it is desired. He knows, better than most purveyors of knowledge, what it is that readers want; he is not prone to waste his precious minutes; he has a saving sense of humor; and he does not aspire to be a lettered philanthropist fretting to enlighten mankind. If, then, he finds it necessary to elucidate that happy trifle, On the Death of a Favorite Cat, with no less than seven notes, which is at the rate of one for every verse, it must be that he is filling an expressed demand; it must be that he is aware that modern students of Gray—every one who reads a poet is a "student" nowadays—like to be told by an editor about Tyrian purple, and about Arion's dolphin, and about the difference between a tortoise-shell and a tabby. As for the seven pages of notes that accompany the Elegy, they carry me back in spirit to the friend of my childhood, Miss Edgeworth's Rosamond, who was expected to understand every word of every poem she studied. What a blessing Mr. Gosse's notes would have been to that poor, dear, misguided little girl, who rashly committed the Elegy to memory because, in hon-
