Footnote 232:  In the first essay, “The South Sea House,” Lamb assumed as a joke the name of a former clerk, Elia.  Other essays followed, and the name was retained when several successful essays were published in book form, in 1823.  In these essays “Elia” is Lamb himself, and “Cousin Bridget” is his sister Mary.

Footnote 233:  See histories for the Congress of Vienna (1814) and the Holy Alliance (1815).

Footnote 234:  For full titles and publishers of general reference books, see General Bibliography at end of this book.

Footnote 235:  An excellent little volume for the beginner is Van Dyke’s “Poems by Tennyson,” which shows the entire range of the poet’s work from his earliest to his latest years. (See Selections for Reading, at the end of this chapter.)

Footnote 236:  Tennyson made a distinction in spelling between the Idylls of the King, and the English Idyls, like “Dora.”

Footnote 237:  An excellent little book for the beginner is Lovett’s Selections from Browning. (See Selections for Reading, at the end of this chapter.)

Footnote 238:  This term, which means simply Italian painters before Raphael, is generally applied to an artistic movement in the middle of the nineteenth century.  The term was first used by a brotherhood of German artists who worked together in the convent of San Isodoro, in Rome, with the idea of restoring art to its mediaeval purity and simplicity.  The term now generally refers to a company of seven young men,—­Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his brother William, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, James Collinson, Frederick George Stevens, and Thomas Woolner,—­ who formed the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood in England in 1848.  Their official literary organ was called The Germ, in which much of the early work of Morris and Rossetti appeared.  They took for their models the early Italian painters who, they declared, were “simple, sincere, and religious.”  Their purpose was to encourage simplicity and naturalness in art and literature; and one of their chief objects, in the face of doubt and materialism, was to express the “wonder, reverence, and awe” which characterizes mediaeval art.  In its return to the mysticism and symbolism of the mediaeval age, this Pre-Raphaelitism suggests the contemporary Oxford or Tractarian movement in religion. (See footnote, p. 554).

Footnote 239:  Arnold was one of the best known poets of the age, but because he has exerted a deeper influence on our literature as a critic, we have reserved him for special study among the essayists. (See p. xxx)

Footnote 240:  It should be pointed out that the English Humorists is somewhat too highly colored to be strictly accurate.  In certain cases also, notably that of Steele, the reader may well object to Thackeray’s patronizing attitude toward his subject.

Footnote 241:  See pp. 260-261.