[254] Tasso, I, 2, 304-05.

[255] Menander.  The most famous Greek poet of the New Comedy (342-291 B.C.).

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[256] Gemeinheit.  Arnold defines the word five lines below.

[257] See The Function of Criticism, Selections, Note 2, p. 42. [Transcriber’s note:  This is Footnote 42 in this e-text.]

[258] Bossuet.  See The Function of Criticism, Selections, Note 2, p. 49.[Transcriber’s note:  This is Footnote 60 in this e-text.]

[259] Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751), English statesman and man of letters, was author of the Idea of a Patriot King.  Arnold is inclined to overestimate the quality of his style.

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[260] Taliessin and Llywarch Hen are the names of Welsh bards, supposedly of the late sixth century, whose poems are contained in the Red Book of Hergest, a manuscript formerly preserved in Jesus College, Oxford, and now in the Bodleian.  Nothing further is known of them. Ossian, Ossin, or Oisin, was a legendary Irish third century hero and poet, the son of Finn.  In Scotland the Ossianic revival was due to James Macpherson.  See Note 1, p. 181.[Transcriber’s note:  This is Footnote 262 in this e-text.]

[261] From the Black Book of Caermarthen, 19.

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[262] James Macpherson (1736-96) published anonymously in 1760 his Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland and translated from the Gaelic or Erse language.  This was followed by an epic Fingal and other poems.  Their authenticity was early doubted and a controversy followed.  They are now generally believed to be forgeries.  The passage quoted, as well as references to Selma, “woody Morven,” and “echoing Lora” (not Sora), is from Carthon:  a Poem.

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[263] Werther.  Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774) was a product of the Sturm und Drang movement in German literature, and responsible for its sentimental excesses.  Goethe mentions Ossian in connection with Homer in Werther, book II, “am 12.  October,” and translates several passages of considerable length toward the close of this book.

[264] Prometheus.  An unfinished drama of Goethe’s, of which a fine fragment remains.

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[265] For Llywarch Hen, see Note 1, p. 180.[Transcriber’s note:  This is Footnote 260 in this e-text.] The present quotation is from book II of the Red Book.  A translation of the poem differing somewhat from the one quoted by Arnold is contained in W.F.  Skene’s The Four Ancient Books of Wales, Edinburgh, 1868.