Browning wrote concerning this poem: "There is no sort of historical
foundation about _Good News from Ghent_. I wrote it under the bulwark of
a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to
appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good
horse 'York' then in my stable at home. It was written in pencil on the
fly-leaf of Bartoli's _Simboli_, I remember." Such an incident might,
of course, have happened at the "Pacification of Ghent," a treaty of
union between Holland, Zealand, and southern Netherlands under William
of Orange, against Philip II of Spain. The distance between Ghent and
Aix as mapped out in this poem is something more than ninety miles. Do
you think a horse could gallop that distance? Notice that the verse
gives the effect of galloping.
[234] 10. =Pique=; seems to be the pommel.
[235] 14 ff. =Lokeren=, =Boom=, =Düffeld=, =Mecheln=, =Aerschot=,
=Hasselt=, =Looz=, =Tongres=, =Dalhem=; towns varying from seven to
twenty-five miles apart on the route taken from Ghent to Aix.
[236] See Note 235 above.
[237] See Note 235 above.
[238] See Note 235 above.
[239] See Note 235 above.
[240] See Note 235 above.
[241] See Note 235 above.
[242] See Note 235 above.
[243] See Note 235 above.
[244] 46. =Save Aix.= Notice that this is the first we know of the
purpose of this ride. Is this an advantage or a disadvantage?