Paul
Revere:" Colburn, F., The Battle of April 19, 1775.

THE SICILIAN'S TALE

This story of King Robert of Sicily is very old, as it is found among the
short stories of the Gesta Romanorum written in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries.

17. seditious: tending towards disorder and treason.

52. besprent: poetic for besprinkled.

66. seneschal: the official in the household of a prince of high noble
who had the supervision of feasts and ceremonies.

106. Saturnian: the fabled reign of the god Saturn was the golden age of
the world, characterized by simplicity, virtue, and happiness.

110. Enceladus, the giant. Longfellow's poem "Enceladus" emphasizes
this reference. For the story of the giants and the punishment of
Enceladus see any good Greek mythology.

THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE

9. dial: the sun-dial was the clock of the time.

41. iteration: repetition.

49. dole: portion.

bl. almoner: official dispenser of alms.

100. See Matthew 25: 40.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892)

"Best loved and saintliest of our singing train,
Earth's noblest tributes to thy name belong.
A lifelong record closed without a stain,
A blameless memory shrived in deathless song."

--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Born at East Haverhill, Mass., in surroundings which he faithfully
describes in "Snow-Bound," he had little education. At the age of
twenty-two he secured an editorial position in Boston and continued to
write all his life. For some years he devoted all his literary ability
to the cause of abolition, and not until the success of "Snow-Bound" in
1866 was he free from poverty.

The poems by Whittier are used by permission of, and by special
arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of his
works.

PROEM

Proem: preface or introduction.

3. Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599). His best-known work is the "Faerie
Queen."

4. Arcadian Sidney: Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586); an English courtier,
soldier, and author. He stands as a model of chivalry. He was mortally
wounded at the battle of Zutphen. "Arcadia" was his greatest work; hence
the epithet here.

23. plummet-line: a weight suspended by a line used to test the
verticality of walls, etc. Here used as if in a sounding process.

30. Compare this opinion of his own work with Lowell's comments in "A
Fable for Critics." How do they agree?

3