1. _Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity._ Cf. ll. 8-9, 51-52, as illustrative of the religious professionalism of the Bishop's talk. He drops into the ecclesiastical conception of life and death, and into the phraseology of his order.
21. _Epistle-side._ The right-hand side facing the altar, where the epistle is read by the priest acting as celebrant, the gospel being read from the other side by the priest acting as assistant.
29. _Peach-blossom marble._ This rosy marble delights the Bishop as much as the pale cheap onion-stone offends him. The lapis-lazuli, a rich blue stone (l. 42), the antique-black (Nero-antico), a rare black marble (l. 34), the beautiful green jasper (l. 68), the elaborate carving planned for the bronze frieze (l. 56-62, 106-111), show not only that the Bishop covets what is costly, but that his highly cultivated taste knows real beauty.
34. _That conflagration._ The eagerness of the Bishop for the lump of the lapis-lazuli has made him steal even from his own church.
41. _Olive-frail._ A basket made of rushes, used for packing olives.
57. _Those Pans and Nymphs._ The underlying paganism of the Bishop produces a strangely incongruous mixture on his tomb--the Savior, St. Praxed, Moses, Pan, and the Nymphs.
58. _Thyrsus._ The ivy-coiled staff or spear stuck in a pine-cone, symbol of the Bacchic orgy.
68. _Travertine._ A white limestone, the name being a corruption of Tiburninus, from Tibur, now Tivoli, near Rome, whence this stone comes.
77. _Choice Latin._ The Bishop's scholarship was as good as his taste in marbles. The _Elucescebat_ ("he was illustrious") of l. 99 Browning called "dog-latin" and he called "Ulpian, the golden jurist, a copper latinist." (See letter to D. G. Rossetti. Quoted by A. J. George, _Select Poems of Browning_, p. 366.) Tully's Latin was Cicero's (Marcus Tullius Cicero), the purest classic style. The Grammarian in "The Grammarian's Funeral" was equally intense on a point of elegance or correctness in the ancient languages.
80-84. The Bishop rejoices in all that has to do with the forms and ceremonies of the church. Note in ll. 119-121 his insistence on form and order.
91. _Strange thoughts._ From this point on the Bishop's mind seems to wander.