"Ye waves That o'er the interminable ocean wreathe Your crisped smiles." PROW. has-- "_Dimpled in multitudinous smiles._" And SCHOE.'s-- "_Zahllosses Blinken._" {390} And so BLOM. in a note, emphatically-- "_Lenis_ fluctuum agitatio." But why all this gentleness? Does it agree either with the strength of the poet's genius, or with the desolation of the wild scene around his hero? I at once admit that γελάω is often used in Greek, where, according to our usage, _smile_ would be the word; but in the Old Testament we find the broad strong word _laugh_ often retained in descriptions of nature; and I see not the least reason for walking in satin shoes here. Note 11 (p. 186). ". . . in a reed concealed it." νάρθηξ--"still used for this purpose in Cyprus, where the reed still retains the old Greek name"--WELCKER, _Tril._ p. 8, who quotes Walpole's Memoirs relative to Turkey, p. 284, and Tournefort, Letter 6. I recollect at school smoking a bit of bamboo cane for a cigar. Note 12 (p. 186). ". . . Ah me! ah me! who comes?" The increased agitation of mind is here expressed in the original by the abandonment of the Iambic verse, and the adoption of the Bacchic--τίς ἀχὼ, etc., which speedily passes into the anapæst, as imitated by my Trochees. Milton was so steeped in Greek, that I think he must have had this passage in his mind when he wrote the lines of Samson Agonistes, v. 110, beginning "_But who are these?_" Altogether, the Samson is, in its general tone and character, quite a sort of Jewish Prometheus. Note 13 (p. 187). "Daughters of prolific Tethys." The ancient sea-goddess, sister and wife of Oceanus, daughter of Heaven and Earth. The reader will observe that the mythology of this drama preserves a primeval or, according to our phrase, antediluvian character throughout. The mythic personages are true contemporaries belonging to the most ancient dynasty of the gods. For this reason Ocean appears in a future stage of the play, not _Poseidon_. Tethys, with the other Titans and Titanesses are enumerated by Hesiod, Theog. 132-7, as follows-- "Earth to Uranus wedded bore Ocean deep with whirling currents, Coeus, Creios, Hyperion, Theia, Rhea, Iapetus, Themis, Mnemosyne, lovely Tethys, likewise Phœbe golden-crowned, Then the youngest of them all, deep-designing Kronos." As for the epithet _prolific_ applied to _Tethys_, the fecundity of fish is a proverb in natural history; but I suppose it is rather the infinite succession of waves on the expanded surface of Ocean that makes his daughters so numerous in the Theogony (362)-- "Thrice ten hundred they are counted delicate-ancled Ocean maids." Note 14 (p. 187). ". . . the giant trace Of Titan times hath vanished."