4. =Bacchus=. The Roman god of wine, frequently invoked in the
garnishment of Latin and Italian speech.
42. =Pulcinello= is the Italian for clown or puppet, and the prototype
of the English Punch.
48, =Dante=, =Boccaccio=, and =Petrarch=. Italy's first three great
authors. See a biographical dictionary or encyclopædia for their dates
and their works.
=St. Jerome= (340-420.) One of the fathers of the Roman, church.
He prepared the Latin translation of the Bible known as the
_Vulgate_.
48. =the skirts of St. Paul has reached=. Has done almost as well as
St. Paul.
51. =Our Lady=. The image of the Virgin Mary. Observe our hero's taste
and his religions solemnity.
52. =seven swords=, etc. Representing the seven "legendary sorrows"
of the Virgin. See Berdoe's _Browning Cyclopædia_, or Brewer's
_Reader's Handbook_, or _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ for
the list.
UP AT A VILLA is one of the best humorous poems in the language. The
hero's desires and sorrows are so _naïve_, his tastes so gravely
held, that he provokes our sympathy as well as our laughter. One of
the charms of the poem is the way in which he is made to testify, in
spite of himself, to the beauties of the country (as in lines 7-9,
19-20, 22-25, 32-33, 36) and to the monotony or clanging emptiness of
the city (as in lines 12-14, 38-54). Compare lines 8 and 82 with the
picture in _De Gustibus_.