"How it Strikes a Contemporary" is a portrait of the Poet as the
unpoetic gossiping public of his day sees him. It is humorously
colored by the alien point of view of the speaker, who suspects
without understanding either the greatness of the poet's spiritual
personality and mission, or the nature of his life, which is
withdrawn from that of the commonalty, yet spent in clear-sighted
universal sympathies and kindly mediation between Humanity and its
God.
3. Valladolid: the royal city of the kings of Castile, before Philip
II moved the Court to Madrid, where Cervantes, Calderon, and Las
Casas lived and Columbus died.
76. Titian: pictures by the Venetian, Tiziano Vecellio (1477-1576),
glowing in color, presumably of large golden-haired women like his
famous Venus.
90. Corregidor: the Spanish title for a magistrate, literally, a
corrector, from corregir, to correct.