Note 285 — INDEX TO THE NOTES.
Reading edition
forestalling, anticipating. ‘Forestall,’ originally a marketing term, is to buy up goods before they have been displayed at a stall in the market in order to sell them again at a higher price: hence ‘to anticipate.’ prevented. ‘Prevent,’ now used in the sense of ‘hinder,’ seems in this line to have something of its older meaning, viz., to anticipate (in which case ‘forestalling’ would be proleptic). Comp. l. 362; Par. Lost, vi. 129, “half-way he met His daring foe, at this prevention more Incensed.”