Note 18 — Early Poems (continued 2)
Reading edition
Inserted in 1842 thus:— Or hollowing one hand against his ear, To listen for a footfall, ere he saw The wood-nymph, stay’d the Tuscan king to hear Of wisdom and of law. List a footfall, 1843. Ausonian for Tuscan, 1850. The reference is to Egeria and Numa Pompilius. Cf. Juvenal, iii., 11-18:— Hic ubi nocturnæ Numa constituebat amicæ ... In vallem Ægeriæ descendimus et speluneas Dissimiles veris. and the beautiful passage in Byron’s Childe Harold, iv., st. cxv.-cxix.