20. _Whom._ The reference is to the lower classes, whom the Liberals were endeavoring to rouse to aspiration and action. The Conservatives opposed such beginnings of independence. 29. _Best fight on well._ It is the deserting leader who is exhorted to fight well. Though it is pain to have him desert their party, they have gloried in his power and it would be an even greater pain to see him weak. They wish him to fight well even though their cause is thereby menaced. HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX This poem was written during Mr. Browning's first journey to Italy, in 1838. He sailed from London in a merchant vessel bound for Trieste, on which he found himself the only passenger. The weather was stormy and for the first fortnight Browning was extremely ill. As they passed through the straights of Gibraltar the captain supported him upon deck that he might not lose the sight. Of the Composition of the poem he says, "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' there in my stable at home." The poem was written in pencil on the flyleaf of Bartoli's _Simboli_, a favorite book of his. Browning says that there was no sort of historical foundation for the story, but the Pacification of Ghent in 1576 has been suggested as an appropriate background. The incident narrated could naturally belong to the efforts of the united cities of Holland, Zealand, and the Southern Netherlands to combat the tyranny of Philip II. 6. Of this line Miss Barrett wrote: "It drew us out into the night as witnesses." 13. _'Twas moonset._ The distance from Ghent to Aix is something over a hundred miles. The first horse gave out at Hasselt, about eighty miles from Ghent; the second horse failed at Dalhem in sight of Aix. Roland made the whole distance between midnight of one day and sunset of the next. The minute notes of time are for dramatic and picturesque effect rather than as exact indications of progress. Even the towns are not used with the exactness of a guide-book, for Looz and Tongres are off the direct route. 17. _Mecheln._ Flemish for Mechlin. The chimes they heard were probably from the cathedral tower. 41. _Dome-spire._ Over the polygonal monument founded by Charlemagne in Aix-la-Chapelle is a dome 104 feet high and 48 feet in diameter. The reference is probably to this dome. THE FLOWER'S NAME