jects, Numa turned his attention to the regulation of their religious ceremonial, the order of which he professed to have derived from Egeria, a river nymph. Her grotto, where he is said to have met her, is still shewn in the valley of the Almo, near Rome. 1031. Nympholepsy (from Gr. nymphe, a nymph, and lambanein, to seize), a religious mania attributed to having seen nymphs -water-goddesses. 1082. We believe in thee, &c.; more grammatically rendered thus: belief in thee is a faith whose martyrs are the broken in heart. 1084-1085. Note that naked eye is the nominative to hath seen and shall see. 1105. For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.'-Hosea viii. 7. 1106. Alchemy here represents the search for happiness by means not more likely to attain it than the labours of the alchemist to obtain gold from baser metals. 1107. Wealthiest when most undone; that is, believes itself nearest its object when nearest its ruin. 1129. Upas, the Malay name for poison, applied to several poisonous plants in the Eastern Archipelago, the chief of which is the Antjar, a tree of the bread-fruit order. 1135-1138. The free and philosophic spirit of our nation has been the theme of admiration to the world. This was the proud distinction of Englishmen, and the luminous source of all their glory.'-BYRON. 1143. Couch, a surgical term applied to lowering the opaque lens or cataract which obstructs the sight, from the line of vision. 1147. Coliseum, the Colosseum, begun by Vespasian, and finished by Titus, 80 A.D. It is the largest amphitheatre in the world, and when entire, accommodated 87,000 persons. One-third only now remains in ruins, the effect of moonlight upon which is indescribable. See 1288-1296. 1158. Broke his scythe; that is, where the decay of time is arrested. 1162-1233. A powerful but painful appeal of his real or fancied wrongs to the judgment of posterity, which time has not yet given it the means of deciding. 1167. Thy thrift, that which time stores, or produces, to inform the future regarding the past. 1179. They. Those whom he believed to be his persecutors. 1181. Nemesis, the goddess of Retribution. She had a temple on the Palatine Hill named Rhamnusia. Augustus is said to have paid her annual homage in the guise of a beggar. 1184. Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, who slew his mother in 1207. revenge of her murder of his father; yet for this he was tormented by the Furies. That curse shall be Forgiveness. In the original manuscript there is a stanza beginning: 'If to forgive be heaping coals of fire As God has spoken-on the heads of foes, Mine should be a volcano.' 1221. Janus glance, double-faced, like the god Janus, emblematical of prudence. 1231. Remembered tone, a favourite simile. See 205 and 931. 1252. The Gladiator. The wonderful statue,' the Dying Gladiator, in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, was found in the Gardens of Sallust. The right arm is a restoration by Michael Angelo. It is of Greek origin, and what it really does represent has not been conclusively settled. 1270-1275. No war, says a Roman writer (Lipsius), was ever so destructive to the human race as these sports. They continued for seventy years after the establishment of Christianity, and were only abolished by Honorius about 404, in consequence of the death of Telemachus, an Eastern monk, who rushed into the arena to separate the combatants. 1279-1285. From the 13th to the 18th century the Colosseum had been used as a quarry for the construction of several modern palaces, particularly the Farnese. Though but a third of it is now left, the value of the material has been estimated at half a million sterling. 1297-1299. 'This is quoted in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as a proof that the Coliseum was entire when seen by the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or beginning of the eighth century.'-BYRON. 1314. Pantheon, the ancient temple of all the gods, now the church of St Maria Rotondo, is the only structure of ancient Rome that has been preserved entire. In 6ro A.D., it was consecrated by Boniface IV. to the Virgin Mary and the Martyrs. Raphael was interred in the Pantheon. 1320. Sole aperture. The Pantheon being a circular building, with niches all round the walls, filled with statues, its only source of light is from the open centre of the dome. 1324-1359. These four stanzas refer to the story of the Roman daughter who kept alive her imprisoned father with her own milk, till, on its becoming known, he was pardoned. 1360. The mole which Hadrian reared. The mausoleum of Hadrian was the nucleus of the castle of St Angelo, the chief stronghold of Rome. 1369-1422. Is a description of St Peter's, Rome. It stands on the site of Nero's circus, where St Peter is supposed to have suffered martyrdom, and is said to have been founded by the Emperor Constantine. The present building was commenced in 1450 by Pope Nicholas V., and was consecrated in 1626 by Urban VIII. Raphael and Michael Angelo were two of its architects. It is the largest and most imposing, though not the best proportioned, church in the world, and is estimated to have cost nine and a half millions sterling. 1370. Diana's marvel, the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. The Greek temple being a heap of ruins, the comparison is hardly fair except as to size, it being about half that of St Peter's. 1375. Sophia. See Canto II., note on 748 1429. The fountain of sublimity. The Christian ideal that ele vated the minds of the artists with those sublime conceptions which are embodied in the construction of this great church. 1432. The Vatican, the residence of the popes, and the most extensive palace in the world. It has the most valuable collection of antiquities in existence. 1433. Laocoon's torture. The marble group representing Laocoön and his two sons attacked by two sea-serpents, as told by Virgil in the Eneid, Book II. It is the work of three Rhodian artists-Polydorus, Athenodorus, and Agesander, and was discovered near the baths of Titus in 1506. 1441. Lord of the unerring bow, the Apollo Belvedere, so named from being placed in the Belvedere of the Vatican. It was discovered in 1503 near Porto d'Anzio, ancient Antium. 1477-1485. Compare with Shakspeare's Tempest, iv. 1. 1494. Fardels (Fr. fardeaux), burdens. 1495-1548. These six stanzas refer to the death, in November 1817, of the Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV., and wife of Prince Leopold, afterwards King of the Belgians. 1519. Beheld her Iris. The symbol of hope. 1532. Fickle reek (reek, Scotch, smoke). The incense of popular applause. 1547. 'The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here (Venice), and must have been an earthquake at home.'BYRON. 1549. Nemi. 'The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria, and from the shades which embosomed the Temple of Diana, has preserved to this day its distinctive appellation of The Grove.'-BYRON. Its lake is the crater of an extinct volcano, about three miles in circumference, and very deep. 1558. Albano, a favourite summer resort of the inhabitants of Rome, situated on the slope of the Alban Mountains. 'The whole declivity of the Alban Hill is of unrivalled beauty.. The prospect embraces all the objects alluded to in this stanza: the Mediterranean and the whole scene of the latter half of the Eneid.'-BYRON. 1561. Epic war. One of the principal themes of the Eneid of Virgil. 1562. Arms and the man; the opening words of the Eneid, meaning Æneas and his contests in arms. 1564. Tully reposed. Cicero's favourite villa at Tusculum is meant. 1566. Horace and his farm near the Sabine Hills. "My patron's gift, my Sabine field, Shall all its rural plenty yield, And, happy in that rural store, Of heaven and him I ask no more.' FRANCIS' Horace, Ode ii. 1571. The midland ocean, the Mediterranean Sea. 1574. Calpe's rock, Gibraltar. 1575. Euxine, the Black Sea. 1576. Blue Symplegades, the Cyanean rocks at the Black Sea entrance of the Bosporus, named Symplegades from their supposed power of striking each other, a delusion induced by their appearance in stormy weather. They are first mentioned in connection with the voyage of the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece. 1620. Lay for lie, for the rhyme's sake. 1640. Glasses. Very rarely used as a verb in the sense of to reflect. 'To glass herself in dewy eyes.'-TENNYSON. See 252. 1672. Sandal-shoon, pilgrim's shoes. Shoon is still used in Scotland for shoes. Scallop-shell, found in abundance on the shores of Palestine, and worn by pilgrims in evidence of having been there. THE END. Edinburgh: Printed by W. & R. Chambers. |