line 72.  Gadite wave.  The epithet is derived from Gades, the Roman name of the modern Cadiz.

line 73.  Levin = lightning.  See Canto I, line 400.  Spenser uses the phrase ‘piercing levin’ in the July eclogue of the ’Shepheards Calendar,’ and in ‘Faery Queene,’ iii. v. 48.  The word still occasionally occurs in poetry.  Cp.  Longfellow, ‘Golden Legend,’ v., near end:—­

     ’See! from its summit the lurid levin
      Flashes downward without warning! ’

line 76. fated = charged with determination of fate.  Cp.  All’s Well that Ends Well, i.  I. 221—­

                ’The fated sky
      Gives us free scope.’

line 82.  Hafnia, is Copenhagen.  The three victories are, the battle of the Nile, 1798; the battle of the Baltic, 1801; and Trafalgar, 1805.

lines 84-86.  Pitt (1759-1806) became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1783, and from 1785 onwards the facts of his career are a constituent part of national history.  He faced with success difficulties like bread riots, mutinies in the fleet in 1797, disturbances by the ‘United Irishmen,’ and the alarming threats of Napoleon.  In 1800 the Union of Ireland with Great Britain gave Irishmen new motives for living, and in 1803 national patriotism, stirred and guided by Pitt, was manifested in the enrolment of over three hundred thousand volunteers prepared to withstand the vaunted ‘Army of England.’  In spite of his distinguished position and eminent services, Pitt died L40,000 in debt, and his responsibilities were promptly met by a vote of the House of Commons.

lines 97-108.  These picturesque lines, with their varied and suggestive metaphors, were interpolated on the blank page of the Ms. The reference in the expression ‘tottering throne’ in line 104 is to the threatened insanity of George iii.

lines 109-125.  Pitt’s patriotism was consistent and thorough.  The anxious, troubled expression his face, betrayed in his latest appearances in the House of Commons, Wilberforce spoke of as ’his Austerlitz look,’ and there seems little doubt that the burden of his public cares hastened his end.  This gives point to the comparison of his fate with that of Aeneas’s pilot Palinurus (Aeneid v. 833).

lines 127-141.  Charles James Fox (1749-1806) was second son of the first Lord Holland, whose indulgence tended to spoil a youth of unusual ability and precocity.  Extravagant habits, contracted at an early age, were not easily thrown off afterwards, but they did not interfere with Fox’s efficiency as a statesman.  His rivalry with Pitt dates from 1783.  Their tombs are near each other in Westminster Abbey.

line 146.  Cp. in Gray’s ’Elegy’:—­

     ’Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
      The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.’

line 153.  Jeffrey, in his criticism of ‘Marmion’ in the ’Edinburgh Review,’ found fault with the tribute to Fox, and cavilled in particular at the expression ‘Fox a Briton died.’  He argued that Scott praised only the action of Fox in breaking off the negotiations for peace with Napoleon, while insinuating that the previous part of his career was unpatriotic.  Only a special pleader could put such an unworthy interpretation on the words.