_Emathian Conqueror_: When Thebes was destroyed (B.C. 335) and the citizens massacred by thousands, Alexander ordered the house of Pindar to be spared. He was as incapable of appreciating the Poet as Lewis XIV. of appreciating Racine: but even the narrow and barbarian mind of Alexander could understand the advantage of a showy act of homage to Poetry. _the repeated air \Of sad Electra's poet_: Amongst Plutarch's vague stories, he says that when the Spartan confederacy in 404 B.C. took Athens, a proposal to demolish it was rejected through the effect produced on the commanders by hearing part of a chorus from the Electra of Euripides sung at a feast. There is however no apparent congruity between the lines quoted (167, 8 Ed. Dindorf) and the result ascribed to them. Poem 73. This high-toned and lovely Madrigal is quite in the style, and worthy of, the "pure Simonides." Poem 75. Vaughan's beautiful though quaint verses should be compared with Wordsworth's great Ode, No. 287. Poem 76. _Favonius_: the spring wind. Poem 77. _Themis_: the goddess of justice. Skinner was grandson by his mother to Sir E. Coke;--hence, as pointed out by Mr. Keightley, Milton's allusion to the _bench_. _what the Swede intends, and what the French_: Sweden was then at war with Poland, and France with the Spanish Netherlands. Poem 79. _Sydneian showers_: either in allusion to the conversations in the "Arcadia," or to Sidney himself as a model of "gentleness" in spirit and demeanour. Poem 84. _Elizabeth of Bohemia_: Daughter to James I., and ancestor to Sophia of Hanover. These lines are a fine specimen of gallant and courtly compliment. Poem 85. Lady M. Ley was daughter to Sir J. Ley, afterwards Earl of Marlborough, who died March, 1628-9, coincidently with the dissolution of the third Parliament of Charles's reign. Hence Milton poetically compares his death to that of the Orator Isocrates of Athens, after Philip's victory in 328 B.C. Poems 92, 93. These are quite a Painter's poems. Poem 99. _From Prison_: to which his active support of Charles I. twice brought the high-spirited writer. Poem 105. Inserted in Book II. as written in the character of a Soldier of Fortune in the Seventeenth Century. Poem 106. _Waly waly_: an exclamation of sorrow, the root and the pronunciation of which are preserved in the word _caterwaul_. _Brae_: hillside; _burn_: brook; _busk_: adorn. _Saint Anton's Well_: at the foot of Arthur's Seat by Edinburgh. _Cramasie_: crimson. Poem 107. _burd_: maiden. Poem 108. _corbies_: crows; _fail_: turf; _hause_: neck; _theek_: thatch. If not in their origin, in their present form this and the two preceding poems appear due to the Seventeenth Century, and have therefore been placed in Book II. Poem 111.