Rossetti has entirely misinterpreted the meaning of the whole passage. Wherever classical knowledge is required--as it is in almost every stanza--he either gives no note at all, or he blunders. Thus in stanza 24 he gives no note on the use of the word “secret.” In stanza 28 he has evidently not the smallest notion of the meaning of the word “obscene” as applied to ravens. The fine adaptations from _Lucretius_ (II. 578-580) in stanza 21, and again from II. 990-1010 in stanzas 20 and 42; the adaptation from the _Agamemnon_ (49-51) in stanza 17; from the fragments of the _Polyidus_ of Euripides in stanza 39; from the _Iliad_ (vi. 484) in stanza 34; from Theocritus, _Idyll._, i. 66, and Virg., _Ecl._, x. 9-10 in stanza 2; and again from Theocritus, _Idyll._, i. 77 seqq., from which the procession of the mourners is adapted, and on which the whole architecture of the poem is modelled--all these are alike unnoticed. Nor is Mr. Rossetti more fortunate in explaining allusions to passages in other literatures. The adaptation of the sublime passage in Isaiah (xiv. 9, 10), by which one of the finest parts of the poem was suggested, stanzas 45 and 46; the singular reminiscence in stanza 28:-- “The vultures ... Whose wings rain contagion;” of Marlowe’s _Jew of Malta_, act ii. sc. 1, where he speaks of the raven which “Doth shake contagion from her sable wings;” the obvious reminiscence of Dante, _Inf._, 44 seqq. in stanza 44; of Shakespeare’s _Romeo and Juliet_, v. 3, which forms the proper commentary on lines 7 and 8 of stanza 3; of none of these is any notice taken. On many important points of interpretation we differ _toto cœlo_ from Mr. Rossetti. The “fading splendour,” for example, in stanza 22, cannot possibly mean “fading as being overcast by sorrow and dismay” (cf. stanza 25), it simply means vanishing, receding from sight--a magnificently graphic epithet. Is Mr. Rossetti acquainted with the proleptic use of adjectives and participles? We may add that Mr. Rossetti has not even taken the trouble to ascertain who was the writer of the famous article, of which so much is said both in the preface of the poem and in the poem itself, but “presumes,” etc. _Et sic omnia._ And _sic omnia_ it will inevitably continue to be, until the Universities are prepared to do their duty to education by placing the study of our national Literature on a proper footing.