch, Enoch Arden.

ANSELM.

Archbishop of Canterbury. Born at Aosta in Piedmont. In 1060 entered the monastery of Bec, and in 1063 was installed as prior in succession to Lanfranc, and fifteen years later was elected abbot. Visited England in 1092, and in the following year accepted the archbishopric of Canterbury from William II who was lying ill at Gloucester. Consecrated the church, erected by William I in 1094 on the field on which he defeated Harold. In 1494 he was canonized (1033–1109).

Becket.

ANT.

A small insect.

Pelleas and Ettarre;
Vastness;
Queen Mary.

ANTIBABYLONIANISMS.

See Boanerges.

ANTIOCH.

Ancient capital of the Greek kings of Syria, built by Seleucus 300 B.C. It was famous in the early history of the Church as the seat of several ecclesiastical councils, as well as for being the birthplace of Chrysostom. In 635 A.D. it fell into the hands of the Saracens, who held it until 969 A.D. when it came under Roman dominion and retained till 1084 A.D., when it fell into the hands of the Turks, from whom it was captured by the Crusaders A.D. 1098.

Becket.

ANTON.

A Knight of the Round Table, and, according to Tennyson, the foster-father of king Arthur.

Malory in his Morte d’Arthur says: ‘So the child was delivered unto Merlin; and so he bare it forth unto Sir Ector, and made an holy man to christen him, and named him Arthur.’

Coming of Arthur.

[Pg 54]

ANTONIUS.

A Roman general, but evidently not meant to be identified with any Roman general known to history.

The Cup.

ANTONY (Mark).

See Mark Antony.

ANTONY.
ANTONY KNYVETT.

Lieutenant of the Tower of London in the reign of Henry VIII; joined the earl of Devon in insurrection to prevent the marriage of Mary with Philip of Spain; taken prisoner with Wyatt at Temple Bar by sir Maurice Berkeley, and being taken to the Tower was tried, condemned and executed.

Queen Mary.

ANTWERP.

Queen Mary.

APE.

A monkey.

St. Simeon Stylites;
In Memoriam;
Making of Man;
Queen Mary;
Becket.

APHRODITÈ.

The Greek goddess of love and beauty, and wife of Hephæstus and mother of Cupid. Her sacred bird was the dove. As the queen of beauty she had the golden apple awarded her by Paris, and possessed the power of conferring beauty. In Roman mythology she is identified with Venus (q.v.).

Œnone.

APICUS.

A celebrated Roman glutton in the time of Augustus Tiberius. He expended large sums in gluttony and wrote a book upon cookery. It is said that having spent £800,000 in supplying the delicacies of his table and having only £30,000 left, he committed suicide, not thinking it possible to exist on such a miserable sum.

Becket.

APOLLO.

The chief god of the Greeks; in ancient literature described as possessed of many powers. Tennyson speaks of him as the god of the sun and god of music:

The statue of Apollo at Rhodes, made to commemorate the successful defence of that place against Demetrius Poliorcetes in 300 B.C., was one of the several wonders of the old world. It represented the sun-god with his head surrounded by rays, and with his feet resting one on each side of the entrance to the port. This Colossus of Rhodes, as the statue was generally called, was 105 feet high, and took twelve years to build, at a cost of about £120,000.

Tithonus;
Lucretius.

APPLE-TREE.

A tree of many varieties.

Holy Grail.

[Pg 55]

AQUITAINE.

A province of south-west France. It was conquered by the Romans 57 B.C. under Cæsar, and again in 418 in the reign of Augustus. On the marriage of Louis VII with Eleanor, daughter of William X, it was annexed to the French crown, but upon Henry II of England marrying Eleanor after her divorce, it was added to the English crown. It remained in English possession until 1453, when it was restored to France.

Becket.

ARAB.

Refers to the high instep of the Arab, giving swiftness and elasticity to his gait.

Maud.

ARÂBI.

Leader of the Egyptian Revolt, 1882. As under-secretary for War in the Egyptian government, he adopted a policy which the British government had to meet by armed force. Alexandria was bombarded on July 11, 1882, and on September 13 of the same year the British troops under sir Garnet Wolseley completely routed him at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir.

Arâbi fled to Cairo, but surrendering was banished to Ceylon, 1883. In 1901 he was released and granted a pension. He claimed descent from the prophet.

Prologue to General Hamley.

ARABY.

A poetical form of Arabia.

Queen Mary.

ARAC (Prince).

A prince, whose hard old father represented in his blunt and violent manner the old-fashioned régime when women were women and knew their place. Since his infancy he had been proxy wedded to a certain princess Ida (q.v.), with whom he was deeply in love. He is described as a genial giant, with splendid muscles, healthy love of action, and proud devotion to his sister. When Ida reached marriageable age she founded a college for women from which men were excluded. Arac determined to gain access to the college, so with two more friends disguised as girl students, the college portress admitted them. After many adventures his sex was discovered. Arac wooed Ida, this time more successfully, and after many amusing happenings they were married.

The Princess.

ARAGON.

Once a kingdom, but now divided into three provinces. It was conquered by the Romans, but upon the fall of that empire, it passed into the hands of the Goths; and at the beginning of the eighth century [Pg 56]was conquered by the Moors. In 1137 it was recovered by the rulers of Aragon and united with Catalonia, and by the marriage of Ferdinand with Isabella of Castile in 1469 the crowns of Aragon and Castile (q.v.) were united.

Queen Mary.

ARBACES.

Name of a horse.

The Brook.

ARCADY.

Represents Greek Idyllic poetry.

In Memoriam.

ARDEN (Enoch).

See Enoch, Enoch Arden.

ARDEN.

A large forest supposed to have been in Warwickshire. It is a place-name in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

Sisters (Evelyn and Edith).

ARÊS.

The Greek god of war, called by the Romans, Mars, and son of Zeus and Hera. Was an enemy of Cadmus (q.v.) on account of his having killed the dragon that guarded the springs of Dircê which were sacred to Mars.

His symbols were the spear and the burning torch.

Tiresias.

ARIMATHÆAN JOSEPH.

See Joseph.

ARNO.

An Italian river which flows through Florence.

The Brook.

ARNON.

A river which formed the boundary between Moab and the Amonites, and afterwards between Moab and Israel.

Dream of Fair Women.

AROER.

A city on the river Arnon, the southern point of the territory of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and afterwards of the tribe of Reuben, but later in the possession of Moab.

Dream of Fair Women.

‘And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith.’ Judges xi. 33.

Dream of Fair Women.

’AROLD (Harold).

Promise of May.

AROMAT.

Supposed to have been the native land of Joseph of Arimathæa and the place from which he brought the Holy Grail to Glastonbury.

Holy Grail.

ARTEMIS.

In Greek mythology the daughter of Zeus and Leto. She was twin-sister of Apollo, and was born in the isle of [Pg 57]Delos. A virgin goddess, represented as a huntress armed with bow and arrows. The Romans identified Artemis with the old Italian goddess Diana (q.v.).

The Cup.

ARTEMISIA (Carian).

See Carian Artemisia.

ARTHUR.

= The Idylls of the King.

The Epic.

ARTHUR.

Sir Arthur, a local magnate.

The Brook.

ARTHUR.

Arthur Henry Hallam, son of Henry Hallam, the historian, born 1811. During his residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, Tennyson made the acquaintance of Hallam, with whom he formed an affectionate friendship, and some years later Hallam became engaged to the poet’s sister Emily. His early death, which occurred suddenly at Vienna in 1833, was a great grief to the poet, whose In Memoriam is a noble elegy to his loss.

Hallam was buried at Clevedon in Somersetshire, and in the Manor aisle of the church, over the vault of the Hallams, is a tablet, which bears the following inscription:

TO
THE MEMORY OF
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM
ELDEST SON OF HENRY
HALLAM ESQUIRE
AND OF JULIA MARIA HIS WIFE
DAUGHTER OF SIR ABRAHAM
ELTON BARONET
OF CLEVEDON COURT

who was snatched away by sudden death
at Vienna on September 15th 1833
in the twenty-third year of his age
and now in this obscure and solitary church
repose the mortal remains of
one too early lost for public fame
but already conspicuous among his contemporaries
for the brightness of his genius
the depth of his understanding
the nobleness of his disposition
the fervour of his piety
and the purity of his life
Vale dulcissime
Vale dilectissime Desideratissime
requiescas in pace
ter ac mater hic posthac requiescamus
tecum
usque ad tubam.

In Memoriam.

ARTHUR.

Supposed to have been in the sixth century a war leader of the tribes inhabiting Cumbria and Strathclyde against the Saxons from the East and the Picts and Scots from the North. The name Arthur originally denoted the Bear, and the constellation of that name is called in Welsh the Chariot of Arthur. His father was Uther the pendragon, and his mother Ygernê widow of Gorloïs, duke of Cornwall, and he was born at Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, about [Pg 58]the year 500 A.D. Tennyson says that Merlin gave Arthur, when an infant, to Sir Anton to bring him up, and he was brought up as his foster-son.

Malory in his Morte d’Arthur says:

So the child was delivered unto Merlin, and so he bore it forth unto Sir Ector, and made an holy man to christen him, and named him Arthur:

Uther Pendragon dying while Arthur was yet an infant, the succession to the kingdom was in doubt, and in order to prove who was the rightful heir to the realm, the method of drawing a sword from a stone was adopted. This stone, which was in the churchyard of St. Stephen’s, London, was like a marble stone, with an anvil of steel in the middle a foot high, and on it was placed a sword naked to the point, and inscribed thus:

Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is rightful king born of all England.

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book I, chap. iii.

Some 200 knights tried to release it but failed. Arthur alone could draw it, whereby proving his right of succession to the kingdom.

And right as Arthur did at Christmas he did at Candlemas, and pulled out the sword easily, whereof the barons were sore aggrieved,

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book I, chap. iv.

At the age of fifteen he was crowned at Caerleon-upon-Usk by Dubricius, archbishop of the ‘City of Legions.’ No sooner had he ascended the throne than slanderous statements began to be circulated as to his birth, some maintaining he was not the son of Uther and Ygernê:

Others said that he was cast up from the sea on the ninth wave:

Whilst another version says:

A great war took place between Arthur and eleven kings, all of whom were slain. Having defeated his enemies he ruled over the kingdom wisely, establishing order throughout the land, for since the death of Uther, lawlessness had become rampant. Meeting one day king Pellinore, he attacked him, and in the encounter their swords met with such force that the sword of king Arthur was broken in two pieces; but in order to save his life—being now defenceless—Merlin cast an enchantment on Pellinore, and he fell to the earth in a deep sleep, and Arthur was borne away to a place of safety. After three days, when the king’s wounds were healed, Arthur told Merlin he had no sword. So [Pg 59]they rode till they came to a lake, and afar out in the midst of the lake, an arm clad in white samite rose from out the water and held up a fair sword. Then came the Lady of the Lake moving upon the water. ‘Enter into yonder barge,’ she said, ‘and row to the sword and take it;’ whereupon the king rowed out in the middle of the lake and seized the sword. The weapon, which was called Excalibur, was possessed with magic power, and gave light equal to thirty torches; and it was with this sword that he defeated all his enemies. He then began his career of conquests. He is supposed to have fought and won twelve great battles over the Saxons, Picts and Scots; the first was fought in Northumberland, by the river Glen; the second, third, fourth and fifth were the four battles of the Duglas; the sixth by the river Bassa; the seventh in the wood Celidon; the eighth at Castle Gurnion,

where Arthur bore the image of the Holy Virgin, Mother of God, upon his shoulders, and through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the holy Mary, put the Saxons to flight, and pursued them the whole day with great slaughter.

Nennius: Six Chronicles.

It is however supposed to have been the head of the Virgin Mary engraven on the shield borne by Arthur.

The ninth battle was at Caerleon, or the ‘City of Legions’; the tenth by the river Trath Treroit, the eleventh near Agned Cathregonion, and the twelfth—the greatest victory of all—near Badon Hill. Some authorities consider his kingdom embraced Devon, Cornwall and part of Wales; others that it extended as far as the Orkneys, for we find that the king of those islands was married to Arthur’s sister. Leodogran, king of Cameliard, then appealed to Arthur to assist him in clearing his kingdom of wild beasts and heathen hordes that swarmed from overseas. Arthur accepted the call and leading all his knighthood threw the

Meanwhile Arthur had fallen in love with king Leodogran’s daughter, Guinevere, and from the battle-field sent three of his knights—Ulfius, Brastias and Bedivere—to Leodogran, saying:

but Leodogran, having heard of the suspicion attached to his birth hesitated, but eventually satisfying himself gave his consent. The marriage was however delayed [Pg 60]as Arthur was compelled to enter upon a campaign abroad, with the result that Ireland and Iceland, as well as Norway and Gaul, were added to his conquests. Returning, he was married by Dubric the high priest, amid great splendour, to Guinevere at Camelot, in the church of St. Stephen’s.

Leodogran gave Arthur for a wedding present the famous Round Table with 100 knights, which tradition says is still preserved at Winchester. Arthur then established his new Order, known as the Knights of the Round Table, and made his knights swear to live lives of purest chastity, to love one maiden only, to redress human wrongs, and to reverence their king as their conscience. To accommodate the magic table a magnificent castle was erected, in the centre of which was a banqueting hall.

Holding a royal feast and Table Round at Camelot there came into the hall twelve men, ambassadors from Lucius, emperor of Rome, demanding that Arthur should acknowledge him as his lord, and pay tribute as his predecessors had done. Arthur met it with a counterclaim to the empire for himself as being the real representative of Constantine, and receiving promise of help from the knights and lords, held a Privy Council at York to make the necessary arrangements for his departure, and leaving his nephew sir Modred in charge of the kingdom, sailed from Sandwich in Kent. Arriving in Brittany he met the united forces of the Romans and Saracens, and in a great battle slew the emperor and his allies, the sowdan of Syria, and the kings of Egypt and Ethiopia, sent their bodies to the Senate at Rome, and marching over the Alps, through Lombardy and Tuscany, arrived at Rome, where he was crowned king by the pope. After sojourning in Rome for a short time, a message was brought to him that his nephew Modred, whom he had left in charge of his kingdom, had traitorously proclaimed himself king, and had seized Guinevere and kept her a prisoner. Without delay Arthur returned home, and landing at Dover was met by Modred, who being defeated fled with his forces to Winchester. Arthur pursued after him, and joined forces with him near the river Camel in Cornwall, where they fought all the day long. As night drew nigh, and some 100,000 lay dead upon the field, Arthur took his sword, held it [Pg 61]with both hands, and ran towards sir Modred, calling out ‘Death to thee, traitor!’ ‘pierced the helmet and the brainpan, and sir Modred fell stark dead to the earth. And the noble Arthur fell in a swoon to the earth.’

Not one of sir Modred’s men remained alive, and of Arthur’s noble men, sir Bedivere alone had escaped. Finding his end drawing nigh, he commanded sir Bedivere to return his sword to the Lady of the Lake.

Twice did sir Bedivere go to the mere, and twice did his heart fail him, for instead of flinging the brand into the water he hid it in the waterflags about the marge. Returning to the dying king and being questioned as to what he had seen, replied:

Perceiving the knight’s deception, Arthur in wrath commanded him to fulfil his task:

whereupon the knight quickly rose, and going to the water side took the sword with both hands and flung it in mid-stream, when an arm rose up from out of the lake, caught it, and it disappeared for ever:

Returning again to the king he told him what he had seen, and taking the king upon his back, placed him in a barge in which were three queens—Queen Morgan le Fay; the Queen of Northgales; and the Queen of the Westerlands—who wept over him on account of his grievous wound. Elsdale in his Studies of the Idylls represents the three queens as Faith, Hope and Charity. Then sir Bedivere seeing his noble master about to leave him, asked permission to accompany him:

and Arthur slowly answered:

[Pg 62]

With the three mourning queens he passed up the Bristol Channel and hence

And in the Palace of Art the scene is pictured:

According to tradition, king Arthur is not dead but rests in Glastonbury, ‘till he shall come again, full twice as fair, to rule over his people.’ Cervantes in his Don Quixote says:

that he did not die, but that, by magic art, he was transformed into a raven: and that in process of time, he shall reign again, and recover his kingdom and sceptre; for which reason it cannot be proved that, from time to time, any Englishman hath killed a raven.

Some authorities contend that the mystery of his grave remains unsolved, for

Sharon Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons says:

In 1189—in the reign of Henry II—the body of king Arthur was found in Glastonbury Abbey sixteen feet under the surface. It was found under a stone, bearing the inscription: Hic jacit sepultus inciltus rex Arthurus in Insula Avallonia. The body was crumbled to dust, but a lock of golden hair was found, supposed to be that of his wife.

In the British Museum is a fifteenth century MS., containing annals of the Cistercian Abbey of Meaux, and a chronicle of events connected with it from its establishment in 1150 to the reign of Henry VI. In this MS., occurs the following:

In the twenty-third year of king Henry, the bodies of Arthur, some time king of the Britons, and of Wenevere his wife, were found at Glastonbury, between two stone pyramids formerly erected in the sacred cemetery. They were hidden by a hollow oak, lay about fifteen feet deep in the ground, and were distinguished by the most unmistakeable marks; for Arthur’s thigh-bone, when examined, exceeded by three fingers in length the tallest man’s thigh-bone that had ever been found, when measured down to the knee. Moreover, the space between his eyebrows was of the breadth of the palm of a man’s hand.

King Arthur has been made the hero of many adventures by romancers and poets of the Middle Ages. The earliest legends are found in the Welsh Tales, the three Welsh poets, Taliesin, Aneurin and Llywarch Hen being the first to celebrate his deeds. In the twelfth century Geoffrey of Monmouth introduced the legends into his Latin History of the Britons. In 1196 archdeacon Map introduced the legend of the Quest of the Holy Grail, and in 1485 sir Thomas Malory published his Morte d’Arthur. It is from this work that Tennyson derived most of the incidents narrated in his Idylls of the King, and his Morte d’Arthur. Spenser introduced Arthur in his Faerie Queene, and Blackwood wrote two epics, and Dryden produced a dramatic opera entitled King Arthur. Later sir Walter Scott edited the old romance of Sir Tristram, and in 1838 lady Charlotte Guest published a translation of the mediæval Welsh tales, known as the Mabinogion. It is from the latter work that Tennyson derived his characters for his Idyll of Geraint and Enid.

Morte d’Arthur;
Coming[Pg 63] of Arthur;
Gareth and Lynette;
Marriage of Geraint;
Geraint and Enid;
Balin and Balan;
Merlin and Vivien;
Lancelot and Elaine;
Holy Grail;
Pelleas and Ettarre;
Last Tournament;
Guinevere;
Passing of Arthur;
Becket;
Merlin and the Gleam.

ARUNDEL (Thomas).

Archbishop of Canterbury. Became bishop of Ely when only twenty-one years of age, and was Lord Chancellor five times under Richard II and Henry IV. In 1388 he was created archbishop of York, and translated to Canterbury in 1396; banished for conspiracy against Richard II in 1397, but returned to crown Henry IV in 1399. He was a vigorous persecutor of the Wickliffites (1353–1414).

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

ARVIRAGUS.

Younger son of Cymbeline, a king of Britain from the time of the invasion of Claudius to the reign of Vespasian. Upon the arrival of Joseph of Arimathæa (q.v.) Arviragus gave him permission to settle, and presented him with land upon which to erect a church.

Arviragus is one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline.

Holy Grail.

ASAPH.

The Levite, chief musician to king David. Considered to have been the founder of a guild of singers in the second Temple.

Harold.

ASCALON.

A city of the Philistines. The Egyptian army, sent by the Sultan of Egypt to recapture Jerusalem, was defeated near this town by the Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon, August 12, 1099. Recaptured by the Moslems, it was retaken in 1157 by Baldwin III, and in 1192 was the scene of a great victory gained by the Christians under Richard I, over the Saracen army under Saladin. Its fortifications were demolished by the Sultan Bibars, in 1270.

The Princess.

ASH.
ASHTREE.

A genus of trees of the Olive family.

Amphion;
The Princess;
In Memoriam;
Harold;
The Foresters;
Promise of May.

ASHRIDGE.

Ashridge House, in Buckinghamshire, was founded in 1221 by Edmund, earl of Cornwall, a grandson of king John, for an order of friars, called Bonhommes. After the dissolution of the monasteries it was given to the princess Elizabeth by her brother, Edward VI, after whose death she continued to occupy it during the reign of Mary, and after her retirement from court made it her permanent residence until she was suspected of conniving at sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion, when she was removed to the Tower.

Queen Mary.

ASIA.

Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.

ASMODEUS.

The angel of the bottomless pit.

St. Simeon Stylites.

ASPASIA.

The most accomplished woman in Athens during the government of that city by Pericles, whose mistress she was. When Pericles was deposed from the office of General in 430 B.C. Aspasia was, by the poet Hermippus, charged with impiety and brought to trial, but the pleading of Pericles procured her acquittal, and subsequently a decree was passed legitimizing her son.

The Princess.

ASPEN.
ASPEN-TREE.

A species of the poplar; the trembling poplar.

Lady of Shalott;
A Farewell;
Lancelot and Elaine.

ASPHODEL.

A plant of the lily species.

Œnone;
Lotos-Eaters;
Demeter and Persephone.

ASPICK.

A venomous serpent.

Dream of Fair Women.

ASS.

A well-known quadruped of the horse family.

The Princess;
Last Tournament;
Queen Mary.

ASSAYE.

A small town in the Deccan, India. Here Wellington, with an army of 4,500 English and Sepoy troops defeated the Mahratta army, consisting of 30,000 men, on August 23, 1803.

Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington.

ASSYRIAN BULL.

Maud’s brother, with his well-oil’d and groomed curly hair, and his dignified manner, is represented here by the Assyrian Bull, human-headed winged lions and bulls, sculptured [Pg 65]in stone as found among Assyrian antiquities.

Maud.

ASTOLAT.

According to Malory, the town of Guildford in Surrey, thirty miles south-west of London, and situated on the river Wey; a tributary of the Thames.

And then he rode so much until he came to Astolat, that is Gilford.

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book XVIII. chap. ix.

It was the home of Elaine ‘the lily maid of Astolat.’

Lancelot and Elaine.

ASTRÆAN.

Astræa, which means ‘star-bright’ was a daughter of Astræus and Eos, or, according to another account, of Zeus and Themis. She lived among men on earth during the golden age, and in the brazen age was the last to withdraw into the sky, where she shines as the constellation of Virgo. Should the golden age ever return it is believed she will re-establish her home on earth again. Many poets make reference to this theory, but the best known is Dryden’s Astræa Redux.

The Princess.

ATHELING (Edgar).

See Edgar (the Atheling).

ATHELING (Edmund).

See Edmund Atheling.

ATHELSTAN.

King of the Mercians and West-Saxons, and afterwards of all the English. Son of Edward the Elder and grandson of Alfred the Great. Defeated the Welsh of Devonshire, Cornwall and Wales, and in 937 in a decisive battle defeated the Welsh, Scots and Danes at Brunanburh. He died at Gloucester in 940, and was buried at Malmesbury (895–940).

Battle of Brunanburh;
Harold.

ATHENE (Pallas).

See Pallas, Pallas Athene.

ATHENS.

Capital of the kingdom of Greece.

Freedom.

ATHOS.

Signifies ‘Holy Hill.’ A mountain in the peninsula of Salonica, 6,780 feet high. It is celebrated for its twenty large monasteries, built during the ninth and tenth centuries, the first of which is said to have been founded by the empress Helena. The roofs of these monastic buildings sparkle with hues of bronze and purple and gold, and present a very picturesque appearance. There are many legends connected with the mountain.

To E. L.

[Pg 66]

ATLANTIC.

The Atlantic Ocean.

Third of February;
The Princess;
Columbus.

AUBREY (Ellen).

See Ellen, Ellen Aubrey.

AUDLEY.
AUDLEY COURT.

A place-name in the poem entitled Audley Court. The poem was suggested by Abbey Park, at Torquay.

Audley Court.

AUGUSTINE.

One of the fathers of the early Church. In 371 he was sent to Carthage, where he became a convert to the Manichæans, and taught rhetoric with great reputation, and on his return to Rome was appointed its professor at Milan. Here the sermons of St. Ambrose effected his conversion, and renouncing his heretical opinions he was baptized, 387. Returning to Africa he was ordained a priest, and subsequently became coadjutor of Valerius, bishop of Hippo, and afterwards his successor. In the church of All Saints, Trull, Somerset, there is a fifteenth century oak pulpit, richly carved. On the pulpit are five figures, one of which represents Augustine of Hippo (354–430).

Columbus.

AURELIAN.

Lucius Domitius Aurelian, son of a peasant of Pannonia, was elected emperor of Rome 270 A.D., and rendered himself famous for his military character; drove the barbarians out of Italy; defeated Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, and carried her captive to Rome. After a reign of six years, as he was on his way to crush a rebellion in Persia, he was assassinated near Byzantium by his troops, A.D. 275.

The Princess.

AURELIUS.

Elder brother of Uther the pendragon and reigned before him. In Latin he is called Ambrosius. He was the uncle of king Arthur. In 457 he defeated the Saxons who had been invited over by Vortigern, and beheaded Hengist (q.v.); and by the aid of his magician Merlin, brought the great stones known as the ‘Giant’s Dance’ from Kildare to Salisbury Plain where he erected them as a monument to the 460 British chiefs who had been treacherously slain by Hengist. It is said that upon his death there appeared in the sky a large comet which issued two long and brilliant rays, together with a fairy form like a dragon.

Coming of Arthur;
Gareth and Lynette.

AURICULA.

A species of primrose, called [Pg 67]also, from the shape of its leaves, bear’s ear.

City Child.

AUSONIAN.

Ausonia was the name of Campania, a province of Italy, during its occupation by the Oscans and Etruscans in the eleventh century.

Palace of Art.

AUSTIN (Augustine).

Prior of the Benedictine monastery of St. Andrew, Rome; sent by pope Gregory I in 596 with forty other monks as a missionary to England. Landing on the Isle of Thanet the missionaries were kindly received by Ethelbert, king of Kent, who subsequently became a convert to Christianity. Founded the See of Canterbury, and became its first archbishop.

Becket.

AVALON—AVILION.

Avalon or Avilion is supposed to have been an island in the neighbourhood of Glastonbury in Somersetshire, where Joseph of Arimathæa is said to have first landed with his boat with the Holy Grail. It was to this island that king Arthur went to be healed of his wounds, which he had received in the last weird battle in the west.

The word means ‘Apple-green Island’ and it has been described as the ‘Island of the blest, upon which Glastonbury stood.’

Palace of Art;
Morte d’Arthur;
Gareth and Lynette;
Passing of Arthur.

AVE MARY.

See Mary.

AVERILL.

The Rector of the parish in which Aylmer’s Hall, the residence of sir Aylmer Aylmer (q.v.) was situated. On the death of Edith, the daughter of sir Aylmer, he was asked to preach the funeral sermon, and taking for his text ‘Behold, your house is left unto you desolate’ he denounced the pride and self-seeking of the Aylmer parents.

Aylmer’s Field.

AVILION.

See Avalon.

AYLMER.

Sir Aylmer Aylmer was a country squire, and was looked upon as the supreme authority in the village in which he resided.

[Pg 68]

His wife, lady Aylmer, had in her young days been a lady of superior beauty and attraction, but with advancing years had lost some of her good looks.

They had one daughter, Edith, heiress of their wealth and name, and a favourite in the parish, and sir Aylmer’s ambition was, that the man who married her should adopt the name of Aylmer in order that the family name may not become extinct.

The Rector of the parish in which Aylmer hall was situated was named Averill, whose family was on intimate terms with the Aylmers, three generations of each family having followed one another at the rectory and the hall respectively.

Edith was in love with Leolin—a barrister—brother of the rector, who, during the vacations, used to come and stay with his brother at the rectory. On the other hand an Indian kinsman came to visit the Aylmers and made presents to Edith, among them being a jewelled dagger; but as Edith did not care neither for the dagger nor the donor she passed it on to Leolin. Owing to the gossip in the village sir Aylmer’s eyes were opened to the lovemaking between his daughter and Leolin, with the result that Leolin was forbidden to enter his house, and Edith was kept close at home.

A clandestine correspondence was however carried on, and this being discovered was stopped, and Edith was more closely confined, with the result that she lost her health and eventually succumbed to an attack of fever. When Leolin learned the news he stabbed himself with the dagger that Edith had given him.

On the Sunday following Edith’s death, the rector of the parish was asked to preach her funeral sermon, and taking for his text ‘Behold your house is left unto you desolate,’ he denounced the pride of the Aylmer parents.

In a fainting condition lady Aylmer was carried out of church, followed by her husband, amid the frowns of the congregation.

[Pg 69]

Neither of them entered the church again, for in the course of a month lady Aylmer died.

Sir Aylmer became an imbecile and two years later was laid beside his wife and daughter; the hall was demolished and its place became the haunt of the mole and hedgehog, the slow-worm and the weasel.

Aylmer’s Field.

AYLMER-AVERILL.

A combination of the names of Aylmer and Averill; Aylmer being the family name of the pompous squire, and Averill the name of the rector of the parish in which Aylmer hall was situated.

In years gone by an Aylmer had married an Averill.

Aylmer’s Field.

AZORES.

A group of nine volcanic islands in the Atlantic of which Flores is one. It was near these islands that sir Richard Grenville (q.v.) in the reign of queen Elizabeth was attacked by the Spanish Fleet.

The Revenge.

AZRAEL.

The Angel of Death. According to Mahomet the angel appointed to inflict the death penalty on all unbelievers.

Akbar’s Dream.

BAAL.

The principal god of the Canaanites and Phœnicians. In Biblical times the priests, in honour of their god, cut themselves with knives. 1 Kings xviii. 28.

Aylmer’s Field;
Becket.

BABEL.

Signifies confusion. Has reference to the building of the tower of Babel. Genesis xi. 1–9.

The Princess.

BABYLON.

Sea Dreams;
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham;
The Dawn.

BABYLONIAN WALL.

Semiramis, wife of Ninus, [Pg 70]king of Assyria and the founder of Nineveh. She was the daughter of Derceto, the Syrian fish-goddess, and married Onnes one of Ninus’ generals; but after her heroic capture of Bactra, the king married her, and Onnes committed suicide. After Ninus’ death she ruled and founded many cities, including the city of Babylon. After reigning forty-two years she abdicated in favour of her son and ascended to heaven in the form of a dove.

The Princess.

BACCHANAL.

= A noisy or riotous person.

Lover’s Tale.

BACCHANTE.

= A female disciple of Bacchus.

Romney’s Remorse.

BACCHUS.

In Roman mythology the god of wine, son of Zeus and Semele.

Dream of Fair Women.

BACON (Lord).

See Verulam.

BADGER.

A burrowing nocturnal animal.

Holy Grail;
The Foresters.

BADON.

The twelfth great battle of king Arthur with the Saxons was fought near Badon Hill, 520 A.D. It was the greatest of all his victories, it being computed that ‘nine hundred and sixty men fell before Arthur’s single onset.’

The locality of Badon has been a matter of dispute. It has been identified with Badon Hill, in Linlithgow, but is now generally thought to be Bradbury Hill, in Dorset.

Lancelot and Elaine.

BAGDAT.

or Bagdad, on the river Tigris, was founded in 762 to be the capital of the Caliphate. Under Haroun Alraschid (q.v.) it became famous as a seat of learning, and contained over 100 mosques, the domes and minarets of which were ornamented with glazed tiles in green and white.

Recollections of the Arabian Nights.

BAGENHALL.

See Ralph, Ralph Bagenhall.

BAILEY-GATE.

Defence of Lucknow.

BALA.

A Welsh lake, out of which flows the river Dee. The south-west wind blows from end to end of the lake, and as [Pg 71]it drives the water to north-east it fills the river.

Geraint and Enid.

BALAN.

A Knight of the Round Table; brother of Balin (q.v.).

Balin and Balan.

BALE (John).

Bishop of Ossory. Born in Suffolk, and educated at a Carmelite monastery, Norwich, and Jesus College, Cambridge, he became a convert from popery. In 1540, on the fall of Cromwell, he fled to Germany, but in 1547 was recalled by Edward VI, made rector of Swaffam in 1551, and two years later bishop of Ossory. On the accession of Mary he fled to Basle, where he lived until 1559, but returned in the reign of Elizabeth, and was made a prebendary of Canterbury. He wrote the first literary history of England, and in 1849 his select works were published by the Parker Society (1495–1563).

Queen Mary.

BALIN.

A knight of the Round Table called ‘The Savage.’ He was a Northumberland knight and being taken captive by king Arthur, was imprisoned for six months. When he was released, a damsel came to Camelot girded with a sword, and told the king that no one tainted with ‘treachery’ could draw it. King Arthur and all his knights tried and failed, but sir Balin drew it easily. The damsel begged for the sword but Balin refused, whereupon she said that it would be a plague to him, for with it he would slay his best friend, and would also prove his own death. The Lady of the Lake next demanded the sword, but Balin cut off her head with it and he was banished from court. Going one day to a castle to joust, he met a knight in red, accompanied with a shield, and rode forth to meet him. So fierce was the encounter that both the combatants were wounded, each living long enough to learn that his antagonist was none other than his brother.

Thus was fulfilled the damsel’s prophecy. Merlin buried the two brothers in one tomb, and

‘the scabbard of Balin’s sword Merlin left it on this side the island that Galahad should find it,’ also he put ‘Balin’s sword in a marble stone standing upright as great as a millstone, and the stone hoved always above the water, and did many years, and so by adventure it swam down the stream to the city of Camelot, that is in English Winchester.’

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book II. chap. xix.

Balin and Balan.

[Pg 72]

BALLIOL.

A college at Oxford founded in 1263 by John de Baliol father of John de Baliol king of Scotland.

To the Master of Balliol.

BALM-CRICKET.

A cicada.

A Dirge.

BALTIC.

Has reference to Lord Nelson’s victory at the battle of Copenhagen, April 2, 1801.

Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.

BALTIC (Sea).

Maud.

BAMBOO.

A gigantic Indian reed or grass, with hollow jointed stem, which are used for poles, walking sticks, etc.

To Ulysses.

BARA.

A Welsh word meaning ‘bread.’

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

BARABBAS.

Becket.

BARBARIAN.

= Russia.

Poland.

BARBAROSSA.

Surname of Frederick I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Succeeded his father duke Frederick II of Swabia in 1147, and his uncle Conrad III as emperor in 1152. The great struggle of his reign was with Lombardy. Honorius III prepared to support the Lombardy cities, and Gregory IX began the struggle between the papacy and the emperor.

Died in 1190 in the crusade against Saladin (1123–1190).

Becket.

BARCELONA.

A seaport and capital of the province of Barcelona. On his return from his first voyage Columbus arrived at Barcelona, where every preparation had been made to give him an enthusiastic reception, and where Ferdinand and Isabella, seated under a rich canopy, awaited his arrival. As Columbus approached the king and queen rose from their seats, and Columbus falling on his knees requested to kiss their hands. The sovereigns however ordered him to seat himself in their presence, and at their request Columbus gave an account of the voyage and a description of the land he had discovered.

Columbus.

BARLOW (William).

A native of Essex, canon of St. Osith monastery Essex, and afterwards prior of the canons at Bisham. Appointed bishop [Pg 73]of London, 1509, and bishop of St. Asaph, 1535, being transferred to St. David’s in the following year. In 1547 he was translated to Bath and Wells, and became a zealous preacher of the reformed faith. On the accession of Mary he was deprived of his bishopric, and committed to the Tower, but escaping, fled to Germany.

Elizabeth having succeeded, he returned, was created bishop of Chichester, 1559, and in 1560 prebendary of Westminster, and died the same year.

Queen Mary.

BARTON (Elizabeth).

See Joan of Kent.

BASILISK.

A fabulous creature, resembling a dragon.

Holy Grail.

BASLE.

A city in the north-west of Switzerland. Was a centre of influence in Reformation times, and for several years the home of Erasmus.

Queen Mary.

BASSA.

Supposed to mean Bashall Brook, which joins the river Ribble near Clitheroe, in Lancashire. It was the scene of king Arthur’s sixth victory over the Saxons.

Lancelot and Elaine.

BAT.

An animal with a body like a mouse, but which flies on wings attached mainly to its fore-feet.

Mariana;
The Princess;
In Memoriam;
Maud;
Balin and Balan;
Despair;
The Foresters.

BATHS.

= Lady Aylmer. Had formerly been a belle at the fashionable watering-places, but had now lost her good looks.

Aylmer’s Field.

BATHS, THE.

In great cities of the Roman Empire the Baths were popular lounges where amusements were provided for the people; consequently centre of gossip.

St. Telemachus.

BATTLE-TWIG.

= an earwig.

Spinster’s Sweet-Arts.

BAY.

= the laurel-tree.

Gareth and Lynette;
Poets and their Bibliographies.

BAYEUX.

An ancient city of Normandy. The ancient cathedral in Gothic said to be the oldest in Normandy, was rebuilt, after a fire, by William the Conqueror in 1077, but the present structure dates mainly from 1106 to the thirteenth century. Bayeux is noted for its celebrated tapestry, preserved in the Bayeux public [Pg 74]library. It is 230 feet long, by 20 inches wide, worked in coloured worsted, and divided into seventy-two scenes connected with the life of William the Conqueror. It is considered to have been the work of queen Matilda. William’s half-brother, Odo, was appointed bishop of Bayeux in 1048, a see which he held for fifty years.

Harold.

BEAR.

= an animal of many varieties.

The Princess;
Coming of Arthur;
Pelleas and Ettarre;
Harold;
Becket.

BEAR.

A constellation of seven stars in the northern hemisphere, called also the Plough, the Wagon, and Charles’s Wain. In Welsh it is called the Chariot of Arthur, as the name Arthur originally denoted a Bear; while the Round Table was suggested by the movement of the constellation round the pole star.

The Princess.

BECKET (Gilbert).

See Gilbert Becket.

BECKET (Thomas).

See Thomas, Thomas Becket.

BEDINGFIELD (Henry).

See Henry Bedingfield.

BEDIVERE.

The first made and the latest left of all the Knights of the Round Table. He is described as the ‘bold sir Bedivere,’ being always ready to defend king Arthur’s right to the throne.

He was one of the three knights sent by king Arthur to king Leodogran, to ask for the hand of his daughter Guinevere; and in the last weird battle in the west the only knight of Arthur’s who escaped alive. When Arthur lay dying he commanded sir Bedivere to return his sword Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake.

Twice did sir Bedivere go to the pool and twice did his heart fail him, for thinking it a pity to throw away so valuable a weapon he hid it among the waterflags about the marge. Returning to the dying king and being questioned as to what he had seen he replied:

but the dying monarch detecting the knight’s deception, threateningly commanded him to fulfil his wishes.

whereupon the knight rose, and going down to the mere, clutch’d the sword and threw it in the water.

[Pg 75]

Returning to the king sir Bedivere told him what he had seen, and taking the king upon his back went to the waterside and placed him in a barge in which were three queens, all of whom wept. Rowing from the land sir Bedivere cried:

‘Ah, my lord Arthur, what shall become of me now ye go from me, and leave me here alone among thine enemies. Comfort thyself, said the king, and do as well as thou mayest, for in me is no trust for to trust in. For I will into the vale of Avilion, to heal me of my grievous wound. And if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul.’

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book XXI. chap. v.

And as soon as the bold sir Bedivere lost sight of the barge he wept, and taking to the forest became a hermit.

Morte d’Arthur;
Coming of Arthur;
Passing of Arthur.

BEE.

A four-winged insect that makes honey.

Claribel;
A Dirge;
Eleänore;
Two Voices;
Œnone;
Amphion;
A Farewell;
Enoch Arden;
The Princess;
Northern Farmer, New Style;
The Window;
Lancelot and Elaine;
Holy Grail;
Ancient Sage;
Vastness;
Progress of Spring;
Romney’s Remorse.

BEEÄ.

= Bee.

Northern Cobbler.

BEECH.

A tree with smooth silvery-looking bark.

On a Mourner;
Talking Oak;
In Memoriam;
Progress of Spring;
Edwin Morris;
Amphion;
The Brook;
Prologue to General Hamley;
The Cup.

BEELZEBUB.

The Foresters.

BEETLE.

An insect, having four wings, the outer pair being stiff cases for covering the others when they are folded up.

Claribel.

BEL.

The British god of the underworld.

Boädicea.

BELLEROPHON.

Name of a horse.

The Brook.

BELLICENT.

Daughter of Gorloïs, duke of Cornwall, and his wife Ygernê. As a widow married Uther the pendragon, and was therefore the mother of Arthur. Tennyson says that she was the wife of Lot, king of Orkney, and mother of Gawain and Modred:

Geoffrey of Monmouth says ‘that Lot’s wife was Anne, the sister of Arthur;’ but Malory, in his Morte d’Arthur, says: ‘And king Lot of Lothian and of Orkney then wedded Margawse that was Gawaine’s [Pg 76]mother: and king Nentres of the land of Garlot wedded Elaine.’

Coming of Arthur;
Gareth and Lynette.

BENEDICT.

Founder of the religious order of the Benedictines. Born at Nursia of wealthy parents, he became convinced of the necessity of leading a life of meditation and prayer, and lived for three years as a hermit. Appointed abbot of the monastery of Vicovaro, he left it on account of the rules not being severe enough and founded the monastery of Monte Cassino, near Naples (480–543).

Becket.

BENGAL.

A presidency of British India.

The Brook.

BERKELEY (Maurice).

See Maurice, Maurice Berkeley.

BERKHAMSTEAD.

A castle erected by the Saxons, but in the time of Henry I was ordered to be razed to the ground. It is probable, however, that the demolition was only partial, as we find it some years later fitted up as a royal residence. In the twelfth century it was given to Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, by Henry II, and since was granted by the Crown from time to time to various noble families, until the time of Edward III, when it descended from the Crown to the successive Princes of Wales as heirs apparent to the throne and possessors of the dukedom of Cornwall.

Becket.

BERKSHIRE.

The figure of the White Horse on the Berkshire Hills is said to have been executed by king Alfred to celebrate his victory over the Danes at Ashdown in 871. The figure, which is 374 feet long, can be seen at a distance of fifteen miles, and is formed by cutting away the turf and leaving the chalk bare. A ceremony called the ‘Scouring of the White Horse’ was formerly held once a year; and for this purpose it was customary for the neighbouring inhabitants to assemble with picks and shovels, and after they had rendered more distinct the form of the horse, were entertained by the lord of the manor.

The festival, which concluded their labours, included horse-racing, foot-races, backsword-play, and other old English [Pg 77]games, and prizes were distributed to the successful competitors. The ceremony was suspended in 1780, only, however, to be renewed with great pomp in 1857. Appended is a copy of the hand-bills announcing the ceremony for the years 1776 and 1857; from The Scouring of the White Horse, by Hughes.

White Horse Hill, Berks, 1776.

‘The scowering and cleansing of the White Horse is fixed for Monday the 27th day of May; on which day a Silver Cup will be run for near White Horse Hill, by any horse, etc., that never run for anything, carrying 11 stone, the best of 3 two-mile heats, to start at ten o’clock.

‘Between the heats will be run for by Poneys, a Saddle, Bridle and Whip; the best of 3 two-mile heats, the winner of 2 heats will be entitled to the Saddle, the second best the Bridle, and the third the Whip.

‘The same time a Thill harness will be run for by Cart-horses, etc., in their harness and bells, the carters to ride in smock frocks without saddles, crossing and jostling, but no whipping allowed.

‘A flitch of Bacon to be run for by asses.

‘A good Hat to be run for by men in sacks, every man to bring his own sack.

‘A Waistcoat, 10s. 6d. value, to be given to the person who shall take a bullet out of a tub of flour with his mouth in the shortest time.

‘A Cheese to be run for down the White Horse Manger.

‘Smocks to be run for by ladies, the second best of each prize to be entitled to a Silk Hat.

‘Cudgel-playing for a gold-laced Hat and a pair of buckskin Breeches, and Wrestling for a pair of silver Buckles and a pair of pumps.

‘The horses to be on the White Horse Hill by nine o’clock.

‘No less than four horses, etc. or asses to start for any of the above prizes.’

Pastime.

To be held on the occasion of the Scouring of the White Horse, September 17 and 18, 1857.

At a meeting held at the Craven Arms, Uffington, on the 20th day of August, 1857, the following resolutions (amongst others) were passed unanimously:—

First. That a pastime be held on the White Horse Hill, on Thursday and Friday, the 17th and 18th of September, in accordance with the old custom at the time of ‘The Scouring of the Horse.’

2dly. That E. Martin Atkins, Esq., of Kingston Lisle, be appointed Treasurer.

3dly. That prizes be awarded for the following games and sports, That is to say—

Backsword Play.	⎰ ⎱	Old gamesters,	£8
		Young gamesters,	£4
Wrestling.	⎰ ⎱	Old gamesters,	£5
		Young gamesters,	£4

A jingling match.

Foot races.

Hurdle races.

Race of cart-horses in Thill harness (for a new set of harness).

Donkey race (for a flitch of bacon).

Climbing pole (for a leg of mutton).

Races down ‘the Manger’ (for cheeses).

A pig will be turned out on the down, to be the prize of the man who catches him (under certain regulations); and further prizes will be awarded for other games and sports as the funds will allow.

4thly. That no person be allowed to put up or use a stall or booth on the ground, without the previous sanction of Mr. Spackman, of Bridgecombe Farm [the occupier], who is hereby authorized to make terms with any person wishing to put up a stall or booth.

Signed, E. Martin Atkins,
Chairman.

The White Horse was the emblem of Hengist, and represented Odin, the war-god of the Teutonic Tribes.

Geraint and Enid.

BESS.

The wife of a farmer, a native of the north of England.

Owd Roä.

BESS.

Servant girl to an old spinster, who named her cats after her former admirers.

Spinster’s Sweet-Arts.

BESSY MARRIS.

A person of rather doubtful character. She accused an old farmer of being the father of her child. In order to deal fairly he decided to look after Bessy and her child.

Northern Farmer, Old Style.

BETHLEHEM.

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

BEVERLEY (John).

Carmelite: doctor and professor of divinity at Oxford; [Pg 78]canon of St. John’s Church, Beverley; burnt to death, 1414.

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

BIDEFORD.

A town on the north coast of Devonshire, and in the time of Elizabeth a port of some importance. It was the birthplace of sir Richard Grenville (q.v.), commander of The Revenge; and we may assume the greater part of his crew belonged to this place:

Here Kingsley wrote part of his Westward Ho!

The Revenge.

BILLY.

Name of a horse.

Village Wife.

BILLY-ROUGH-UN.

Name of a horse.

Village Wife.

BINDWEED-BELL.

= the convolvulus, a genus of plants so-called from their twining or binding, with showy bell-like flowers.

The Brook.

BIRCH.

A tree of several species.

Prologue to General Hamley.

BIRK.

= Birch.

A Dirge;
Progress of Spring.

BISCAY.

A bay between the west coast of France and the north coast of Spain. Navigation is much impeded by the heavy seas produced by the north-west winds.

Enoch Arden.

BITHYNIA.

A country in the north-west of Asia Minor, its inhabitants being of Thracian origin. In the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. it was part of the kingdom of Lydia, and afterwards became a part of the Persian empire under Cyrus. During the decline of the Persian empire it became an independent kingdom under a dynasty of native princes, which lasted until 74 B.C., when Nicomedes III bequeathed it after his death to the Romans and it became a province of the empire.

The Cup.

BLAISE (Saint).

Bishop of Sebaste, Cappadocia, suffered martyrdom, 316. In 1070 a chapel in the north transept of Canterbury Cathedral was dedicated to St. Blaise which stood intact until 1379, when, in the course of rebuilding the nave the chapel was done away with. The staircase and passage leading to it is however preserved in the existing wall.

Becket.

BLACK.

An inland sea bounded by Russia, Asia Minor and European [Pg 79]Turkey, Bulgaria and Roumania.

Maud.

BLACK BESS.

Name of a horse.

The Brook.

BLACKBIRD.

A species of thrush, a well-known singing bird.

The Blackbird;
Audley Court;
Early Spring.

BLACKCAP.

A small European bird, so-called from its black crown.

Progress of Spring.

BLACKTHORN.

A dark-coloured thorn; the sloe.

May Queen.

BLANCHE.

Lady Blanche, mother of Melissa, and a widow. She was a woman of narrow and jealous disposition. Was engaged by the princess Ida in the college founded by the princess for women. She regarded the institution as a means for ignoble self-aggrandisement, and was willing to desert it when she conceived that her end might be more effectively secured elsewhere. Envious, self-centred, treacherous, she lacked even the redeeming feature of love for her child or respect for the memory of her dead husband.

The Princess.

BLESSED ISLES.

Name given to the Canary Islands off the coast of north-west Africa.

The Cup.

BLEYS.

The historian of Arthur’s court. Malory tells us how Merlin, after Arthur’s great battle against the kings, ‘he took leave of Arthur and of the two kings, for to go and see his master Bleise that dwelt in Northumberland. Merlin gave Bleise an account of the fight, and so Bleise wrote the battle, word by word, as Merlin told him.... All the battles that was done in Arthur’s days Merlin did his master Bleise do write.’

Coming of Arthur.

BLIND FATE.

Has reference to a man who, for his evil deeds, and his violation of the Divine Law, is overtaken by God’s judgments, but refuses to see in them anything more than the operation of ‘Blind Fate.’

Doubt and Prayer.

BLUEBELL.

A plant which bears blue bell-shaped flowers.

A Dirge;
Adeline;
Last Tournament;
Becket;
Promise of May.

[Pg 80]

BLUEBOTTLE.

A plant which grows in grain fields, so called from its blue bottle-shaped flowers.

Promise of May.

BOÄDICEA.

Queen of the Iceni in Britain who inhabited Norfolk and Suffolk. Being treated with indignity by the Romans, she—during the absence of the Roman governor in Anglesey—assembled an army, captured and burnt the Roman colonies of London, Colchester, and Verulam and slew 70,000 Romans. Upon his return Suetonius Paulinus attacked and defeated her and in despair she poisoned herself, A.D. 61. This victory secured the Roman dominion in Britain. Cowper makes her the subject of one of his poems.

Boädicea.

BOANERGES.

A declamatory parson, who consigns to perdition all except his own followers.

Sea Dreams.

BOAR.

= the wild boar.

Coming of Arthur;
Gareth and Lynette;
The Foresters.

BOAZ.

A brass pillar, signifying strength, at the entrance to Solomon’s Temple. 1 Kings vii. 21.

Harold.

BOBOLI.

Giardino di Boboli, a garden behind the Pitti Palace, Florence. The walks, bordered with evergreens, attract crowds of pleasure-seekers.

The Daisy.

BOGGLE.

= a ghost.

Northern Farmer, Old Style.

BOLEYN.

Second queen of Henry VIII, and mother of Elizabeth. After a three years’ residence at the French court became maid-of-honour to queen Catherine; attracted the admiration of Henry, and the king having instituted proceedings with a view of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon married her secretly on January 3, 1533; charged with adultery and conspiracy she was condemned to death and beheaded on Tower Hill, 1536 (1507–1536).

Queen Mary.

BOLINGBROKE (Harry).

See Harry Bolingbroke.

BONNER (Edmund).

Bishop of London. Chaplain [Pg 81]to cardinal Wolsey 1539; appeared before the pope at Marseilles in 1533 to appeal for the excommunication of Henry VIII; appointed to the living of East Dereham, 1534; bishop of Hereford and ambassador to the French court, 1538. In 1540 he was made bishop of London; and was appointed ambassador to the emperor, 1542; fell into disgrace under Edward VI, who imprisoned him in Fleet; reprimanded for neglecting to enforce use of the new prayer book, and imprisoned at Marshalsea, 1540–53; deprived of his bishoprick; restored on the accession of Mary, 1553; refused to take the oath of supremacy under Elizabeth and was again imprisoned in the Marshalsea where he died (1500–1569).

Queen Mary.

BONNY DOON.

Air or tune to which the song of The Banks o’ Doon is sung. The song is by Robert Burns, and begins:

Doon is the name of a river in Ayrshire.

The Brook.

BOOR-TREE.

= Elder-tree.

Tomorrow.

BORS.

A Knight of the Round Table, called sir Bors de Ganis, brother of sir Lionel and nephew of sir Lancelot. He was ‘a square-set man and honest;’ and represented those who have sinned and effectually repented. When sir Bors went to the castle of Corbin and saw Galahad, the son of Lancelot and Elaine, he ‘wept for joy, and he prayed to God it might prove as good a knight as his father was,’ and forthwith the Holy Grail appeared unto him:

And so came in a white dove, and she bare a little censer of gold in her mouth, and there was all manner of meats and drinks, and a maiden bare that Sancgreal, and she said openly, Wit you well Sir Bors that this child is Galahad, that shall sit in the siege perilous, and achieve the Sancgreal, and he shall be much better than ever was Sir Launcelot du Lake, that is his own father. And then they kneeled down and made their devotions.... And then the dove took her flight, and the maiden vanished with the Sancgreal as she came.

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book XI. chap. iv.

Sir Bors accompanied sir Galahad and sir Percivale in the quest of the Holy Grail, and was present when it appeared. After the death of Galahad, sir Bors departed with sir Lancelot from Cardiff and sailed to Benwick, and was crowned king of all king Claudus’ lands.

Holy Grail.

BOS.

Represents the rocky coast of Cornwall. Bos, now called Boscastle, is a village near Tintagil Head.

Guinevere.

BOSHAM.

A seaport in Sussex. It was [Pg 82]for some time the residence of king Harold, and the place from which he started on his journey to Normandy. In the church is the tomb of Bosham, secretary to Thomas Becket. King Canute built a castle here, and his daughter lies buried in the church.

Harold;
Becket.

BOUNTEOUS ISLE.

See Maeldune.

BOURNE (Gilbert).

Son of Philip Bourne and brother of sir John Bourne, Secretary of State in the time of Mary. In 1531 we find him Fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford, and ten years’ later was made prebendary of Worcester and of St. Paul’s. In the meantime he had become chaplain to bishop Bonner, and was in 1553 sent to preach at Paul’s Cross; and denouncing Edward VI for having imprisoned Bonner in the Marshalsea, the crowd became so exasperated that a dagger was hurled at him, and had it not been for the interference of Courtenay, earl of Devon, would have undoubtedly paid for his rashness with his life.

In 1553 he was created bishop of Bath and Wells, and soon afterwards was made president of Wales, but in the reign of Elizabeth was deprived (1559) for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and was committed to the Tower; afterwards being committed to ‘free custody.’ He died at Silverton, Devonshire, 1569.

Queen Mary.

BOVADILLA (Francisco de).

An official of the royal household of Ferdinand and Isabella; appointed Commissioner to investigate the state of affairs that existed in the island of Hispaniola under the vice-regency of Christopher Columbus. Armed with authority to take complete possession of the island he sailed from Spain in July 1500, and entered the harbour of San Domingo on August 23 of the same year. Landing on the following day he demanded from James Columbus—brother of the navigator, who was left in command during Christopher’s absence in Vega Real—the release of all the prisoners in the fortress, and upon James refusing took the fortress by storm. He then occupied Columbus’ house and seized all his public and private papers. Hearing of Bovadilla’s arrival, Columbus set out for San Domingo, and upon his arrival was—with his brothers James and Bartholomew—arrested, placed in chains and sent home to Spain, Bovadilla remaining in command of the island. He however failed to reduce the colony to order, and [Pg 83]in 1501 was superseded by Nicholas de Ovando. Upon the latter’s arrival in the island, Bovadilla embarked for Spain, but encountering a hurricane immediately upon leaving the shore was shipwrecked and consequently lost his life.

Columbus.

BOX.

A tree or shrub remarkable for the hardness and smoothness of its wood.

A Spirit haunts.

BRAMBLE.

A prickly shrub.

Holy Grail;
Pelleas and Ettarre.

BRANDAGORAS.

King of Latangor, subdued by king Arthur, fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.

Coming of Arthur.

BRASTIAS.

A Knight of the Round Table: one of the three knights sent by king Arthur to king Leodogran to ask for the hand of his daughter Guinevere. Brastias became a hermit and retired to a hermitage in the forest of Windsor, where he was visited by sir Lancelot when the latter was commanded by Guinevere to avoid the court.

Coming of Arthur.

BRENDAN.

An Irish saint of the sixth century. He lived an ascetic life and was Abbot over 100 monks. Said to have visited certain islands in the eastern ocean where he—with his Irish monks—preached.

The islands of St. Brendan are supposed to be to the west of the Canary Islands. Brendan visited St. Columbia at Iona in 563. He is the hero of the Navigation of St. Brendan, a popular tale of the mediæval ages.

Voyage of Maeldune.

BRETON (Brittany).

Maud;
Merlin and Vivien;
Last Tournament.

BRETT (Captain).

Joined sir Thomas Wyatt in insurrection to prevent the marriage of Mary with Philip of Spain, and was in charge of the London deserters; taken prisoner by sir Maurice Berkeley at Temple Bar, and executed.

Queen Mary.

BRIAR.

= Brier.

Day-Dream;
Promise of May.

BRIER.

A plant with a stem bearing prickles.

Buonaparte;
You might have won;
The Princess;
The Window;
Last Tournament;
Lover’s Tale.

BRIGADE, Heavy.

See Heavy Brigade.

BRIGADE, Light.

See Light Brigade.

[Pg 84]

BRIGADE, Scarlett’s.

See Scarlett’s Brigade.

BRIONY.

A wild climbing plant common in English hedgerows; its rings are its spiral tendrils.

Talking Oak;
The Brook.

BRITAIN.

You ask me why;
The Princess;
Third of February;
A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna;
Boädicea;
Maud;
Coming of Arthur;
Marriage of Geraint;
Balin and Balan;
Lancelot and Elaine;
Last Tournament;
Guinevere;
To the Queen, II;
Defence of Lucknow;
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham;
Battle of Brunanburh;
Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition;
To Marquis of Dufferin and Ava;
Harold;
Queen Mary.

BRITO (Richard de).

See De Brito.

BRITTANY.

The north-western peninsula of France. It was conquered by the Romans in 57–56 B.C., and in the fifth and sixth centuries was invaded and christianized from England and Ireland. From the end of the tenth to the middle of the fifteenth centuries it was independent of the French king, being governed by dukes, but in 1532 was united to the French crown.

Last Tournament;
Harold;
The Foresters.

BROC.

See De Broc.

BROCELIANDE.

A forest supposed to have been Brittany. At one end of the forest stands the fountain of Baranton, and near by is the tomb of Merlin surmounted by a cross of wood. From the fountain flows a mineral spring, which bubbles up when a piece of iron or copper is thrown into it.

Merlin and Vivien.

BROOKS.

William Henry Brookfield, son of Charles Brookfield, a Sheffield solicitor. Curate of Maltby (1834), St. James’, Piccadilly, London (1840), and St. Luke’s, Berwick Street (1841); chaplain-in-ordinary to queen Victoria (1860). Whilst at Trinity College, Cambridge, made the acquaintance of Tennyson, who in 1875 wrote for Lord Lyttelton’s preface to Sermons by the late Rev. William Henry Brookfield, the following:

To Rev. W. H. Brookfield.

[Pg 85]

BRUNANBURH.

The scene of a bloody battle in 937, where Athelstan (q.v.) and his brother Edmund Atheling (q.v.) gained a decisive victory over Anlaf the Dane, Constantine of Scotland, and the Northumbrian Danes, which victory practically established the unity of England. The site of the battle is uncertain, but it has been variously located in Northumberland, Dumfriesshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Battle of Brunanburh;
Harold.

BRUNELLESCHI.

A famous Italian architect, born at Florence. He built the Pitti Palace, the churches of San Lorenzo, and Spirito Santo, as well as the Duomo of the Cathedral, the latter being his principal title to fame.

The Brook.

BRUSSELS.

The capital of Belgium.

Queen Mary.

BRUTUS (Lucius Junius).

See Lucius Junius Brutus.

BUBLIN’.

= a young unfledged bird.

Owd Roä.

BUCKINGHAM.

Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, eldest son of Henry Stafford, second duke. On April 16, 1521, he was committed to the Tower for treason, and on May 13 was tried by seventeen peers, presided over by the duke of Norfolk; condemned and executed on Tower Hill on the 17th of the same month, his body being buried in the church of the Austin Friars (1478–1521).

Queen Mary.

BUDE.

The rocky coast of Cornwall. Bude is a small port on the north coast of that county.

Guinevere.

BULBUL.

A Persian word much used in Persian poetry. Though there is much dispute as to the bird to which it refers, it is generally considered to be the nightingale.

Recollections of the Arabian Nights;
The Princess.

BULL.

An inn sign.

Audley Court.

BULL (Edward).

A curate.

Edwin Morris.

BULLINGHAM (Nicholas).

Fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford, 1536; chaplain to archbishop Cranmer; prebendary of Lincoln, 1547; and rector of Thimbleby, 1551; deprived on account of being [Pg 86]married in 1553, and on the outbreak of the Marian persecution fled to Germany. In the reign of Elizabeth he returned, was appointed to the vacant See of Lincoln rendered vacant by the deprivation of bishop Watson, and was one of the bishops appointed to draw up the Articles. In 1571 he was translated to Worcester, and appointed one of the Commissioners for the enforcement of the Book of Common Prayer. He died in 1576 and was buried in the chapel at Worcester cathedral. On his tomb appears the following epitaph:

Queen Mary.

BURDOCK.

A broad-leaved, prickly plant.

Holy Grail.

BURGUNDY.

An old duchy of France.

Harold.

BURLEIGH.

Lord of Burleigh.

BURLEIGH-HOUSE.

‘Burleigh-house by Stamford-town’ is the county residence of the marquis of Exeter, the descendant of the famous Cecil, lord Burleigh, who was Secretary of State to queen Elizabeth. In the Civil War it was taken by the Parliamentarians.

Lord of Burleigh.

BUTTER-BUMP.

= Bittern, a bird of the heron family.

Northern Farmer, Old Style.

BUTTERFLY.

The name of an extensive group of beautiful winged insects.

Adeline;
Talking Oak;
Queen Mary;
Promise of May.

BUZZARD.

A rapacious bird of prey of the falcon family.

Queen Mary.

BUZZARD-CLOCK.

= Cockchafer, a beetle, called also the May-bug.

Northern Farmer, Old Style.

CADE (Jack).

An Irish adventurer, and the leader of an insurrection in Kent in the reign of Henry VI (1450), against the oppressive taxation of the government. With a force of 15,000 men marched on London, and encamped at Blackheath; and defeating the royal army sent against him entered London on July 2, 1450. The citizens however retaliated and a struggle took place between them and Cade on the night of July 5. As a result terms [Pg 87]were arranged, and the Kentish men retired from the city. A price being set upon Cade’s head, he attempted to reach the coast, but was pursued by a Kentish squire named Alexander Iden (q.v.), who fought and killed him in a garden at Heathfield in Sussex, for which service he was knighted.

On the side of the road opposite the garden where he was killed stands a monumental stone bearing the following inscription:

Near this spot was slain the notorious Rebel
Jack Cade
By Alexander Iden, Sheriff of Kent, A.D. 1450.
His body was carried to London, and his head
fixed on London Bridge.
This is the success of all rebels,
And this fortune chanceth ever to traitors.

Queen Mary.

CADMEAN.

A citadel of Thebes, built by Cadmus (q.v.), son of Agenor, king of Phœnicia.

Lucretius.

CADMUS.

In Greek mythology son of Agenor, king of Phœnicia by Telephassa or Agriope. Was ordered by his father to go in quest of his sister Europa whom Jupiter carried away, and he was never to return to Phœnicia if he did not bring her back. His search proving fruitless, he consulted the Delphic oracle, who ordered him to build the Cadmean, afterwards the citadel of Thebes. Here he killed a dragon which guarded the well of Arês, and sowed its teeth which sprang up as armed men, who immediately fought and slew each other, except five. For this act Cadmus made reparation to Arês for a period of eight years.

Afterwards he married Hermione, the mother of Venus, and both of them being changed into serpents by Zeus were removed to Elysium. Cadmus was the first to introduce the alphabet into Greece.

Tiresias.

CAER-ERYRI.

= Snowdon. The latter part of the word means ‘eagle’s nest.’

Gareth and Lynette.

CAERLEON.

An ancient town in Monmouthshire on the river Usk. The name Caerleon-upon-Usk distinguished it from Chester, which was Caerleon-on-Dee. This ‘City of Legions’ with its golden domes and magnificent churches, and its gorgeous palace, with its giant tower

[Pg 88]

is supposed to have equalled Rome in splendour. It was one of the principal residences of king Arthur, where he lived in splendid state, surrounded by his knights, and where he held his court.

King Arthur’s ninth great battle against the Saxons was fought here. Roman remains have been found, as walls, bath, and an amphitheatre (16 feet high and 222 by 192 feet) called king Arthur’s Round Table.

Marriage of Geraint;
Geraint and Enid;
Balin and Balan;
Lancelot and Elaine;
Merlin and Vivien;
Pelleas and Ettarre.

CAERLYLE.

The city of Carlisle in Cumberland.

Lancelot and Elaine.

CÆSAR.

Octavian Augustus Cæsar, the adopted son of Julius Cæsar.

Dream of Fair Women.

CÆSAR.

Coming of Arthur.

CÆSAR.

= Julius Cæsar.

Marriage of Geraint.

CÆSAR.

Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.

CÆSAR.

To Virgil.

CÆSAR.

Parnassus.

CÆSAR.

Harold.

CAIAPHAS-ARUNDEL.

Has reference to archbishop Arundel, who examined and condemned to death sir John Oldcastle.

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

CAIN.

Maud;
Forlorn;
Happy;
Becket;
Queen Mary.

CALABER (Quintus).

See Quintus Calaber.

CALAIS.

A French seaport on the straits of Dover. It was captured by Edward III in 1347 after a heroic defence, and remained under the English crown until the time of Mary (1558), when it was taken by the duke of Guise. It was the last town held by the English on French soil, and its loss was a blow to the English nation, queen Mary declaring that on her death [Pg 89]‘Calais’ would be found written on her heart.

Queen Mary.

CALIPHAT.

The government or empire of the Caliphs.

Recollections of the Arabian Nights.

CALIXTUS.

The first pope of Rome; elected 219 A.D. and martyred 223 A.D. He is known as the constructor of the celebrated catacombs on the Appian Way at Rome.

Harold.

CALLIOPE.

A daughter of Jupiter and Mnemosyne, and the first and noblest of the nine Muses (q.v.). She is represented as presiding over epic poetry and eloquence. Her attributes are a tablet and stylus; sometimes a scroll.

Lucretius.

CALPE.

The rock of Gibraltar, and one of the pillars of Hercules—the other being Abyla. It is supposed these two were originally one mountain, but Hercules tore them asunder and the sea poured between them.

The Poet.

CAMA.

In Hindu mythology the god of love and marriage, represented as riding across the sky on the back of a parrot accompanied by the cuckoo and the humming-bee.

Palace of Art.

CAMBALU.

The mediæval name of Pekin, the city of the Great Khan.

Columbus.

CAMBRIDGE.

The capital of Cambridgeshire, and the seat of one of the English Universities.

Becket.

CAMEL.

A large ruminant quadruped, much used in Asia and Africa as a beast of burden, and for riding. The camel is remarkable for its ability to go a long time without drinking.

Merlin and Vivien;
Lover’s Tale.

CAMELEON.

A small lizard famous for changing its colour.

Queen Mary.

CAMELIARD.

The realm of Leodogran, father of Guinevere, wife of king Arthur. Brecknock—three miles from which town is a hill known as Arthur’s hill—was considered to have [Pg 90]marked one of its borders, and its capital is said to have been Carohaise, a city as yet undiscovered.

With the assistance of king Arthur he cleared his realm of wild beasts and heathen hordes that swarmed from overseas, after which his daughter Guinevere became Arthur’s queen.

Coming of Arthur.

CAMELOT.

The place where king Arthur chiefly held his court.

Caxton in his preface to Malory’s Morte d’Arthur speaks of it as if it were in Wales, probably meaning Caerleon-upon-Usk, where the Roman amphitheatre is still called Arthur’s Round Table. The place referred to by Shakespeare in his King Lear is considered to be in Cornwall.

But the Camelot of the Arthurian romance is supposed to be the city of Winchester.

Balin’s sword was put in a marble stone standing upright as great as a millstone, and the stone hoved always above the water, and did many years, and so by adventure it swam down the stream to the city of Camelot that is in English Winchester.

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book II. chap. xix.

It is now identified with a village called Camel in Somersetshire and the town of Camelford in Cornwall. In the former place remains of the entrenchments of an ancient town are still to be seen. The village still preserves the traditions of Arthur, ‘the bridge over the river Camel is called Arthur’s Bridge,’ and in the neighbourhood is a spring known as ‘Arthur’s Well.’ At Camelford there is a grave locally known as ‘King Arthur’s grave,’ and in the vicinity is Slaughter Hill, the reputed scene of the ‘last weird battle in the west,’ where the traitor Modred was slain, and where Arthur received his mortal wound. In Gareth and Lynette it is described as:

And in the centre of the city was the great hall which Merlin had built for Arthur

But in the description of the departure of the three knights in search of the Holy Grail, Percivale says:

[Pg 91]

And in Pelleas and Ettarre, as Pelleas is riding away from the castle of Ettarre

Lady of Shalott;
Morte d’Arthur;
Gareth and Lynette;
Marriage of Geraint;
Balin and Balan;
Merlin and Vivien;
Lancelot and Elaine;
Holy Grail;
Pelleas and Ettarre;
Last Tournament;
Guinevere;
Passing of Arthur;
Merlin and the Gleam.

CAMILLA.

See Julian.

CAMMA.

Wife of Sinnatus (q.v.), afterwards priestess in the temple of Artemis.

The Cup.

CAMPANILI.

A genus of plants, bearing bell-shaped flowers.

The Daisy.

CÁMULODÚNE.

The Roman name for the city of Colchester. Claudius established a Roman settlement here to assist in the subjugation of Caractacus, a warlike king who lived in South Wales. During the absence of the Governor, the Iceni, under Boädicea (q.v.) captured and burnt the colony and massacred the inhabitants, some 70,000 Romans being said to have perished, but Suetonius Paulinus on his return from Wales recovered possession of the place.

Boädicea.

CANA.

Refers to the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee where Christ was present with His disciples and performed His miracle of turning the water into wine. John ii. 1–11.

Holy Grail.

CANADA.

A Welcome to Her Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh;
Hands all Round.

CANNING.

Stratford Canning, first viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, the famous ambassador. Was secretary to the Envoy to Denmark in 1807; Constantinople in 1808, and two years later was left in charge of the British Embassy at Constantinople; plenipotentiary to Switzerland 1813–20; envoy to the United States of America 1820–24; to St. Petersburg 1824, and again to Constantinople in 1825. M.P. for Salisbury 1828, and for Stockbridge, 1830; appointed Envoy to St. Petersburg 1833, but the Czar refused to receive him; in 1835 declined the governorship of Canada; M.P. for Kings Lynn 1835–41, and in 1842 appointed ambassador at Constantinople. Envoy to [Pg 92]Switzerland 1847, and in the following year returned to Constantinople. In 1852 he was created viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, and six years later resigned his ambassadorship. He died in 1880. A statue to his memory was erected in Westminster Abbey in 1884.

Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue;
Epitaph on Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.

CANOPUS.

A bright star in the rudder of Argo, a constellation of the southern hemisphere; so called from the old Egyptian city Canopus, or from an Egyptian god of that name.

Dream of Fair Women.

CANTERBURY.

Queen Mary;
Harold;
Becket.

CANTERBURY-BELLS.

= Campanula, a plant bearing bell-shaped flowers.

City Child.

CANTERBURY MINSTER.

Becket.

CAPITOL.

The temple of ancient Rome, where the senate met. It was situated on the Mons Capitolinus, the smallest but the most famous of the seven hills on which Rome is built.

Freedom.

CAPRERA.

A small island in the Buccinari group of the coast of Sardinia. It was the home of general Garibaldi, where he died, and his burial-place.

To Ulysses.

CARADOS.

A king subdued by king Arthur, fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.

Coming of Arthur.

CARAFFA.

John Peter Caraffa, elected pope of Rome under the title of Paul IV in 1555, at the age of eighty.

Queen Mary.

CARAVEL.

The small, open ship of the Portuguese was called a caravel. When Bovadilla (q.v.) started on his homeward voyage to Spain, a hurricane burst over his fleet. Many of the ships were entirely lost, and others returned to San Domingo in a shattered condition. The only ship of the fleet which pursued her voyage and ultimately reached her port of destination was the frail caravel freighted with the property of Columbus.

Columbus.

CARBONEK.

A castle, according to legend built as the resting place of the Holy Grail in the time of Alain, grandson of Joseph of Arimathæa. It was the residence of king Pelles, whose daughter Elaine was mother of sir Galahad.

[Pg 93]

Holy Grail.

CAREW (Peter).

See Peter Carew.

CARIAN ARTEMISIA.

Daughter of Lygdamis, and queen of Halicarnassus. She built in memory of her husband king Mausolus of Caria, the famous Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, counted by the ancients as one of the seven wonders of the world. With five ships she joined Xerxes in his invasion of Greece, and fought at Salamis, 480 B.C., where she displayed such signal courage and energy, that Xerxes exclaimed: ‘My men have become women, and my women men.’

The Princess.

CARLOS.

Don Carlos, son of Philip II of Spain.

Queen Mary.

CAROLINE.

One of the four little girl friends of Alice, ‘Queen of the May.’

May Queen.

CARP.

A fresh-water fish.

Marriage of Geraint.

CARRIER-PIGEON.

A domestic pigeon used to convey messages from a distant point to its home.

Harold.

CARYATIDS.

In Greek architecture draped female figures supporting an entablature in place of a column.

The Princess.

CASCINÈ.

A park of Florence about two miles long, bounded by the rivers Arno and Mugnone. It affords refreshing walks to the traveller, and is a fashionable rendezvous, particularly for driving.

The Daisy.

CASSANDRA.

A Trojan princess; the beautiful daughter of Priam and Hecuba, whom Apollo in return for her love endowed with the gift of prophecy. She predicted to the Trojans the siege and destruction of their city, and was shut up in prison as a madwoman. On the fall of Troy she became the slave of Agamemnon, and was murdered along with her master by his wife Clytemnestra. She is one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.

Œnone;
Romney’s Remorse.

CASSIA.

A genus of plants of many species, most of which have purgative qualities.

Love and Death.

[Pg 94]

CASSIOPEIA.

Queen of Ethiopia, mother of Andromeda. For boasting that her daughter’s beauty surpassed the beauty of the sea-nymphs, Neptune sent a sea-serpent, which ravaged the kingdom. At death she was made a constellation, consisting of thirteen stars.

The Princess.

CÁSSIVËLAÚN.

Cássivëlaún, was a king of Britain at the time when Julius Cæsar invaded the island. Mwrchan, a Gallic chief, in league with Cæsar seized and carried away to Gaul, Flur, Cássivëlaún’s betrothed, but Cássivëlaún invading Gaul at the head of 60,000 troops, gained a complete victory and rescued his bride.

On Cæsar’s second invasion of the island, Cássivëlaún again vanquished him; but the Romans being reinforced by Androgeus, he was defeated and agreed to pay tribute to the amount of 3,000 pounds of silver annually. Several years after he died and was buried at York.

Boädicea;
Marriage of Geraint.

CASTALIES.

See Castaly.

The Princess.

CASTALY.

A fountain at the foot of mount Parnassus, sacred to the Muses; called after a nymph who drowned herself in it to escape Apollo. Its waters inspired those who drank thereof with the gift of poetry.

Becket.

CASTILE—CASTILLE.

A district of Spain, divided by the mountains of Castile into old and new Castile. Anciently inhabited by Celtiberian tribes, but united to the crown of Spain in 1469 by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella.

Columbus;
Queen Mary.

CASTLE PERILOUS.

The home of Lady Lyonors. There she was held captive by four knights. Lynette (q.v.) her sister went to king Arthur and asked for a knight to fight to rescue her, and the task was given to sir Gareth (q.v.), who overcame the knights and liberated the lady. Malory in his Morte d’Arthur says that Gareth married the lady and his brother Gaheris married Lynette, but Tennyson says that Gareth married Lynette, but makes no mention of lady Lyonors.

Gareth and Lynette.

CASTRO.

Chaplain to king Philip of Spain.

Queen Mary.

[Pg 95]

CAT.

A domestic animal.

The Falcon;
The Owl;
The Goose;
Walking to the Mail;
The Princess;
Maud;
Promise of May;
The Foresters;
Holy Grail;
Northern Cobbler;
Tomorrow;
Spinster’s Sweet-Arts;
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After;
Owd Roä;
Church-warden and the Curate.

CATALONIAN MINORITE.

Catalonian = Catalonia, a Spanish province. Minorite = a monk. Has reference to Friar Bernardo Buil, a Benedictine monk who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to America, 1493. He had been chosen by pope Alexander VI to be his apostolic vicar in the West Indies.

Columbus.

CATERPILLAR.

The coloured grub of the lepidopterous insects, or of butterflies and moths.

Guinevere.

CATHARINE.

of Aragon (b. 1485), first queen of Henry VIII, youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Married first to Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, in 1501, but was left a widow, and in 1509 by a papal dispensation was married to her brother-in-law, afterwards Henry VIII. In 1533, shortly after Henry’s cleavage with Rome, Cranmer declared the marriage null and void; but the pope pronounced it valid, 1534. Died 1535, and buried in Peterborough Abbey.

Queen Mary.

CATHAY.

The mediæval name for Tartary, the capital of which was Albracca.

Locksley Hall.

CATHERINE.

Daughter of a woman who chides her because she is contemplating a marriage, of which her mother says she is unworthy.

She exhorts her to confess to her lover.

Forlorn.

CATIEUCHLANIAN.

An ancient British tribe whose kingdom embraced the present counties of Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, and Middlesex.

Boädicea.

CATO.

M. Porcius Cato, Roman orator and statesman. He was known as ‘the Censor,’ to which office he was appointed in 184 B.C. He was an opponent of Hellenic fashions, and during the second Punic war (215 B.C.), when Rome was in danger [Pg 96]of being captured by Hannibal, a law—called the Oppian Law—was passed to restrain the extravagant dress of the Roman ladies, but some years after the women rose in revolt, and were successful in getting the law repealed in spite of the opposition of Cato (234–149, B.C.).

The Princess.

CATULLUS.

Considered to be the greatest of Roman lyric poets. Some of his poems are inspired by the love for a beautiful maiden named Lesbia, a passion that eventually proved his downfall. The poem referred to in Edwin Morris, 79, is by Catullus.

Hendecasyllabics;
Frater Ave Atque Vale;
Poets and their Bibliographies.

CAUCASIAN.

A phrase by which the race of people who inhabited the Caucasian mountains was known.

Palace of Art.

CAUCASIAN.

Alludes to the sale of Caucasian girls for Turkish harems.

Aylmer’s Field.

CAUCASUS.

A mountain range, 900 miles in length, with an average height of 12,000 feet, extending from the Black Sea to the Caspian.

The Poet;
A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh.

CAUF.

= Calf.

Spinster’s Sweet-Arts.

CAVALL.

King Arthur’s best hound; name of a mountain in Wales, where tradition says exists a stone with a footprint of the dog impressed in it.

Marriage of Geraint.

CECIL.

William, baron Burghley, queen Elizabeth’s chief minister.

Queen Mary.

CECILY.

A Roman virgin of rank, who embraced Christianity in the reign of Antoninus, and who is said to have been visited by angels. She is the Latin saint of music, and the reputed inventor of the organ. Suffered martyrdom about 200 B.C.

Dryden, Pope, Addison and other English poets have contributed Odes, but the best-known is Dryden’s (1697).

Palace of Art.

[Pg 97]

CEDAR.
CEDAR-TREE.

The name of several evergreen trees.

Recollections of the Arabian Nights;
Gardener’s Daughter;
The Princess;
Milton;
Maud;
Queen Mary.

CELANDINE.

A plant of the poppy family with yellow leaves.

Progress of Spring.

CELIDON.

A forest, and the scene of Arthur’s seventh victory over the Saxons. One authority considers it in Cornwall, another in Lincolnshire, while another places it on the banks of the Carron in Upper-Tweeddale.

Lancelot and Elaine.

CELTIC DEMOS.

See Demos.

CHAMIAN ORACLE.

The temple of Jupiter Ammon. Ammon was an Egyptian god, represented in the shape of a ram, his chief temple being in the desert of Libyan, twelve days’ journey from Memphis. This temple possessed a famous oracle, said to have had connexion with the oracle at Dodona, two black doves flying away from Thebes in Egypt, one to the temple of Jupiter Ammon and the other to Dodona, by which the inhabitants were informed of the divine mission; consequently the Greeks identified Ammon with their god Zeus and the Romans with their Jupiter.

Alexander.

CHARING CROSS.

A part of London, the junction of Whitehall and the Strand. It derived its name from the stone cross which was erected as a memorial to Eleanor, queen of Edward I.

Queen Mary.

CHARIOTEER.

The constellation Auriga, situated midway between the Polar Star and Orion.

Maud;
Achilles over the Trench.

CHARLES (the First).

King of England, third son of James I and Anne, daughter of the king of Denmark. Created duke of York and Cornwall on the accession of his father, and in 1616, four years after the death of his elder brother Henry, created Prince of Wales. Succeeding his father in 1625 he married Henrietta Maria, youngest daughter of Henry IV of France. Became involved in controversy with Parliament, particularly regarding the revenues rendered necessary by his extravagant policy, and for eleven years through his ministers [Pg 98]governed without one. Civil war eventually broke out which ended in the disastrous battle of Naseby in 1645. In the following year he surrendered himself to the Scots at Newark, who handed him over to the English. On January 20, 1649, he was brought to trial, and on the 27th of the same month was condemned, and beheaded at Whitehall three days later (1600–1649).

Third of February.

CHARLES (the Second).

King of England, second son of Charles I. Having assisted his father until after the battle of Naseby he proceeded with his mother to the Hague, where he received the news of his father’s fate. He was proclaimed king at Edinburgh on February 3, 1649, and again on July 15, 1650, after his arrival in that country, and on January 1 in the following year was crowned at Scone, in Perthshire. In August of the same year he invaded England at the head of 10,000 troops, but was defeated by Cromwell at Worcester. Escaping, he hid in the branches of a large oak in Boscobel wood to avoid his pursuers, who actually came under the tree where he was. Wandering from place to place in disguise he eventually reached Shoreham, escaped to France, and hence to Brussels, where he remained until the death of Cromwell in 1658. Two years later he was recalled to the throne, and arriving in England was received with acclamation. In 1665 he declared war against Holland and a Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway and destroyed several ships. The same year a great plague swept away a large number of the inhabitants of London, and in the following year a large portion of the city was destroyed by fire. In 1674 he made peace with Holland, and his niece, princess Mary, married William of Orange in 1677 (1630–1685).

Talking Oak.

CHARLES (the Fifth).

Emperor of Germany, son of Philip of Austria, became in 1516 by right of birth, ruler of Spain, the Netherlands, Sicily, and Naples; and on the death of his grandfather added Austria to his dominions. His chief ambition was the suppression of the Reformation and the succession of his son Philip to the imperial crown, but failing in both, abdicated in favour of his son, and retired to the monastery of St. Yuste, in Estremadura, where he died, having, notwithstanding his retirement, continued to direct the policy of his son (1500–1558).

Queen Mary.

CHARLES’S WAIN.

The constellation of Ursa Major, a wagon without a [Pg 99]wagoner, an old English name for the constellation of the Great Bear.

May Queen.

CHARLEY.

A dog—a King Charles spaniel—belonging to Maud.

Maud.

CHARLIE.

A son of an old woman, who outlived all her children. See Harry.

Grandmother.

CHARLIE.

Only son of an old book-loving village squire. Unlike his father he did a little hunting and fishing. His father’s estate was entailed, and being in debt he asked his son to help him out of the difficulty, but he refused, suggesting that the books should be sold. Charlie however did not live to enjoy the possession of the estates, for while out riding one evening his horse threw him, and he was killed.

Village Wife.

CHARLOCK.

A plant of the mustard family, with yellow leaves, that grows as a weed in cornfields.

Gareth and Lynette.

CHARTIST PIKE.

A weapon used by the revolutionary party known as the Chartists. During the agitation by the working-classes for greater political power in 1838 in a document called the ‘People’s Charter’ there were fears of a secret rising on account of the petition being refused by the House of Commons.

Walking to the Mail.

CHATELET.

A poet-squire in the suite of Marshal Damville, who was executed for intrigue with Mary, queen of Scots.

Margaret.

CHAUCER (Dan).

See Dan Chaucer.

CHESTNUT.

= a tree.

Miller’s Daughter;
Lord of Burleigh;
Progress of Spring.

CHICHESTER (Bishop of).

Hilary; elected bishop of Chichester 1147, and archbishop of York the same year, but the latter appointment was not confirmed by the pope. He urged Becket to accept the ‘ancient customs’ included in the embassy to the pope against Becket; and granted absolution to those bishops whom Becket had excommunicated (d. 1169).

Becket.

CHIMERA.

In Greek mythology a fire-eating monster, destroyed by Bellerophon, having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. The word signifies any impossible monstrosity.

The Princess.

[Pg 100]

CHINA.

Refers to the custom prevalent in China of cramping the feet of girls from an early age in tight bandages to keep them small.

The Princess.

CHRISTCHURCH (Dean of).

Queen Mary.

CHRISTIAN.

The hero of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

Promise of May.

CHRISTOPHER COLON.

See Columbus.

CICALA.

An insect with wings. The male makes a shrill sound by peculiar organs in the side of the abdomen.

Mariana in the South.

CLARA VERE de VERE.

Daughter of an earl, nobly born, but of a haughty and proud disposition. The poet assured her that hers was not a character to be admired, and that for all her wealth and name he would not forsake a simple maiden with a truer heart. In the poem appear the well-known lines:

Lady Clara Vere de Vere.

CLARE, LADY.

The supposed child of an earl, who is afterwards told by her old nurse that she is not the lady Clare, as the old earl’s daughter died almost directly after birth. The nurse tells her that she is her mother. The supposed lady Clare hastens to tell the truth to her lover, lord Ronald, the real heir to her lands. This takes place on the eve of her marriage. Lord Ronald greatly appreciates her honesty and frankness.

Lady Clare.

CLARENCE.

A lady-in-waiting to queen Mary.

Queen Mary.

CLARIANCE.

King of Northumberland, subdued by king Arthur fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.

Coming of Arthur.

CLARIBEL.

Claribel lived in a beautiful bower, where everything was at peace.

Claribel.

CLAUDIAS.

One of the petty kings overcome by king Arthur fighting [Pg 101]on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.

Coming of Arthur.

CLELIA.

A Roman virgin who swam the river Tiber to escape from Porsina, king of Clusium, whose hostage she was. Being sent back by the Romans, Porsina not only set her at liberty but allowed her to take with her a part of the hostages.

The Princess.

CLEMATIS.

A genus of climbing plants.

Golden Year;
City Child;
The Window;
Voyage of Maeldune.

CLEOPATRA-LIKE.

= Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, distinguished for her beauty and her charms; first fascinated Cæsar, and after his death Mark Antony (q.v.). On the fall and suicide of the latter she killed herself to escape being taken to Rome.

Maud.

CLIFFORD.

See Rosamund, Rosamund de Clifford.

CLOVER.

A genus of plants, containing a great number of species.

A Dirge;
City Child.

COBHAM.

Sir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham; lollard leader; first author and first martyr among the English nobility. In the reign of Henry IV he commanded an English army in France, where he compelled the duke of Orleans to raise the siege of Paris. Becoming a convert to Wycliffe’s doctrines, he was in the reign of Henry V tried by archbishop Arundel and other bishops; declared to be a heretic, and sent to the tower, but escaping, summoned all his followers to meet him in St. Giles’ fields. The assemblage being attacked and his followers dispersed, he fled to Wales, and after hiding for four years was captured, conveyed to London, and being condemned was hanged in chains and burnt, December 1416.

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

COBRA.

A hooded and poisonous snake, a native of the East Indies.

Akbar’s Dream.

COCK, THE.

A Tavern, No. 201, Fleet Street, near Temple Bar, and of great antiquity.

Generally he would stay at the Temple or in Lincoln’s Inn Fields; dining with his friends at The Cock, and other taverns. A perfect dinner was a beefsteak, a potato, a cut of cheese, a pint of port, and afterwards a pipe (never a cigar).

---

‘The plump head-waiter of The Cock,’ by Temple Bar, famous for chop and porter, was rather offended when told of the poem [Will Waterproof]. ‘Had Mr. Tennyson dined oftener there, he would not have minded it so much,’ he said.

Edward Fitzgerald quoted in Life of Tennyson.

Pepys in his Diary for April 23, 1668, speaks of having been there:

[Pg 102]

Thence by water to the Temple, and there to the Cock alehouse, and drank, and ate a lobster, and sang, and mighty merry.

Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue.

COCKATRICE.

A fabulous monster, resembling a serpent.

Holy Grail.

COCO.

= the cocoa-nut tree.

Enoch Arden.

COCO-PALM.

= Cocoa-palm.

Progress of Spring.

COESNON.

A river forming the boundary between Normandy and Brittany.

Harold.

COGOLETTO.

A village in the province of Genoa, on the coast.

The Daisy.

COLE (Henry).

Fellow of the New College, Oxford, 1521–40; submitted to the Reformation, and became prebendary of Salisbury in 1539, but on Mary’s accession joined the Roman Catholic party; was made archdeacon of Ely in 1553, canon of Westminster and provost of Eton; and disputed with Cranmer at Oxford in 1554. He preached at St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, on the occasion of the martyrdom of Cranmer in 1556.

Dean of St. Paul’s, 1556–9; vicar-general of the archbishop of Canterbury, 1557–8; sent to Ireland to extirpate protestantism 1558.

‘In 1558,’ says Timbs and Gunn’s Abbey, Castles, etc., ‘Dr. Henry Cole, dean of St. Paul’s, was entrusted with the commission issued by queen Mary, to institute prosecutions against such as should refuse to observe the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland. The doctor stopped at Chester on his way, and at the Blue Posts Inn was visited by the Mayor, to whom, in the course of conversation, he communicated the business upon which he was engaged; opening his cloak-bag, he took out a leather box, observing with exultation, “he had that within which would lash the heretics of Ireland.” The hostess accidentally overheard the discourse, and having a brother who was a Protestant, she became alarmed for his safety; and with a surprising quickness of thought, whilst the doctor was complimenting his worship down the stairs, to open the box, take out the commission, and leave instead a pack of cards, with the knave of clubs uppermost. Soon afterwards the dean sailed for Ireland, where he arrived on December 7, 1558. Being introduced to the Lord-Deputy Fitzwalter and the Privy Council, he explained the nature of his embassy, and then presented the box containing, as he thought, [Pg 103]the commission; his lordship took it, and having lifted the lid, beheld with considerable surprise the pack of cards, with the knave on the top. The doctor was thunderstruck, and in much confusion affirmed that a commission he certainly had, and that some artful person must have made the exchange. “Then,” said his lordship, “you have nothing to do but return to London and get it renewed; meanwhile we’ll shuffle the cards.” This unwelcome advice the doctor was constrained to follow ... but before he could reach Ireland a second time queen Mary died, and her sanguinary commission became useless. The woman whose dexterity and presence of mind had thus providentially operated, was rewarded by Elizabeth with a pension of forty pounds a year.’

In 1559 he was one of the eight romanist disputants at Westminster Abbey, and for contempt was fined 500 marks and deprived of all his preferments. In the following year he was committed to the Tower, whence he was removed to the Fleet. His subsequent history is obscure.

Queen Mary.

COLEWORT.

A species of cole, or cabbage.

Guinevere.

COLLANTINE.

A town on the Anio, built by the people of Alba.

Lucretius.

COLOSSEUM.

The great amphitheatre in Rome standing on the site of Nero’s palace. It was begun by Vespasian 72 A.D., and finished by Titus A.D. 82. It was here the fights of wild beasts and gladiators went on.

St. Telemachus.

COLT.

A young horse.

Talking Oak;
Enoch Arden;
The Brook;
The Princess;
Coming of Arthur;
Romney’s Remorse.

COLUMBUS.

A celebrated Genoese navigator. His life is of little interest till 1470, when he settled in Lisbon and made voyages to the Madeira and the Azores. Thinking it possible to reach India by sailing westward, he made an appeal to his native city but without result; to the king of Portugal, to Henry VII of England, and to the dukes of Medina Sidonia, and Medina Celi, who advised him to lay his proposals before the Spanish king and queen. After seven years of delay his proposals were accepted by the Spanish monarchs, and on August 3, 1492, his little squadron of three small ships set sail on its perilous voyage, and on October 12 of the same year landed on the island of Guanahani, one of the Bahamas, which he called San Salvador, [Pg 104]and thence sailed to Cuba and Hispaniola. On his return to Spain in 1493 he was welcomed with great enthusiasm, and many honours were conferred upon him, that which he prized most of all being the title ‘Admiral of the Ocean.’ He sailed on his second voyage on September 25, 1493, and discovered Porto Rico and Jamaica. Returned in 1496 and set out on his third voyage which resulted in the discovery of Trinidad, and the mainland of South America. His enemies in Spain, however, did him much harm, and a new governor, Francisco Bovadilla (q.v.), acted with great harshness; and in October 1500 Columbus was placed in irons and sent back to Spain. This treatment caused a wave of indignation to sweep over Spain, and Columbus, on landing, was restored to favour by Ferdinand and Isabella.

In 1502 he made his fourth and last voyage and explored the north coast of the gulf of Mexico. He returned in 1504, and worn out in body died two years later at Valladolid, in poverty and want. He was buried at Valladolid, but in 1513 his remains were translated to Seville, and a monument erected to his memory inscribed: ‘To Castile and Leon Columbus has given a new world.’ In 1513 they were taken, with those of his son Diego, and laid in the Cathedral of San Domingo. Two hundred and fifty years later the island was ceded to the French, and they were removed to the cathedral of Havana in Cuba. After the Cuban war the bones were—in 1898—brought from Havana to Spain, kept for a time at Granada, and finally deposited in 1912 in the cathedral of Seville (1435–1506).

The Daisy;
Columbus.

COMO.

A town on the lake of Como of Italy.

The Daisy.

CONSTANTINUS.

A king of Scotland, who allied himself with the Danes under Anlaf against Athelstan. The allied kings were defeated at Brunanburh (937 A.D.), by Athelstan and his brother Edmund. This victory practically established the unity of England.

Battle of Brunanburh.

CONVOLVULUS.

A genus of twining plants, called also Bindweed.

Enoch Arden;
Voyage of Maeldune.

[Pg 105]

CONY.

= a rabbit.

Enoch Arden.

COOMBERLAND (Cumberland).

Promise of May.

COOT.

A short-tailed water-fowl, with a white spot on the forehead.

The Brook.

COPHETUA.

An imaginary king of Africa. Sitting one day at his palace window he saw a beggar maid pass, and fell in love with her and married her. The story is alluded to in Percy’s Reliques, and in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Romeo and Juliet.

The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon,

Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV. Scene i.

Beggar Maid.

COPTIC.

= Egyptian.

Buonaparte.

CORINNA.

A Greek poetess, born at Tanagra in Bœotia. She was the most eminent of the Greek lyric poets, but only fragments of her poems remain. At the national games she was said to have obtained a victory over Pindar, the lyric poet of Greece. Her name is the title of one of de Stael’s novels:

The Princess.

CORITANIAN.

A British tribe who inhabited the present counties of Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire.

Boädicea.

CORNELIA.

Wife of Titus Sempronius Gracchus, and mother of the Gracchi. She was held in high esteem by the Romans, who during her lifetime erected a statue in her honour with the inscription: Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi.

The Princess.

CORNWALLIS (Sir Thomas).

Eldest son of sir John Cornwallis. In 1549, he was sent into Norfolk to suppress the rebellion headed by Ket, and was made sheriff of Norfolk in 1553. In the following year he escorted the princess Elizabeth to London; and was one of the commissioners at the trial of sir Thomas Wyatt, the insurrectionary leader. From 1554–7 he was treasurer of Calais, and it is generally considered that he sold the town to the French. In the latter year he was made Comptroller of the Household, but on the accession of Elizabeth was removed from the post, as well as from the privy council, and retired into private life. He died in 1604 (1510–1604).

Queen Mary.

[Pg 106]

CORONACH.

An Irish funeral song or lamentation.

Dying Swan.

CORRIENTES.

A province, Argentine Republic, between the Parana and the Uruguay rivers.

To Ulysses.

COSSACK.

The Cossacks are a warlike people in south-eastern Russia, forming splendid light cavalry.

Charge of the Light Brigade.

COURTENAY.

Edward Courtenay, earl of Devonshire. With his parents was in 1538, when only twelve years of age, imprisoned in the Tower until 1547, when he was released by Edward VI. On the accession of Mary he was created earl of Devonshire, and at her coronation carried the Sword of State; and being held in high favour by the queen, was hopeful for her hand in marriage; but on Mary’s marriage with Philip of Spain was urged to propose marriage to the princess Elizabeth. At the end of 1553 a plot was discovered having for its object the placing of Elizabeth on the throne. Sir Thomas Wyatt joined in the conspiracy, but he and his followers were promptly suppressed and Courtenay was sent back to the Tower, and subsequently removed to Fotheringay. In 1555 he was exiled and went to Brussels, and thence to Padua, where he died (1526–1556).

Queen Mary.

COURT-GALEN.

Has reference to a celebrated Greek physician named Claudius Galenus of Pergamos. He went to Rome where he gained great renown in the medical profession, and undertook scientific journeys through Greece and Asia. He was a great writer, being author of some 300 volumes—125 of which were destroyed in a fire—and his writings, which left no branch of medicine untouched, formed for many centuries the chief text-books for physicians and doctors. It was customary for the medical profession to carry a gilt-headed cane in his honour.

The Princess.

COVENTRY.

A city in Warwickshire. According to legend it obtained its municipal rights from Leofric about 1044, by the ride of Godiva (q.v.) through the streets of the city.

Godiva.

COVERDALE (Miles).

Bishop of Exeter, and translator of the Bible. The Great Bible or Cromwell’s Bible (1539) was printed under his direction and issued under the auspices of Thomas Lord Cromwell. Cranmer’s Bible (1540), was also [Pg 107]edited by Coverdale. Appointed chaplain to Edward VI in 1548 and bishop of Exeter in 1551. Upon the accession of Mary he was deposed from his See and imprisoned, but released upon the intercession of the king of Denmark and retired to Geneva; but returned to England after Elizabeth had ascended the throne, and subsequently appointed to the living of St. Magnus, near London Bridge (1488–1568).

Queen Mary.

COW.

The female of the bovine animals.

The Brook;
Northern Farmer, Old Style;
Village Wife;
Promise of May;
Spinster’s Sweet-Arts;
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After;
Church-warden and the Curate;
Queen Mary;
The Foresters.

COWSLIP.

A species of primrose, having yellow blossoms.

Adeline;
Rosalind;
May Queen;
Talking Oak;
Aylmer’s Field;
In the Children’s Hospital.

CRAB.

An animal of the class Crustacea with the whole body covered by a crust-like shell.

Harold;
The Foresters;
Walking to the Mail.

CRADLEMONT.

A king of North Wales, subdued by king Arthur, fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.

Coming of Arthur.

CRAG-CLOISTER.

The monastery of Sumelas. It stands on the side of a rocky glen near Trebizond, 4,000 feet above the level of the sea, and is approached by a zigzag path at the side of the cliff. The foundation is considered to be some 1,500 years old, and in 1360 it was rebuilt by the emperor Alexius Comnenus. The bull of that emperor, which henceforth became its charter, is still preserved in the monastery, which also possesses the firman of Mohammed II, by which he accorded his protection to the monks on becoming ruler of that part of Asia Minor.

To Ulysses.

CRAKE.

A corn-crake, a bird which frequents grain fields.

In Memoriam.

CRANE.

A large wading bird, with long legs, neck and bill.

The Princess;
Progress of Spring.

CRANMER.

Archbishop of Canterbury; born at Aslacton, Nottingham. In 1522 he was appointed vicar of St. Mary’s, Taunton. His opinion of the divorce of Henry VIII with Catherine of Aragon recommended him [Pg 108]to that monarch, which opinions he propounded in a treatise. In 1530 he was sent as an embassy to the pope, and two years later to the emperor Charles V, and while in Germany married a niece of the reformer Osiander. In 1533 he was created archbishop of Canterbury, and pronounced Henry’s marriage with Catherine as invalid and that with Anne Boleyn lawful. On the accession of Mary he was committed to the Tower, but subsequently released. A charge of heresy was however brought against him and he was condemned. On the promise of life he was induced to sign his abjuration of the Protestant faith. For having committed this act he was struck with deep remorse, and when brought into St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, to read his recantation in public, instead of complying he denounced the errors of the Romish Church. This greatly enraged his enemies, who, denouncing him as a heretic, dragged him to the stake opposite Balliol College. When the faggots were lighted he put his right hand in the flame and exclaimed ‘This unworthy hand’ (1489–1556).

Queen Mary.

CRAW.

= crow, to have something to settle with some one.

Northern Farmer, New Style.

CRETE.

or Candia, an island in the Mediterranean sea.

On a Mourner.

CRICHTON.

James Crichton, surnamed ‘the Admirable Crichton’ a Scottish nobleman. He visited Paris, Rome and other continental universities, and at Venice he challenged all scholars, claiming to be an expert linguist, as well as an expert swordsman. He became tutor to the son of the duke of Mantua. He was killed one night in the street, presumably by a body of masked men, when only twenty-three years of age.

Edwin Morris.

CRICKET.

An orthopterous insect. The male makes a chirping noise by rubbing his wing-covers against each other.

Death of the Old Year;
In Memoriam;
Merlin and Vivien;
Lancelot and Elaine;
Voyage of Maeldune.

CROCODILE’S TEARS.

= Affected tears.

A Dirge.

CROCUS.

A bulbous plant with brilliant yellow or purple flowers.

Œnone;
Palace of Art;
To Rev. F. D. Maurice;
Voyage of Maeldune;
Prefatory Sonnet to the ‘Nineteenth Century’;
Progress of Spring.

[Pg 109]

CROW.

A large black bird.

Audley Court;
Locksley Hall;
Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue;
Merlin and Vivien;
The Ring;
Queen Mary;
The Foresters.

CROWN.

An inn sign.

and she brew’d the best ale in all Glo’ster, that is to say in her time when she had the ‘Crown.’

Becket.

CUCKOO.

A bird whose name is supposed to be called from its note. It builds no nest of its own, but lays its eggs in the nests of other birds to be hatched by them.

Gardener’s Daughter;
The Princess;
The Window;
Coming of Arthur;
Lover’s Tale;
Prefatory Poem to my Brother’s Sonnets;
To Mary Boyle;
Progress of Spring;
Queen Mary.

CUCKOO-FLOWER.

A species of Cardamine, called also Lady’s Smock.

Margaret;
May Queen.

CULVER.

A dove, or wood-pigeon.

Progress of Spring.

CUMBERLAND.

Promise of May.

CUNOBELINE.

= Cámulodúne (q.v.)

CUPID.

In Roman mythology the God of love, and the son of Mercury and Venus; represented as a winged boy and armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows. In Apuleius’ Golden Ass Cupid and Psyche (q.v.) are the subjects of a beautiful fable representing the soul of perfection.

Edwin Morris;
Talking Oak;
The Princess;
Becket.

CUSHIE.

Name of a cow.

Spinster’s Sweet-Arts.

CYGNET.

A young swan.

Lancelot and Elaine.

CYPRESS.

An evergreen tree, whose branches used to be used at funerals and to adorn tombs, hence a symbol of mourning and sadness.

Amphion;
The Princess;
The Daisy;
In Memoriam;
Lover’s Tale;
Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice;
Voyage of Maeldune;
Akbar’s Dream;
The Cup.

CYRIL.

One of the two friends of prince Arac. A man of vigorous, healthy common-sense, undisturbed by haunting fancies, unfettered by false modesty, and as clear-sighted as jovial. In gaining admission to the ladies’ college he had a very humorous manner in dealing with two of the tutors. Psyche he appeased, by complimenting her abilities as a lecturer, and admiring Aglaïa, her baby. The [Pg 110]lady Blanche he silenced by appealing to her ambitions.

The Princess.

CYPRUS.

= Richard Cœur de Lion. When journeying to Jerusalem on the third Crusade he stayed some time at this island, and here he married Berengaria of Navarre, after having deposed the ruler of the island.

The Foresters.

CYRUS.

A warlike and blood-thirsty king who after subduing the eastern parts of Asia organized an expedition against the Massagetæ in Scythia. Tomyris (q.v.), queen of the Massagetæ, met and defeated him, and cutting off his head threw it into a vessel filled with human blood, remarking as she did so, ‘There, drink thy fill,’

The Princess.

CZAR.

Represents the indignation of the English people with Russia in 1853 at her destruction of the independence of Poland, and its tyrannous demand for the surrender of the Hungarian refugees.

Maud.

DAFFODIL.

A plant of the genus Narcissus. It has a bulbous root, and flowers of a yellow hue.

Maud;
Lover’s Tale;
Prefatory Sonnet to the ‘Nineteenth Century.’

DAFFODILLY.

= Daffodil.

The Princess.

DAGONET.

King Arthur’s Fool and a Knight of the Round Table.

And upon a day Sir Dagonet, King Arthur’s fool, came into Cornwall, with two squires with him,

---

For they would not for no good that Sir Dagonet were hurt, for king Arthur loved him passing well, and made him knight with his own hands. And at every tournament he began to make king Arthur to laugh.

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book X. chap. xii.

Tennyson says that he was made a mock-knight by Gawain.

Last Tournament.

DAHOMEY.

A French colony on the Guinea coast of Africa. The colony represents the former native kingdom of Dahomey, where human victims were offered in sacrifice, but these were prohibited after the country was subdued by the French in 1892.

The Dawn.

DAISY.

Name of a cow.

Queen Mary.

DAISY.

A common wild-flower.

Two Voices;
Gardener’s[Pg 111] Daughter;
The Daisy;
City Child;
In Memoriam;
Maud;
Lover’s Tale;
The Wreck;
The Ring;
The Throstle;
Queen Mary;
Promise of May;
The Foresters.

DAMON.

A goat-herd in Virgil’s Eclogues.

Promise of May.

DAN.
DANNY O’ROON.

The lover of a certain Molly Magee. They agreed to meet on the morrow at a chapel-door, but that to-morrow never came. Years afterwards his body was found in a peat bog, perfectly preserved. Molly recognized the body as that of her former lover and fell dead by his side.

Tomorrow.

DANAË.

An Argive princess, daughter of Acrisius (q.v.), king of Argos. She was confined in an inaccessible tower of brass by her father, where she was visited by Jupiter in the form of a shower of gold, and became the mother of Perseus. She was then, with her son, cast into the sea, but was rescued by a fisherman named Dictys, of the island of Seriphos. Polydectes, king of the island, wished her to marry him, but Perseus rescued her, and took her back to Greece.

The Princess;
Becket.

DANAÏD.

Danaus, king of Argos, had fifty daughters, called the Danaïds. Ægyptus, brother of Belus, king of Egypt, and his fifty sons drove Danaus and his fifty daughters from Egypt into Argos. The sons of Ægyptus subsequently followed and compelled Danaus to give his daughters in marriage. At their father’s command they all (with one exception), murdered their husbands on their wedding-night, and were punished in Hades by having to pour water everlastingly into sieves.

The heads of the sons of Ægyptus were buried at Argos; but their bodies were left at Lerna, where they had been murdered.

The Princess.

DANCE OF DEATH.

An allegorical representation of the universal power of death, dating from the fourteenth century. Frescoes of the Dance of Death are painted on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa; on the walls of the Tower of London; the cloister of St. Paul’s; the Hungerford Chapel at Salisbury Cathedral; and many other churches.

Queen Mary.

[Pg 112]

DAN CHAUCER.

Dan is a title of honour commonly used by old poets.

Dream of Fair Women.

DANIEL.

Refers to Daniel, a book of the Old Testament.

Sea Dreams.

DANIEL.

Has reference to Daniel, the Hebrew Prophet.

Harold.

DANNY.
DANNY O’ROON.

See Dan.

Tomorrow.

DAN SMITH.

A farm labourer.

Promise of May.

DANTE.

The most distinguished of the Italian poets.

Palace of Art.

DANUBE.

Arthur Henry Hallam, died at Vienna on the Danube, and was buried at Clevedon on the Severn.

In Memoriam.

DARNLEY BRIDGE.

The Brook.

DARNLEY CHASE.

The Brook.

DAUPHIN, THE.

The title of the eldest son of the king of France, and heir to the crown. Since the Revolution of 1830 the title has been discontinued. Mary, queen of Scots, was married to the dauphin of France in 1558, who for a year (1559–60) was king Frances II.

Queen Mary.

DAVID.

Columbus.

DAVID.

Queen Mary.

DAVID.

Harold.

DAWES (Jocky).

See Jocky Dawes.

Walking to the Mail.

DEAD INNOCENCE.

See Tournament of the Dead Innocence.

DEAD MARCH.

= a funeral march in Handel’s Oratorio.

Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington.

DEAN.

An ancient royal forest in the west of Gloucestershire.

Marriage of Geraint;
Pelleas and Ettarre.

[Pg 113]

DE BRITO.

One of the murderers of Thomas Becket.

Becket.

DE BROC.

of Saltwood Castle. It was at this castle that the four knights—murderers of Becket—stayed upon their arrival in England from Normandy, and from thence proceeded to Canterbury.

Becket.

DEE.

The river Dee; rises in Bala lake in Merionethshire and flows into the Irish Sea. The ancient Britons considered it to be a sacred river, its ancient name Deva meaning divine.

Geraint and Enid.

DEER.

A quadruped of several species, as the stag, the fallow-deer, the reindeer, etc.

Talking Oak;
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere;
The Brook;
Aylmer’s Field;
The Princess;
The Victim;
Gareth and Lynette;
Last Tournament;
Harold;
Becket;
The Cup;
The Foresters.

DELIUS.

A surname of Apollo, because he was born at Delos.

Lucretius.

DE MORVILLE.

Hugh de Morville, son of Hugh de Morville, of Burgh-on-Sands, and one who took part in the murder of Thomas Becket. He married Helwis de Stuteville and thus inherited the castle of Knaresborough. There is scant evidence as to whether he actually struck the archbishop, as he kept back the crowd which were pouring into the cathedral. After the murder he rode with his companions to Saltwood Castle, and thence to Knaresborough, where he sheltered his fellow-murderers, and finally was sent by the pope to the Holy Land as a penance, after which he regained the royal favour. He died in 1204.

Becket.

DEMOS.

The mob of France, with Celtic blood in their veins.

Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.

DENIS.
DENIS OF FRANCE.

Bishop of Paris and patron saint of France. One of the missionaries sent from Rome in the third century to convert the Gauls. By order of the Roman governor he was tortured and put to death about 270 A.D.

Becket.

DENMARK.

The King of France is with us; the King of Denmark is with us; the world is with us—war against Spain!

Queen Mary.

[Pg 114]

DERWENT.

A river in Derbyshire.

Harold.

DESENZANO.

A small town at the south-west angle of the Lago de Garda in Italy.

Frater Ave Atque Vale.

DE TRACY.

William de Tracy, one of the murderers of Thomas Becket. He was the first to approach the archbishop, and struggled before the altar with Becket who dashed him on the pavement. He is considered to have struck the first mortal blow which nearly severed the arm of Edward Grim—Becket’s cross-bearer—who rushed between the archbishop and De Tracy. With his fellow-murderers he rode back to Saltwood Castle, and thence to Knaresborough, the home of de Morville; and was the first of the four to surrender himself to the pope; but the last to set out for the Holy Land. He however got no farther than the isle of Sicily, where he was taken ill of a foul disease and died in 1173, praying for forgiveness.

Becket.

DEVILSTOW.

Becket.

DEVON.

See Courtenay, Earl of Devon.

DEVON (County of).

Marriage of Geraint;
Geraint and Enid;
The Revenge;
Queen Mary.

DIAN.

See Diana.

The Princess;
The Foresters.

DIANA.

An Italian goddess, the dispenser of light, identified with the Greek goddess Artemis (q.v.). She was a virgin goddess represented as presiding over the open country, armed with a bent bow and quiver and attended by gods. The temple of Diana at Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the world.

but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.

Acts xix. 27.

Literary Squabbles;
The Cup.

DICK.

Son of a northern farmer, who was to receive the lands at his father’s death, if his brother married ‘a bad ’un.’

Northern Farmer, New Style.

DICK—DICKY.

Son of a north of England farmer. When young his life was saved by their faithful dog ‘Owd Roä.’

Owd Roä.

DICKON.

look ye, here’s little Dickon, and little Robin, and little Jenny—

[Pg 115]

One of a crowd of women and children collected together on London Bridge.

Queen Mary.

DICKON.

One of the three pages attendant on queen Mary.

Queen Mary.

DIDO.

Daughter of Belus, king of Tyre. Having put Sichæus to death for the sake of his wealth she fled to Africa and founded Carthage. Hairbas, king of the Libyans, made suit for her hand in marriage, but in order to escape him she erected a funeral pyre and stabbed herself in the presence of her subjects. According to Virgil she fell in love with Æneas, who fleeing from Troy, visited Dido at Carthage, but the gods ordered him to leave her, and on his doing so she stabbed herself with a sword given her by him. When Porson, the celebrated Greek scholar—who boasted he could rhyme on any subject, was asked to rhyme upon the three Latin gerunds, he gave this couplet:

To Virgil.

DIES ILLA.
DIES IRÆ.

Dies Illa = That (awful) day. Dies Iræ = Day of Wrath; the name of a famous mediæval Latin hymn on the Last Judgment, the opening lines of which are:

The hymn is supposed to have been written by Thomas de Celano, a Franciscan friar of the thirteenth century. Macaulay’s version of the lines is:

Queen Mary.

DIET.

Has reference to the feeding of hawks, which was an important matter in their management.

Merlin and Vivien.

DIM SAESNEG.

Two Welsh words meaning ‘no Saxon’ and ‘no English.’

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

DIOTIMA.

A Mantineia priestess, the teacher of Socrates. Socrates was put to death by poison in 399 B.C. on a charge of teaching atheistic and immoral doctrines. The usual method of inflicting the death penalty in Athens at that period was by a decoction of the hemlock.

[Pg 116]

The Princess.

DIRCÊ.

Wife of Lycus, king of Thebes, who for her ill-treatment of Antiope, her divorced predecessor, was by Antiope’s two sons—Amphion (q.v.) and Zethus—tied to the tail of a wild bull, which dragged her about, until the gods, pitying her sufferings, changed her into a fountain, which bore her name ever after.

Tiresias.

DIVES.

The name given to the rich man in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Luke xvi.

To Mary Boyle.

DOBBINS (Dobson).

Promise of May.

DOBSON.

A farmer, in love with Dora, daughter of farmer Steer.

Promise of May.

DOE.

The female of the fallow-deer.

The Foresters;
Lady Clare.

DON.

A Spanish title.

The Revenge.

DON CARLOS.

See Carlos.

DONOVAN’S WAKE.

An’ he ped me back wid the best he could give at ould Donovan’s wake—

A wake is a festival held on the anniversary of a patron saint, especially in Ireland.

Tomorrow.

DOON (Bonny).

See Bonny Doon.

DOORM.

A russet-bearded earl who tried to make Enid his mistress; and because she would not consent smote her on the cheek; whereupon her husband, Sir Geraint, cut off his head with one stroke of his sword.

Geraint and Enid.

DORA.

A niece of farmer Allan.

Dora.

DORA.
DORA STEER.

Daughter of farmer Steer, and sister of Eva (q.v.).

Promise of May.

DORMOUSE.

A rodent, so-called because they are usually torpid in winter. It is allied to the mouse, and resembles the squirrel in habits.

The Window.

[Pg 117]

DORSET—DORSETSHIRE (County of).

First Quarrel.

DOVE.

A pigeon.

Supposed Confessions of a Second-rate Sensitive Mind;
Miller’s Daughter;
Gardener’s Daughter’s Walking to the Mail;
Locksley Hall;
Lucretius;
The Princess;
The Window;
In Memoriam;
Maud;
To E. Fitzgerald;
Progress of Spring;
Harold;
Becket.

DOVER.

A seaport in Kent.

Queen Mary;
Harold;
Becket.

DRAGON.

Inn sign.

Vision of Sin.

DRAGON-FLY.

An insect of the family libellula.

Two Voices;
Marriage of Geraint;
Lover’s Tale.

DRAGON OF THE GREAT PENDRAGONSHIP.

The crest of Arthur’s helmet. Spenser describes it thus:

Guinevere.

DRAGON’S MOUTH.

The passage between the island of Trinidad and the peninsula of Paria, South America. In the rainy months of July and August the impetuous body of water which flows through the gulf of Paria renders the entrance and exit extremely dangerous to navigation.

Columbus.

DRUID.

A priest among the ancient Celtic nations, particularly of Gaul and Britain.

Boädicea.

DRUIDESS.

A prophetess, or a female Druid.

Boädicea.

DRYAD-LIKE.

In Greek mythology the Dryads were nymphs who were supposed to dwell in the forests.

Talking Oak.

DUBRIC,

or Dubritius, archbishop of Caerleon-upon-Usk; the ‘City of Legions,’ and primate of [Pg 118]Britain. Geoffrey of Monmouth says:

He was primate of Britain, was so eminent for his piety, that he could cure any sick person by his prayers.

Tennyson calls him ‘Dubric the high saint,’ and he is mentioned on the occasion of the marriage of king Arthur and Guinevere; and also as having set the crown on the head of Arthur at Caerleon-upon-Usk.

Coming of Arthur;
Marriage of Geraint;
Geraint and Enid.

DUDLEY (Guildford).

See Guildford Dudley.

DUGLAS.

The scene of four Arthurian battles. The Duglas is said to be the river Douglas in Lancashire which falls into the estuary of the Ribble. Other authorities consider it is a stream in Lennox, which falls into Loch Lomond.

Lancelot and Elaine.

DUMBLE.

Name of a cow.

Queen Mary.

DUNSTAN.

Archbishop of Canterbury, born at Glastonbury in 924. In 945 he was made abbot of Glastonbury by king Edmund, and soon made the monastery famous as a seat of learning. King Edgar created him bishop of Worcester, and afterwards bishop of London. In 959, consequent on the death of Edwy, Edgar became king of the whole of England and he made Dunstan archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 958 and was afterwards canonized.

Harold.

DURHAM (Dean of).

Queen Mary.

DWARF-ELM.

An elm which is much below the ordinary size of its species or kind.

Pelleas and Ettarre.

DYFLEN.

= Dublin.

Battle of Brunanburh.

EAGLE.

A rapacious bird of the genus Falco.

Palace of Art;
Golden Year;
Godiva;
The Princess;
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington;
Boädicea;
In Memoriam;
Coming of Arthur;
Gareth and Lynette;
Merlin and Vivien;
Last Tournament;
Montenegro;
Battle of Brunanburh;
The Wreck;
Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition.

EAGLE-OWL.

A genus of large owls.

Gareth and Lynette.

[Pg 119]

EDEN.

Two Voices;
Gardener’s Daughter;
Locksley Hall;
Day-Dream;
Enoch Arden;
The Princess;
The Islet;
Milton;
In Memoriam;
Maud;
Geraint and Enid;
Lover’s Tale;
Happy;
The Foresters.

EDEN-ISLES.

The Philippine islands.

To Ulysses.

EDGAR (the Atheling).

A Saxon prince, and grandson of Edmund Ironside; was proclaimed king of England after the death of Harold at the battle of Senlac, but was kept out of the throne by the Conqueror. He made two unsuccessful attempts to overthrow William, and compelled to leave the country took refuge with Malcolm, king of Scotland, who married Edgar’s sister Margaret. Embracing the cause of Robert, duke of Normandy against Rufus, he was driven from Scotland and went with Baldwin II, to the Crusades; was finally taken prisoner in 1106 when fighting for duke Robert against his brother Henry I. He died in obscurity.

Harold.

EDGAR (afterwards Mr. Harold).

See Eva.

Promise of May.

EDITH.

Eadgyth Swanneshals (Edith of the Swan’s neck); ward of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards the mistress of king Harold. After the battle of Senlac she went in search of the body of Harold and found it underneath a heap of slain.

Harold.

EDITH.

See Aylmer.

Aylmer’s Field.

EDITH.

Wife of the impetuous boy lover mentioned in Locksley Hall. Years brought reconciliation to him, and a stronger, deeper and more reasonable love for Edith.

Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.

EDITH.

One of two sisters—the other being Evelyn—both of whom were loved by the same man, who eventually married Evelyn, Edith being bridesmaid. During the wedding ceremony she was pale and statuelike, and spoke no word at parting. Her grief at her sister’s marriage with her former lover, was so great that she died soon afterwards.

Sisters (Evelyn and Edith).

EDITH.
EDITH MONTFORT.

Betrothed to Ralph who took part in the tournament, and earned great praise from his king. At the conclusion of the [Pg 120]tournament Edith crowned Ralph

The Tourney.

EDMUND.

Brother of Lawrence Aylmer. On account of ill health he went to the warm climate of Italy, but the journey was taken when it was too late to save his life. Poetry and not money-making was what he cared for:

The Brook.

EDMUND ATHELING.

King of the Mercians and West Saxons, son of Edward the Elder; was present at the battle of Brunanburh in 937, where he and his brother Athelstan (q.v.) gained a decisive victory over Anlaf the Dane, Constantine of Scotland and the Northumbrian Danes; succeeded his brother in 941. On May 26, 946, an outlaw named Leof slipped into the banqueting-hall of Edmund, who was celebrating the festival of St. Augustine at Pucklechurch in Gloucester. The king endeavoured to remove him, whereupon the outlaw stabbed him with a dagger (922–946).

Battle of Brunanburh.

EDMUND IRONSIDE.

See English Ironside.

EDMUND (Saint).

King of the East Angles. Son of king Alkmund of Saxony, he was adopted by Offa, king of the East Angles as his heir, and succeeded 855. In 870, during the Danish invasion, he was defeated at Hoxne, and, being captured by the Danes was beheaded on refusing to renounce Christianity. He was buried at Hoxne, but his remains were afterwards translated to Bury St. Edmunds. He was subsequently canonized (841–870).

Harold.

EDWARD (the Confessor).

King of England and the elder son of Ethelred the Unready; born at Islip, Oxfordshire; married Edith, daughter of the great earl Godwin, and succeeded to the throne in 1042. The greater part of his life was spent in Normandy. He was a pious and peaceful man, but a feeble monarch. He died in 1066 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1161 he was canonized by Alexander III (1004–1066).

Harold.

EDWARD (the Elder).

King of the Anglo-Saxons (921–925). He was the eldest son and successor of Alfred the Great, and most of his reign was spent in war with the Danes, regaining from them the greater portion of central England.

Battle of Brunanburh.

[Pg 121]

EDWARD (the First).

Surnamed Longshanks, king of England, eldest son of Henry III, born at Westminster in 1239, ascended the throne in 1272, married Eleanor of Castile. He came first into prominence in the war with the Barons, whom he defeated at Evesham; joined the last Crusade in 1270, and distinguished himself at Acre; returned to England in 1274 to assume the crown, having been two years previously proclaimed king. Under his reign Wales was finally subdued and annexed to England, and during the latter part of his reign was largely engaged in Scottish affairs, winning the battle of Falkirk in 1298, and seven years later captured and executed Wallace. Some years previously Edward had, along with queen Eleanor, visited Glastonbury and taken away as relics the skulls of king Arthur and queen Guinevere, which had been found buried in Glastonbury Abbey. He died in 1307 at Burgh-on-sands while leading an army against Robert Bruce.

Queen Mary.

EDWARD (the Third).

King of England, born at Windsor 1312, son of Edward II whom he succeeded in 1327. During his boyhood the government was carried on by regency. In 1328 the independence of Scotland was recognized, but the principal event of his reign was the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War with France. In 1340 Edward defeated the French fleet at Sluys, one of the earliest victories of English arms at sea; on August 26, 1346, he routed the French forces at Creçy; and in October of the same year queen Philippa defeated the Scots—who had invaded England—at Neville’s Cross. In 1347 Edward captured Calais, but the ravages of the black death in the succeeding year stopped hostilities for a time. In 1355 the war was resumed, and in the following year the Black Prince won a brilliant victory at Poitiers. By the peace of Bretigny in 1360 Calais, Ponthieu, Gascony and the greater part of the duchy of Aquitaine were added to the English crown. War broke out again in 1369, but it proved disastrous to England, involving as it did the withdrawal of Edward’s claim to the French crown. The Black Prince died in 1376, and twelve months later Edward died, having reigned fifty years. It was during this reign that the Lords and Commons first sat in different chambers and the Order of the Garter instituted.

On the Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

[Pg 122]

EDWARD (the Fourth).

King of England, son of Richard, duke of York, born 1442. He succeeded the Lancastrian Henry VI in 1461, whom he defeated at Towton. The chief event of his reign was the War of the Roses, the Yorkists gaining victories at Hedgeley Moor, Hexham, Barnet and Tewkesbury. During his reign Caxton introduced the printing press. He died in 1483.

Queen Mary.

EDWARD (the Sixth).

King of England, son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, born 1537. Being only nine years old at his succession, the government was carried on by regency under the earl of Hertford and later the duke of Somerset. His reign was marked by a victory over the Scots at Pinkie in 1547, and in 1549 the first Prayer Book of Edward VI was issued. In the same year Somerset was deposed from the protectorate, and Warwick, who in 1551 had become duke of Northumberland became supreme, and had Somerset executed in January 1552. In the same year the second Prayer Book of Edward VI—which was of a more reformed type than the first—was issued, as well as the forty-two articles embodying the doctrines of the Church. By the advice of Northumberland he left the crown to lady Jane Grey. He died in 1553, having reigned only six years.

Queen Mary.

EDWARD.

Christian name.

Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.

EDWARD BULL.

A curate friend of Edwin Morris, who was spending a holiday by a lake.

Edwin Morris.

EDWARD GRAY.

The lover of Ellen Adair, who on account of her shyness, which he mistook for coldness, left her, and went across the sea. On his return he found she had pined and died. He reproached himself for his treatment of her, and

Edward Gray.

EDWARD HEAD.

The subject of a conversation between two men walking to the mail. He left his country house and went abroad, vex’d with a melancholy that possessed him like an evil spirit.

Walking to the Mail.

EDWIN.

The absent lover of one of two sisters, who had gone on a voyage to

While he was away her father planned a marriage which to [Pg 123]her was loathsome, and in order to avoid it, the two sisters decided to fly away together.

The Flight.

EDWIN.

Earl of Mercia, son of Alfgar, whom he succeeded in 1062; joined his brother Morcar in his revolt against earl Tostig, and was defeated by the Norsemen, under Hardrada at Fulford Gate, near York, September 20, 1066. After the battle of Senlac he opposed the Conqueror, and made his last stand in person on the banks of the river Weaver, near Nantwich, but being defeated, surrendered, made submission to William and was pardoned. In 1071 he joined the insurrection in the Isle of Ely under Hereward the Wake, and met his death on his way to the ‘Camp of Refuge.’

Harold.

EDWIN.
EDWIN MORRIS.

A man skilled in botany and geology, a poet, and with various other accomplishments.

He made the friendship of a man who had intended to spend a holiday by the lake, but being disappointed in his love affair,

Edwin Morris.

EDYRN.

Son of Nudd, and nephew of earl Yniol. He was a malicious man, and was called the ‘sparrow-hawk.’

He ousted his uncle from his earldom and attempted to win his daughter Enid, but was unsuccessful. Being overthrown in a tournament by sir Geraint, he was compelled to restore the earldom to Yniol, after which he was sent to the court of Arthur, and became a reformed character.

Marriage of Geraint;
Geraint and Enid.

EFFIE.

Sister to the ‘Queen of the May’ (q.v.).

May Queen.

EGBERT.

Has reference to Egbert, king of the West Saxons.

Aylmer’s Field.

EGLANTINE.

A name given to the sweet-brier, and some other species of rose. Milton seems to have applied the name to some twining plant—

The Window;
Lover’s Tale.

[Pg 124]

EGLATERE.

= Eglantine.

A Dirge.

EGYPT.

Dream of Fair Women;
The Princess;
To Professor Jebb;
Becket;
The Cup;
Promise of May;
Columbus.

ELAINE.

The ‘lily maid of Astolat,’ daughter of king Pelles, and mother of Galahad, son of Lancelot; a lady at the court of king Arthur in love with Lancelot, whose shield she had in her charge.

When Lancelot claimed the shield and bid the damsel good-bye she confessed her love for him; but being told by Sir Lancelot that his love was another’s, she pined and died. According to her dying request her dead body was placed on a bed in a barge, with a letter in her right hand, and, thus conveyed to the palace of king Arthur. The letter, telling of her love for Lancelot was handed to the king who ordered her story to be blazoned on her tomb.

And while my body is hot, let this letter be put in my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter until that I be cold and let me be put in a fair bed ... and so let my bed ... be laid with me in a chariot unto the next place where Thames is, and there let me be put within a barget,

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book XVIII. chap. xix.

When the barget arrived before the king, he took the latter and brake it and made a clerk to read it: this being the substance of the letter:

Most noble knight, Sir Launcelot, now hath death made us two at debate for your love; I was your lover, that men called the fair maiden of Astolat; therefore unto all ladies I make my moan; yet pray for my soul, and bury me at the least and offer ye my mass-penny. This is my last request. And a clean maiden I died, I take God to witness. Pray for my soul, Sir Launcelot, as thou art peerless.

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book XVIII. chap. xx.

Lancelot and Elaine.

ELBURZ.

A mountain range in North Persia, south of the Caspian.

A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh.

ELEANOR.

of Aquitaine, daughter of duke William X of Aquitaine; married Louis VII of France, 1137, divorced 1152, and in the following year married Henry, count of Anjou and duke of Normandy, afterwards Henry II of England. Became jealous of Henry on account of his paramour the ‘fair Rosamund,’ whom she poisoned. For exciting her sons to rebel against their father she was imprisoned for sixteen years, released on the accession of Richard I, and in his absence in the Holy Land was made regent. She died a nun in the Abbey of Fontevrault in 1204.

Dream of Fair Women;
Becket.

ELEÄNORE.

Eleanore.

[Pg 125]

ELEUSIS.

A town in ancient Attica, north-west of Athens. It possessed a famous temple for the worship of Demeter, and was the scene of an annual festival lasting nine days held in honour of Demeter and Persephonè. The Greek Archæological Society a few years ago discovered the remains of some of its famous buildings.

Demeter and Persephone.

ELF.

A supernatural being, much like a fairy, supposed to haunt hills and wild places.

The Foresters.

ELISABETTA.

Nurse to count Federigo degli Alberighi.

The Falcon.

ELIZABETH.

Queen of England, and only child of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, born at Greenwich, 1533. She was educated in the Protestant religion, and in the reign of Mary was sent to the Tower, afterwards to Woodstock, where she was kept till 1555, being then taken to the royal palace at Hatfield. On the death of Mary in 1558 she was proclaimed queen, and four years later refused the offer of Philip II of Spain (husband of Mary) of marriage. In 1561 Mary, queen of the Scots, claimed to be Mary’s successor, but being defeated at Langside, fled to England and was confined by Elizabeth in Tutbury castle, and on the charge of conspiracy was beheaded. Pope Pius V in 1570 issued a bull excommunicating the queen, an act which was immediately answered by the enactment of penal statutes against the Roman Catholics. The chief event of her reign occurred in 1588, when Philip of Spain sent against England his Armada, to which the pope had given the appellation of Invincible—which was defeated by Drake and Hawkins. She died in 1603.

Dream of Fair Women;
The Princess;
Queen Mary.

ELIZABETH (Aunt).

Aunt to Walter, son of sir Walter Vivian, who lived at Maidstone Park. At the time of speaking, Elizabeth with others, was spending the day at the house of sir Walter Vivian, where a festival was being held.

The Princess.

ELLEN.

An Isle of Wight girl, who told the story of her unhappy life to a sympathetic doctor. When quite young she was the sweetheart of a boy of the same village. When the boy—Harry—was grown up, a farmer relative sent for him to work on his farm. He said good-bye [Pg 126]to Ellen, went to Dorsetshire, and while there got into trouble with another girl. He returned, and on Christmas Day married Ellen. Work was, however, scant in the Isle, so Harry crossed the Solent in search of employment. In waiting for his return Ellen set to righting the house, and found a letter written to Harry by the Dorsetshire girl. On his return she refused to be reassured by his assurances of his love and trust. He left her, and she refused to say good-bye. He wrote to say he had work in Jersey but in crossing, the boat went down and he was drowned.

First Quarrel.

ELLEN.
ELLEN ADAIR.

A maiden in love, much against the will of her parents, with a certain Edward Gray, who mistook her quiet and reserved manner for coldness and pride. Being angry with her he fled over the sea.

During his absence she pined and died. On his return he saw his folly, but it was now too late.

Where her body is buried, there lies his heart also.

Edward Gray.

ELLEN.
ELLEN AUBREY.

The subject of a song sung by Everard Hall, at the conclusion of a picnic, in reply to that sung by his friend, Francis Hale. Everard found the song in a book of songs, but substituted familiar names—of which Ellen Aubrey was one—in place of the original ones.

Audley Court.

ELM.
ELM-TREE.

A tree of the genus Ulmus.

Ode to Memory;
Gardener’s Daughter;
Amphion;
The Princess;
In Memoriam;
Balin and Balan;
Lover’s Tale;
The Ring;
To Ulysses;
To Mary Boyle;
May Queen;
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere.

ELSINORE.

A seaport on the island of Zeeland in Denmark; and the scene of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Buonaparte.

ELY (Bishop of).

See Thirlby.

ELY (City of).

Harold.

ELYSIAN.

= Elysium, the Greek heaven. There is a description of the place in the Odyssey.

Lotos-Eaters;
The Princess.

ELYSIUM.

The land of the blest, where [Pg 127]the souls of the righteous passed without dying. The place is considered to be the Canary Islands.

Demeter and Persephone.

EMILIA.

Sister of Ellen Aubrey, both of whom are mentioned in a song sung by Everard Hall, at a picnic held at Audley Court. Francis Hale, friend of the poet, sang a song, and Everard replied with one the opening lines of which were—

Audley Court.

EMMA MORELAND.

Met Edward Gray on his return to his native country, and asked him,

to which he replied, weeping,

He related to her the sad death of Ellen Adair, and told her that love will never again touch his heart, as it is buried with Ellen Adair.

Edward Gray.

EMMIE.

A little girl who died in the ward of a children’s hospital, after undergoing an operation.

In the Children’s Hospital.

EMPEROR-MOTH.

One of the several large and beautiful moths, the prevailing colours being dark grey, brown and reddish yellow.

The Princess.

EMRYS (Aurelius).

See Aurelius.

’ENEMIES.

Anemones.

Northern Farmer, Old Style.

ENGLAND.

Talking Oak;
Amphion;
Enoch Arden;
Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington;
Third of February;
A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh;
The Daisy;
On Translations of Homer;
Milton;
In Memoriam;
Dedication of Idylls;
To the Queen, II;
Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice;
Defence of Lucknow;
Columbus;
To Victor Hugo;
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After;
Prologue to General Hamley;
Epitaph on Lord Stratford de Redcliffe;
Hands all Round;
The Fleet;
To Professor Jebb;
Kapiolani;
Queen Mary;
Harold;
Becket;
The Foresters.

ENGLISH GARTER.

The Order of the Garter, an order of Knighthood instituted in 1344, by Edward III; it is the highest order of Knighthood, and is designated K.G.

Queen Mary.

ENGLISH IRONSIDE.

Edmund the Second, commonly known as Ironside on [Pg 128]account of his bravery, son of Ethelred the Unready and half-brother to the Confessor. Elected king in 1016, but only London acknowledged him, the rest of England accepting the rule of Canute the Dane, who was chosen king at Southampton. A fierce struggle therefore raged between him and Canute, and Edmund defeated the Danes at Pen in Somersetshire, at Sherborne, and at Otford. He was however defeated at Assandûn, where ‘all the flower of the English race perished’ and an arrangement was entered into at Olney, an island in the Severn, by which the kingdom was divided, Edmund receiving Wessex, East Anglia, Essex and London; and Canute Mercia and Northumbria; and it was further agreed that on the death of either the survivor was to succeed him. A few weeks after this agreement Edmund was assassinated at Oxford by two of his chamberlains (981–1016).

Harold.

ENID.

Daughter of earl Yniol and the wife of sir Geraint, a Knight of the Round Table, who had delivered the earl from the tyranny of his nephew Edyrn. When Guinevere’s infidelity was spread about the court of Arthur, Geraint, in order to save Enid from the taint, left the court and removed to his mansion in Devonshire. Overhearing the latter part of a sentence uttered by her, Geraint charged her with unfaithfulness, and bade his wife to wear her meanest apparel.

Being wounded in battle Enid nursed him with such devotion that he saw he had misjudged her. Full of repentance he expressed his mistake and they became reconciled, and ‘crown’d a happy life with a fair death.’

At the court of Arthur she was called ‘Enid the fair,’ but the people called her ‘Enid the good.’ The representation of purity, she was loved by queen Guinevere and was the most beautiful lady at Arthur’s court next after the queen.

Marriage of Geraint;
Geraint and Enid;
Guinevere.

ENNA.

A city of Sicily, remarkable for its fertile soil and numerous springs. In ancient times it possessed a famous temple of Demeter and another of Proserpine. Proserpine was carried off by Pluto while gathering flowers in the plain.

[Pg 129]

Edwin Morris;
Demeter and Persephone;
To Professor Jebb.

ENOCH.
ENOCH ARDEN.

The hero of Enoch Arden. He was a ‘rough sailor’s lad.’ At first he was successful, prospered in his fishing, became an able seaman on board a merchantman, and before he attained the age of twenty-one purchased his own boat and married Anne Lee, ‘the prettiest little damsel in the port.’ All things continued to go well until he fell from a mast and broke a limb, and the master of the ship he had served in hearing of his misfortune offered to take him as boatswain, to which Enoch consented. When the day of his departure arrived he kissed his wife and his two elder children, but the youngest, asleep in the cot, he would not waken, but took away with him a little curl from the baby’s head.

During his absence his wife had no success, and had it not been for Philip Ray would have sunk into poverty. Ten years passed away, and nothing having been heard of Enoch, Philip offered to marry her, and she became his wife. In the meantime, Enoch had on his homeward voyage been wrecked on a desert island. During his solitary life on the island, the sights and sounds of his home passed continually through his mind, until at length a ship took him off and he returned to England. Arriving at the little port he reached his old home,

Going to the village tavern he found that during his absence the landlord had passed away, but his widow, Miriam Lane, still held the house and here he rested. So completely had he changed that he lived at the tavern without being identified, and learned from Miriam Lane the story of his house.

But Enoch longed to see his wife again, and in the darkness went to Philip’s house, and through the window saw his wife and children in comfort on Philip’s hearth. Creeping from the garden he fell upon the earth and prayed for strength not to tell her, never to let her know. But he did not live long. Finding death dawning upon him he called for Miriam Lane, and under promise on [Pg 130]the Bible not to divulge until after death, told her who he was, and taking from his pocket the dead child’s curl bade her to give it to Annie in order that she might know that it was really he, and to tell her that he died blessing her and her children and Philip. Three days afterwards he passed away, and in gratitude to this devoted soul was, by the villagers, accorded a rich funeral.

Enoch Arden.

EPHESIAN ARTEMIS.

= Diana of the Ephesians. Her magnificent temple at Ephesus was burnt to the ground by Herostratos, in the same night in which Alexander the great was born (B.C. 356). It was rebuilt by contributions from all the Ionian cities, and was regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world. This ‘Ephesian Artemis’ was apparently an ancient Asiatic deity whose worship the Greeks found in Ionia. Its image is stated to have fallen down from Jupiter (Acts, chap. xix. verse 35), the lord of Heaven.

The Cup.

EPHESUS.

Has reference to the seven Christian youths of Ephesus, who, in order to escape from the persecution of the Christians under Decius took refuge in a cave near that city. Being discovered, great stones were rolled against the entrance to the cave in order that they might die of hunger. They however fell into a supernatural sleep, and some 200 years afterwards, in the reign of Theodosius, they were discovered. One of the seven was sent to the city to purchase provisions, but was arrested for offering a coin of the time of Decius and brought before the authorities; but leading his accusers to the cavern where his six companions were found, was liberated. The seven sleepers is a favourite subject in early mediæval art.

Harold.

ERIN.

The Celtic name for Ireland.

Coming of Arthur.

ERNE (Miriam).

See Miriam, Miriam Erne.

ERNE (Muriel).

See Muriel Erne.

EROSES.

= gods.

The Islet.

[Pg 131]

ESAÏAS.

= Isaiah.

Queen Mary.

ESAU.

Godiva.

ESH.
ESHTREE.

= Ash-tree.

Northern Farmer, New Style;
Promise of May.

ESHCOL.

The name signifies a bunch of grapes. See Numbers xiii. 23–24.

To E. Fitzgerald.

ESSEX.

Queen Mary.

ESTHER.

A Jewish maiden, the niece of Mordecai, a Jewish resident at the court of Ahasuerus. Was chosen as queen in place of Vashti, who had refused to obey the king’s command. Esther.

Marriage of Geraint.

ETHELRED (the Second).

Called the ‘Unready’; king of Saxon England, son of Edgar and Elfrida; succeeded his half-brother Edmund the Martyr in 979. During his reign the Danes invaded England, and Ethelred defeated them at Watchet in Somersetshire and at Maldon, but his unmanly spirit submitted to pay a tribute to the Danes by a tax levied on his subjects known as the ‘Danegeld.’ In 1002 during the time of peace he ordered a general massacre of all the Danes in England, and Sweyn, king of Denmark, entered his kingdom and he fled to Normandy. Sweyn dying soon afterwards Ethelred returned and in 1014 he defeated Cnut, but in the following year Cnut renewed his attack, ravaged Mercia and Wessex, and was preparing to march on London when Ethelred died April 23, 1016.

Harold.

ETTARRE.

A lady loved by sir Pelleas, but being so proud she scorned him, and said she would never return his love even if he died for her. But Pelleas promised to follow her from place to place, and never to leave her until she returned his love; but she sent her knights to fight with him and treated him very shamefully.

Sir Gawain then promised to advocate his cause with the [Pg 132]lady, but she played him false, for sir Pelleas coming to the pavilion outside Ettarre’s castle found them caressing each other.

The Damosel of the Lake then came to Pelleas and bade him come forth with her in the country, and ‘she rejoiced sir Pelleas, and they lived together during their life days’ and the lady Ettarre died from sorrow.

Pelleas and Ettarre.

EUROPA.

A beautiful maiden, daughter of Agenor, king of Phœnicia. While gathering flowers she was carried off to Crete by Zeus, disguised as a white bull.

She was worshipped in Crete under the name of Hellotis, and a festival called Hellotia was held in her honour, at which her bones were carried surrounded by wreaths of myrtle.

Palace of Art.

EUROPE.

Locksley Hall;
Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington;
Third of February;
To Rev. F. D. Maurice;
Defence of Lucknow;
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After;
Queen Mary;
Becket;
The Foresters.

EUSTACE.

An artist—a very muscular and well-made person.

Along with an artist friend they went to see the gardener’s daughter. Eustace painted Juliet, fell in love with her, and after a year had passed married her.

Gardener’s Daughter.

EVA.

Daughter of farmer Steer, and sister of Dora Steer. Under a promise of marriage, she was seduced by Philip Edgar, a wealthy gentleman. She ran away, leaving a letter to the effect that she would drown herself. At the news of her disgrace the old father worked himself into a fury which subsided into paralysis. After many years’ absence Edgar returned under the name of Harold, but on account of his beard passed unrecognized. Dobson, a farmer who was himself in love with Dora Steer, suspected him, but Edgar showed him a newspaper cutting of his father’s death, which he easily passed off as his own. Edgar made love to Dora, who was easily won, when news arrived that a lady had been run over in a neighbouring lane. The injured lady, who was nursed by Dora, was none other than Eva, who yearned [Pg 133]for her father’s forgiveness, but the old man was too troubled with his disease to understand. Edgar and Eva eventually met, and Dora learned who her lover really was. At the sight of the meeting Eva fell dead, and over her sister’s dead body Dora cursed the man, who hoped by marrying her to make amends for Eva’s seduction.

Promise of May.

EVANGEL.

= The Gospels.

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

EVANGELIST.

= St. John.

In Memoriam.

EVE.

Day-Dream;
Maud;
Becket.

EVELYN.

One of two sisters—the other being Edith. She married her sister’s former lover, but was quite unconscious of the fact, which was only made known to her after her sister’s death. The news caused some estrangement between husband and wife. During the second year of her married life she died.

Sisters (Evelyn and Edith).

EVERARD.
EVERARD HALL.

A poet. While at college he wrote an epic about king Arthur, but thinking that

destroyed it. His college friend, Francis Allen inquired later as to what had become of it. He replied that considering it of small value he had destroyed it.

Francis had however, rescued the eleventh book from the hearth, and forthwith produced it

The Epic;
Morte d’Arthur.

EVERGREEN.

A plant that remains green all the year, as the laurel and the ivy.

Enoch Arden;
Spiteful Letter;
Gareth and Lynette.

EWE.
EWE-LAMB.

A female sheep.

The Princess;
Becket.

EXCALIBUR.

King Arthur’s magic sword. It meant cut-steel and would cut through iron or steel; in poetic language, it is called a sword as its blade flashed like fire. It was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake, and she was nine years in the shaping of it, sitting in the deeps upon the hidden bases of the hills.

Arthur and his enchanter Merlin rode one day by a broad lake, and afar out in the midst of the lake an arm clad in white samite rose from out of the water and held up a fair sword. Then came the Lady of the Lake moving upon the water. ‘Enter into yonder [Pg 134]barge,’ she said, ‘and row to the sword and take it and the scabbard.’

Tappan: Heroes of the Middle Ages.

It was so bright in his enemies’ eyes, that it gave light equal to thirty torches. Tennyson in his Coming of Arthur described it:

It was by this sword that Arthur overcame his enemies in battle. After receiving his wound in the last weird battle in the west, king Arthur commanded sir Bedivere to take the sword and return it to the Lady of the Lake.

Twice did sir Bedivere go to the pool and twice did his heart fail him, for instead of flinging the brand into the water he hid it. Returning to the dying king and being questioned as to what he had seen, replied:

but the king detecting the knight’s deception threateningly commanded him to fulfil his task, whereupon the knight went to the lake, and seizing the sword threw it into the water.

Morte d’ Arthur;
Coming of Arthur;
Gareth and Lynette;
Holy Grail;
Last Tournament;
Passing of Arthur.

EXETER (Dean of).

Queen Mary.

EYE.

A Castle.

Becket.

FAIR-HANDS.

According to Malory, a nickname given by sir Kay to sir Gareth when he was a kitchen-scullion at the court of king Arthur.

And since he hath no name, I shall give him a name that shall be Beaumains, that is Fair-hands.

Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book VII. chap i.

Tennyson in his Gareth and Lynette makes sir Kay address sir Lancelot whilst referring to sir Gareth:

Gareth and Lynette.

FALCON.

A bird of prey formerly trained to the pursuit of game.

Marriage of Geraint;
Merlin and Vivien;
Lancelot and Elaine;
Happy;
The Falcon;
Harold.

FALCON, THE.

Name of a ship.

For a huge sea smote every soul from the decks of The Falcon but one.

The Wreck.

[Pg 135]

FANNY.

The name of a song.

Fanny be the naäme i’ the song, but I swopt it fur she.

Promise of May.

FATHER PHILIP.

= Philip Ray.

Enoch Arden.

FAUN.

The symbol of a drunkard.

Lucretius;
In Memoriam.

FAUNUS.

In Roman mythology the grandson of Saturn, and the god of fields and shepherds. Upon the introduction of Greek mythology Faunus was identified with Pan the protector of flocks and herds. Two festivals were held annually in his honour in the temple on the island in the Tiber, when the peasants brought their simple offerings.

Lucretius.

FEDERIGO.
FEDERIGO DEGLI ALBERIGHI.

An impoverished nobleman, in love with a wealthy widow, the lady Giovanna. She had a rival—his favourite falcon—for which the count had a strange affection, the bird at times being as dear to him as his mistress. The son of the lady Giovanna fell sick, and yearned for the count’s falcon. The lady paid a visit to the count at the luncheon hour, with the object of begging the bird from him; but the scanty provision of the larder being insufficient for the meal, the count ordered his foster-brother Filippo to kill the falcon and have it cooked for the lady. When the lunch was spread she could not eat on account of her anxiety for her request; but when she learned that her lover had killed his favourite bird in order to entertain her, she confessed her love for him, and happiness ensued.

The Falcon.