_John Bunyan_ (1628-1688), author of "Pilgrim's Progress" (1678).
_Daniel Defoe_ (c. 1659-1731), journalist and novelist. His masterpiece,
"Robinson Crusoe," appeared in 1719.
_dipped in dews_. Cf. T. Heywood's "Ben Jonson, though his learned pen Was
dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben."
_Philoctetes_. The story of the Greek hero who, on the voyage to the siege
of Troy, was abandoned on an uninhabited island, is the subject of a play
by Sophocles.
_As I walked about_. "Robinson Crusoe," Part I, p. 125 (ed. G. A. Aitken).
P. 270. _give an echo_. "Twelfth Night," ii, 4, 21.
P. 271. _Our poesy_. "Timon of Athens," i, 1, 21.
P. 272. _all plumed_. Cf. 1 "Henry IV," iv, 1, 98:
"All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirits as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls."
_If we fly_. Psalms, cxxxix, 9.
P. 275. _Pope Anastatius_. "Inferno," xi, 8.
_Count Ugolino_. Ibid., xxxiii.
_Ossian_. James Macpherson (1736-1796) published between 1760 and 1765
what he alleged to be a translation of the ancient Gaelic hero-bard, Oisin
or Ossian. The poems fed the romantic appetite of the generation and were
translated into practically every European language. In Germany especially
the influence of "Ossian" wrought powerfully through the enthusiasm it
aroused in the young Goethe and in Schiller. In England, the poems,
immediately upon their appearance, gave rise to a long controversy as to
their authenticity, Dr. Johnson being among the first to attack the
belief in their antiquity. The truth seems to be that, though there
really is a legendary hero answering to Ossian, no such poems as
Macpherson attributed to him were ever transmitted. The whole work is to
all intents the original creation of Macpherson himself. The supposed
Gaelic originals, which were published by the Highland Society of London
in 1807, have been proved by philologists to be spurious, to be nothing in
fact but translations into bad Gaelic from Macpherson's good English. This
conclusion is further supported by the mass of borrowings from the Bible
and the classics which have been found in "Ossian." See J. C. Smart:
"James Macpherson, An Episode in Literature" (1905).
P. 276. _lamentation of Selma_. Lament of Colma in "Songs of Selma,"
Ossian, ed. William Sharp, p. 410.
_Roll on_. Cf. ibid., p. 417: "ye bring no joy on your course!"