[Footnote 1:
"Ah, deere ladye, said Robin Hood, thou
That art both Mother and May,
I think it was never man's destinye
To die before his day."
'Ballad of Robin Hood'
[Footnote 2: The following is the passage to which Byron alludes:
"Greece, the mother of freedom and of poetry in the West, which had
long employed only the antiquary, the artist, and the philologist, was
at length destined, after an interval of many silent and inglorious
ages, to awaken the genius of a poet. Full of enthusiasm for those
perfect forms of heroism and liberty which his imagination had placed
in the recesses of antiquity, he gave vent to his impatience of the
imperfections of living men and real institutions, in an original
strain of sublime satire, which clothes moral anger in imagery of an
almost horrible grandeur; and which, though it cannot coincide with
the estimate of reason, yet could only flow from that worship of
perfection which is the soul of all true poetry."
'Edin. Rev'., vol. xxii. p. 37.]
[Footnote 3:
"In the last 'Edinburgh Review' you will find two articles of mine,
one on Rogers, and the other on Madame de Stael: they are both,
especially the first, thought too panegyrical. I like the praises
which I have bestowed on Lord Byron and Thomas Moore. I am convinced
of the justness of the praises given to Madame de Stael."
'Mackintosh's Life', vol. ii. p. 271.]
[Footnote 4:
"I have that within which passeth show.
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