SELECT POEMS OF THOMAS GRAY. 

EDITED, WITH NOTES, BYWILLIAM J. ROLFE, A. M. , FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

_WITH ENGRAVINGS_. 

_NEW YORK_:HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1883. 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, byHARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

PREFACE. 

Many editions of Gray have been published in the last fifty years, some of them very elegant, and some showing considerable editoriallabor, but not one, so far as I am aware, critically exact either intext or in notes. No editor since Mathias (A. D. 1814) has given the2d line of the _Elegy_ as Gray wrote and printed it; while Mathias'smispunctuation of the 123d line has been copied by his successors, almost without exception. Other variations from the early editionsare mentioned in the notes. 

It is a curious fact that the most accurate edition of Gray'scollected poems is the _editio princeps_ of 1768, printed under hisown supervision. The first edition of the two Pindaric odes, _TheProgress of Poesy_ and _The Bard_ (Strawberry-Hill, 1757), wasprinted with equal care, and the proofs were probably read by thepoet. The text of the present edition has been collated, line byline, with that of these early editions, and in no instance have Iadopted a later reading. All the MS. Variations, and the variousreadings I have noted in the modern editions, are given in the notes. 

Pickering's edition of 1835, edited by Mitford, has been followedblindly in nearly all the more recent editions, and its many errors(see pp. 84 and 105, foot-notes) have been faithfully reproduced. Even its blunders in the "indenting" of the lines in thecorresponding stanzas of the two Pindaric odes, which any carefulproof-reader ought to have corrected, have been copied again andagain--as in the Boston (1853) reprint of Pickering, the prettylittle edition of Bickers & Son (London, n. D. ), the fac-simile ofthe latter printed at our University Press, Cambridge (1866), etc. 

Of former editions of Gray, the only one very fully annotated isMitford's (Pickering, 1835), already mentioned. I have drawn freelyfrom that, correcting many errors, and also from Wakefield's andMason's editions, and from Hales's notes (_Longer English Poems_, London, 1872) on the _Elegy_ and the Pindaric odes. To all thismaterial many original notes and illustrations have been added. 

The facts concerning the first publication of the _Elegy_ are notgiven correctly by any of the editors, and even the "experts" of_Notes and Queries_ have not been able to disentangle the snarl ofconflicting evidence. I am not sure that I have settled the questionmyself (see p. 74 and foot-note), but I have at least shown that Grayis a more credible witness in the case than any of his critics. Theirtestimony is obviously inconsistent and inconclusive; he may haveconfounded the names of two magazines, but that remains to beproved. [1]

[Footnote 1: Since writing the above to-day, I have found by themerest chance in my own library another bit of evidence in the case, which fully confirms my surmise that the _Elegy_ was printed in _TheMagazine of Magazines_ before it appeared in the _Grand Magazine ofMagazines_. _Chambers's Book of Days_ (vol. Ii. P. 146), in anarticle on "Gray and his Elegy, " says:

"It first saw the light in _The Magazine of Magazines_, February, 1751. Some imaginary literary wag is made to rise in a convivialassembly, and thus announce it: 'Gentlemen, give me leave to soothemy own melancholy, and amuse you in a most noble manner, with a fullcopy of verses by the very ingenious Mr. Gray, of Peterhouse, Cambridge. They are stanzas written in a country churchyard. ' Thenfollow the verses. A few days afterwards, Dodsley's editionappeared, " etc. 

The same authority gives the four stanzas omitted after the 18th (seep. 79) as they appear in the _North American Review_, except that thefirst line of the third is "Hark how the sacred calm that _reigns_around, " a reading which I have found nowhere else. The stanza "Therescattered oft, " etc. (p. 81), is given as in the review. The readingon p. 82 must be a later one. ]

I have retained most of the "parallel passages" from the poets givenby the editors, and have added others, without regard to the criticswho have sneered at this kind of annotations. Whether Gray borrowedfrom the others, or the others from him, matters little; very likely, in most instances, neither party was consciously the borrower. Gray, in his own notes, has acknowledged certain debts to other poets, andprobably these were all that he was aware of. Some of these hecontracted unwittingly (see what he says of one of them in a letterto Walpole, quoted in the note on the _Ode on the Spring_, 31), andthe same may have been true of some apparently similar cases pointedout by modern editors. To me, however, the chief interest of thesecoincidences and resemblances of thought or expression is as studiesin the "comparative anatomy" of poetry. The teacher will find themuseful as pegs to hang questions upon, or texts for oral instruction. The pupil, or the young reader, who finds out who all these poetswere, when they lived, what they wrote, etc. , will have learned nosmall amount of English literary history. If he studies thequotations merely as illustrations of style and expression, or asexamples of the poetic diction of various periods, he will havelearned some lessons in the history and the use of his mother-tongue. 

The wood-cuts on pp. 9, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 34, 36, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 50, and 61 are from Birket Foster's designs; those on pp. 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, and 38 are from the graceful drawings of "E. V. B. " (theHon. Mrs. Boyle); the rest are from various sources. 

 _Cambridge_, Feb. 29, 1876. 

CONTENTS. 

 PAGETHE LIFE OF THOMAS GRAY, BY ROBERT CARRUTHERS . . . . 9

STOKE-POGIS, BY WILLIAM HOWITT . . . . . . . . . . . 16

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD . . . . . . . . 23

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

 ON THE SPRING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

 ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT . . . . . . . . . . 48

 ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE . . . . . . . 50

 THE PROGRESS OF POESY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

 THE BARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

 HYMN TO ADVERSITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

 APPENDIX TO NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

[Illustration: STOKE-POGIS CHURCH. ]

THE LIFE OF THOMAS GRAY. 

BY ROBERT CARRUTHERS. 

Thomas Gray, the author of the celebrated _Elegy written in a CountryChurchyard_, was born in Cornhill, London, December 26, 1716. Hisfather, Philip Gray, an exchange broker and scrivener, was a wealthyand nominally respectable citizen, but he treated his family withbrutal severity and neglect, and the poet was altogether indebted forthe advantages of a learned education to the affectionate care andindustry of his mother, whose maiden name was Antrobus, and who, inconjunction with a maiden sister, kept a millinery shop. A brother ofMrs. Gray was assistant to the Master of Eton, and was also a fellowof Pembroke College, Cambridge. Under his protection the poet waseducated at Eton, and from thence went to Peterhouse, attendingcollege from 1734 to September, 1738. At Eton he had ascontemporaries Richard West, son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and Horace Walpole, son of the triumphant Whig minister, Sir RobertWalpole. West died early in his 26th year, but his genius and virtuesand his sorrows will forever live in the correspondence of hisfriend. In the spring of 1739, Gray was invited by Horace Walpole toaccompany him as travelling companion in a tour through France andItaly. They made the usual route, and Gray wrote remarks on all hesaw in Florence, Rome, Naples, etc. His observations on arts andantiquities, and his sketches of foreign manners, evince hisadmirable taste, learning, and discrimination. Since Milton, no suchaccomplished English traveller had visited those classic shores. Intheir journey through Dauphiny, Gray's attention was stronglyarrested by the wild and picturesque site of the Grande Chartreuse, surrounded by its dense forest of beech and fir, its enormousprecipices, cliffs, and cascades. He visited it a second time on hisreturn, and in the album of the mountain convent he wrote his famousAlcaic Ode. At Reggio the travellers quarrelled and parted. Walpoletook the whole blame on himself. He was fond of pleasure andamusements, "intoxicated by vanity, indulgence, and the insolence ofhis situation as a prime minister's son"--his own confession--whileGray was studious, of a serious disposition, and independent spirit. The immediate cause of the rupture is said to have been Walpole'sclandestinely opening, reading, and resealing a letter addressed toGray, in which he expected to find a confirmation of his suspicionsthat Gray had been writing unfavourably of him to some friends inEngland. A partial reconciliation was effected about three yearsafterwards by the intervention of a lady, and Walpole redeemed hisyouthful error by a life-long sincere admiration and respect for hisfriend. From Reggio Gray proceeded to Venice, and thence travelledhomewards, attended by a _laquais de voyage_. He arrived in Englandin September, 1741, having been absent about two years and a half. His father died in November, and it was found that the poet's fortunewould not enable him to prosecute the study of the law. He thereforeretired to Cambridge, and fixed his residence at the university. There he continued for the remainder of his life, with the exceptionof about two years spent in London, when the treasures of the BritishMuseum were thrown open. At Cambridge he had the range of noblelibraries. His happiness consisted in study, and he perused withcritical attention the Greek and Roman poets, philosophers, historians, and orators. Plato and the Anthologia he read andannotated with great care, as if for publication. He compiled tablesof Greek chronology, added notes to Linnæus and other naturalists, wrote geographical disquisitions on Strabo; and, besides beingfamiliar with French and Italian literature, was a zealousarchæological student, and profoundly versed in architecture, botany, painting, and music. In all departments of human learning, exceptmathematics, he was a master. But it follows that one so studious, socritical, and so fastidious, could not be a voluminous writer. A fewpoems include all the original compositions of Gray--thequintessence, as it were, of thirty years of ceaseless study andcontemplation, irradiated by bright and fitful gleams of inspiration. In 1742 Gray composed his _Ode to Spring_, his _Ode on a DistantProspect of Eton College_, and his _Ode to Adversity_--productionswhich most readers of poetry can repeat from memory. He commenced adidactic poem, _On the Alliance of Education and Government_, butwrote only about a hundred lines. Every reader must regret that thisphilosophical poem is but a fragment. It is in the style and measureof Dryden, of whom Gray was an ardent admirer and close student. His_Elegy written in a Country Churchyard_ was completed and publishedin 1751. In the form of a sixpenny _brochure_ it circulated rapidly, four editions being exhausted the first year. This popularitysurprised the poet. He said sarcastically that it was owing entirelyto the subject, and that the public would have received it as well ifit had been written in prose. The solemn and affecting nature of thepoem, applicable to all ranks and classes, no doubt aided its sale;it required high poetic sensibility and a cultivated taste toappreciate the rapid transitions, the figurative language, andlyrical magnificence of the odes; but the elegy went home to allhearts; while its musical harmony, originality, and pathetic train ofsentiment and feeling render it one of the most perfect of Englishpoems. No vicissitudes of taste or fashion have affected itspopularity. When the original manuscript of the poem was lately(1854) offered for sale, it brought the almost incredible sum of 131pounds. The two great odes of Gray, _The Progress of Poetry_ and _TheBard_, were published in 1757, and were but coldly received. Hisname, however, stood high, and on the death of Cibber, the same year, he was offered the laureateship, which he wisely declined. He wasambitious, however, of obtaining the more congenial and dignifiedappointment of Professor of Modern History in the University ofCambridge, which fell vacant in 1762, and, by the advice of hisfriends, he made application to Lord Bute, but was unsuccessful. LordBute had designed it for the tutor of his son-in-law, Sir JamesLowther. No one had heard of the tutor, but the Bute influence wasall-prevailing. In 1765 Gray took a journey into Scotland, penetrating as far north as Dunkeld and the Pass of Killiecrankie;and his account of his tour, in letters to his friends, is repletewith interest and with touches of his peculiar humour and graphicdescription. One other poem proceeded from his pen. In 1768 theProfessorship of Modern History was again vacant, and the Duke ofGrafton bestowed it upon Gray. A sum of 400 pounds per annum was thusadded to his income; but his health was precarious--he had lost it, he said, just when he began to be easy in his circumstances. Thenomination of the Duke of Grafton to the office of Chancellor of theUniversity enabled Gray to acknowledge the favour conferred onhimself. He thought it better that gratitude should sing thanexpectation, and he honoured his grace's installation with an ode. Such occasional productions are seldom happy; but Gray preserved hispoetic dignity and select beauty of expression. He made the foundersof Cambridge, as Mr. Hallam has remarked, "pass before our eyes likeshadows over a magic glass. " When the ceremony of the installationwas over, the poet-professor went on a tour to the lakes ofCumberland and Westmoreland, and few of the beauties of thelake-country, since so famous, escaped his observation. This was tobe his last excursion. While at dinner one day in the college-hall hewas seized with an attack of gout in his stomach, which resisted allthe powers of medicine, and proved fatal in less than a week. He diedon the 30th of July, 1771, and was buried, according to his owndesire, beside the remains of his mother at Stoke-Pogis, near Slough, in Buckinghamshire, in a beautiful sequestered village churchyardthat is supposed to have furnished the scene of his elegy. [1] Theliterary habits and personal peculiarities of Gray are familiar to usfrom the numerous representations and allusions of his friends. It iseasy to fancy the recluse-poet sitting in his college-chambers in theold quadrangle of Pembroke Hall. His windows are ornamented withmignonette and choice flowers in China vases, but outside may bediscerned some iron-work intended to be serviceable as a fire-escape, for he has a horror of fire. His furniture is neat and select; hisbooks, rather for use than show, are disposed around him. He has aharpsichord in the room. In the corner of one of the apartments is atrunk containing his deceased mother's dresses, carefully folded upand preserved. His fastidiousness, bordering upon effeminacy, isvisible in his gait and manner--in his handsome features and small, well-dressed person, especially when he walks abroad and sinks theauthor and hard student in "the gentleman who sometimes writes forhis amusement. " He writes always with a crow-quill, speaks slowly andsententiously, and shuns the crew of dissonant college revellers, whocall him "a prig, " and seek to annoy him. Long mornings of study, andnights feverish from ill-health, are spent in those chambers; he isoften listless and in low spirits; yet his natural temper is notdesponding, and he delights in employment. He has always something tolearn or to communicate--some sally of humour or quiet stroke ofsatire for his friends and correspondents--some note on naturalhistory to enter in his journal--some passage of Plato to unfold andillustrate--some golden thought of classic inspiration to inlay onhis page--some bold image to tone down--some verse to retouch andharmonize. His life is on the whole innocent and happy, and a feelingof thankfulness to the Great Giver is breathed over all. 

[Footnote 1: A claim has been put up for the churchyard ofGranchester, about two miles from Cambridge, the great bell of St. Mary's serving for the "curfew. " But Stoke-Pogis is more likely tohave been the spot, if any individual locality were indicated. Thepoet often visited the village, his aunt and mother residing there, and his aunt was interred in the churchyard of the place. Gray'sepitaph on his mother is characterized not only by the tendernesswith which he always regarded her memory, but by his style and castof thought. It runs thus: "Beside her friend and sister here sleepthe remains of Dorothy Gray, widow, the careful, tender mother ofmany children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her. She died March 11, 1753, aged 72. " She had lived to read the _Elegy_, which was perhaps an ample recompense for her maternal cares andaffection. Mrs. Gray's will commences in a similar touching strain:"In the name of God, amen. This is the last will and desire ofDorothy Gray to her son Thomas Gray. " [Cunningham's edit. Of_Johnson's Lives_. ] They were all in all to each other. The father'scruelty and neglect, their straitened circumstances, the sacrificesmade by the mother to maintain her son at the university, her pridein the talents and conduct of that son, and the increasing gratitudeand affection of the latter, nursed in his scholastic and cloisteredsolitude--these form an affecting but noble record in the history ofgenius. 

[One would infer from the above that Mrs. Gray was _not_ "interred inthe churchyard of the place, " though the epitaph given immediatelyafter shows that she _was_. Gray in his will directed that he shouldbe laid beside her there. The passage in the will reads thus: "First, I do desire that my body may be deposited in the vault, made by mydear mother in the churchyard of Stoke-Pogeis, near Slough inBuckinghamshire, by her remains, in a coffin of seasoned oak, neitherlined nor covered, and (unless it be inconvenient) I could wish thatone of my executors may see me laid in the grave, and distributeamong such honest and industrious poor persons in said parish as hethinks fit, the sum of ten pounds in charity. "--_Ed_. ]]

Various editions of the collected works of Gray have been published. The first, including memoirs of his life and his correspondence, edited by his friend, the Rev. W. Mason, appeared in 1775. It hasbeen often reprinted, and forms the groundwork of the editions byMathias (1814) and Mitford (1816). Mr. Mitford, in 1843, publishedGray's correspondence with the Rev. Norton Nicholls; and in 1854another collection of Gray's letters was published, edited also byMr. Mitford. Every scrap of the poet's MSS. Is eagerly sought after, and every year seems to add to his popularity as a poet andletter-writer. 

 * * * * * *

In 1778 a monument to Gray was erected in Westminster Abbey by Mason, with the following inscription:

 No more the Grecian muse unrivall'd reigns, To Britain let the nations homage pay; She felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains, A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray. 

The cenotaph afterwards erected in Stoke Park by Mr. Penn isdescribed below. 

[Illustration: WEST-END HOUSE. ]

STOKE-POGIS. 

FROM HOWITT'S "HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE BRITISH POETS. "[1]

[Footnote 1: Harper's edition, vol. I. P. 314 foll. ]

It is at Stoke-Pogis that we seek the most attractive vestiges ofGray. Here he used to spend his vacations, not only when a youth atEton, but during the whole of his future life, while his mother andhis aunts lived. Here it was that his _Ode on a Distant Prospect ofEton College_, his celebrated _Elegy written in a CountryChurchyard_, and his _Long Story_ were not only written, but weremingled with the circumstances and all the tenderest feelings of hisown life. 

His mother and aunts lived at an old-fashioned house in a veryretired spot at Stoke, called West-End. This house stood in a hollow, much screened by trees. A small stream ran through the garden, and itis said that Gray used to employ himself when here much in thisgarden, and that many of the trees still remaining are of hisplanting. On one side of the house extended an upland field, whichwas planted round so as to give a charming retired walk; and at thesummit of the field was raised an artificial mound, and upon it wasbuilt a sort of arcade or summer-house, which gave full prospect ofWindsor and Eton. Here Gray used to delight to sit; here he wasaccustomed to read and write much; and it is just the place toinspire the _Ode on Eton College_, which lay in the midst of its finelandscape, beautifully in view. The old house inhabited by Gray andhis mother has just been pulled down, and replaced by an Elizabethanmansion by the present proprietor, Mr. Penn, of Stoke Park, justby. [2] The garden, of course, has shared in the change, and nowstands gay with its fountain and its modern greenhouse, and, excepting for some fine trees, no longer reminds you of Gray. Thewoodland walk still remains round the adjoining field, and thesummer-house on its summit, though now much cracked by time, and onlyheld together by iron cramps. The trees are now so lofty that theycompletely obstruct the view, and shut out both Eton and Windsor. 

[Footnote 2: This was written (or published, at least) in 1846; butMitford, in the Life of Gray prefixed to the "Eton edition" of hisPoems, published in 1847, says: "The house, which is now called_West-End_, lies in a secluded part of the parish, on the road toFulmer. It has lately been much enlarged and adorned by its presentproprietor [Mr. Penn], but the room called 'Gray's' (distinguished bya small balcony) is still preserved; and a shady walk round anadjoining meadow, with a summer-house on the rising land, are stillremembered as favourite places frequented by the poet. "--_Ed_. ]

 * * * * * *

Stoke Park is about a couple of miles from Slough. The country isflat, but its monotony is broken up by the noble character anddisposition of its woods. Near the house is a fine expanse of water, across which the eye falls on fine views, particularly to the south, of Windsor Castle, Cooper's Hill, and the Forest Woods. About threehundred yards from the north front of the house stands a column, sixty-eight feet high, bearing on the top a colossal statue of SirEdward Coke, by Rosa. The woods of the park shut out the view ofWest-End House, Gray's occasional residence, but the space is openfrom the mansion across the park, so as to take in the view both ofthe church and of a monument erected by the late Mr. Penn to Gray. Alighting from the carriage at a lodge, we enter the park just at themonument. This is composed of fine freestone, and consists of a largesarcophagus, supported on a square pedestal, with inscriptions oneach side. Three of them are selected from the _Ode on Eton College_and the _Elegy_. They are:

 Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. 

 One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. 

The second is from the _Ode_:

 Ye distant spires! ye antique towers! That crown the watery glade, Where grateful Science still adores Her Henry's holy shade; And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way. 

 Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields belov'd in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow, A momentary bliss bestow. 

The third is again from the _Elegy_:

 Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

 The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

The fourth bears this inscription:

 This Monument, in honour of THOMAS GRAY, Was erected A. D. 1799, Among the scenery Celebrated by that great Lyric and Elegiac Poet. He died in 1771, And lies unnoted in the adjoining Church-yard, Under the Tomb-stone on which he piously And pathetically recorded the interment Of his Aunt and lamented Mother. 

This monument is in a neatly kept garden-like enclosure, with awinding walk approaching from the shade of the neighbouring trees. Tothe right, across the park, at some little distance, backed by finetrees, stands the rural little church and churchyard where Gray wrotehis _Elegy_, and where he lies. As you walk on to this, the mansioncloses the distant view between the woods with fine effect. Thechurch has often been engraved, and is therefore tolerably familiarto the general reader. It consists of two barn-like structures, withtall roofs, set side by side, and the tower and finely tapered spirerising above them at the northwest corner. The church is thickly hungwith ivy, where

 "The moping owl may to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient, solitary reign. "

The structure is as simple and old-fashioned, both without andwithin, as any village church can well be. No village, however, is tobe seen. Stoke consists chiefly of scattered houses, and this is nowin the midst of the park. In the churchyard, "Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. "

All this is quite literal; and the tomb of the poet himself, near thesoutheast window, completes the impression of the scene. It is aplain brick altar tomb, covered with a blue slate slab, and, besideshis own ashes, contains those of his mother and aunt. On the slab areinscribed the following lines by Gray himself: "In the vault beneathare deposited, in hope of a joyful resurrection, the remains of _MaryAntrobus_. She died unmarried, Nov. 5, 1749, aged sixty-six. In thesame pious confidence, beside her friend and sister, here sleep theremains of _Dorothy Gray_, widow; the careful, tender mother of manychildren, ONE of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her. Shedied, March 11, 1753, aged LXXII. "

No testimony of the interment of Gray in the same tomb was inscribedanywhere till Mr. Penn, in 1799, erected the monument alreadymentioned, and placed a small slab in the wall, under the window, opposite to the tomb itself, recording the fact of Gray's burialthere. The whole scene is well worthy of a summer day's stroll, especially for such as, pent in the metropolis, know how to enjoy thequiet freshness of the country and the associations of poetry and thepast. 

[Illustration: GRAY'S MONUMENT, STOKE PARK. ]

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 

[Illustration]

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 

 The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 5 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

[Illustration]

 Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain 10 Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. 

[Illustration]

 Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 15 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

[Illustration]

 The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 20

[Illustration]

 For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 

[Illustration]

 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 25 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

[Illustration]

 Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 30 Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. 

 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. 35 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

 Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise; Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 40

 Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust? Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 45 Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre:

 But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; 50 Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. 

[Illustration]

 Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 55 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

 Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 60

[Illustration]

 Th' applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone 65 Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 70 Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 

[Illustration]

 Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life 75 They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 

 Yet even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 80

[Illustration]

 Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die. 

[Illustration]

 For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 85 This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

 On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 90 Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. 

[Illustration]

 For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 95 Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, [Illustration]

 Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 100

[Illustration]

 "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 

 "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 105 Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. 

 "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree; 110 Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

 "The next, with dirges due in sad array, Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 115 Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn. "

[Illustration]

 THE EPITAPH. 

 Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown; Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. 120

 Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send; He gave to Misery all he had, a tear; He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. 

 No farther seek his merits to disclose, 125 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his Father and his God. 

[Illustration]

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

[Illustration]

ON THE SPRING. 

 Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours, Fair Venus' train, appear, Disclose the long-expecting flowers, And wake the purple year! The Attic warbler pours her throat, 5 Responsive to the cuckoo's note, The untaught harmony of spring; While, whispering pleasure as they fly, Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky Their gather'd fragrance fling. 10

 Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade, Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'ercanopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink 15 With me the Muse shall sit, and think (At ease reclin'd in rustic state) How vain the ardour of the crowd, How low, how little are the proud, How indigent the great! 20

 Still is the toiling hand of Care; The panting herds repose: Yet hark, how thro' the peopled air The busy murmur glows! The insect youth are on the wing, 25 Eager to taste the honied spring, And float amid the liquid noon: Some lightly o'er the current skim, Some show their gayly-gilded trim Quick-glancing to the sun. 30

 To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of Man; And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay 35 But flutter thro' life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest: Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest. 40

 Methinks I hear in accents low The sportive kind reply: Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, 45 No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, No painted plumage to display: On hasty wings thy youth is flown; Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone-- We frolic while 'tis May. 50

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT, _Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes_. 

 'Twas on a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclin'd, 5 Gaz'd on the lake below. 

 Her conscious tail her joy declar'd: The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, 10 Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purr'd applause. 

 Still had she gaz'd; but midst the tide Two angel forms were seen to glide, The Genii of the stream: 15 Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue Through richest purple to the view Betray'd a golden gleam. 

 The hapless nymph with wonder saw: A whisker first, and then a claw, 20 With many an ardent wish, She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize. What female heart can gold despise? What Cat's averse to fish?

 Presumptuous maid! with looks intent 25 Again she stretch'd, again she bent, Nor knew the gulf between. (Malignant Fate sat by, and smil'd. ) The slippery verge her feet beguil'd, She tumbled headlong in. 30

 Eight times emerging from the flood, She mew'd to every watery God, Some speedy aid to send. No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd: Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard. 35 A favourite has no friend!

 From hence, ye beauties, undeceiv'd, Know, one false step is ne'er retriev'd, And be with caution bold. Not all that tempts your wandering eyes 40 And heedless hearts is lawful prize, Nor all that glisters gold. 

[Illustration]

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. [Greek: Anthrôpos, hikanê prophasis eis to dustuchein. ]--MENANDER. 

 Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, That crown the watery glade, Where grateful Science still adores Her Henry's holy shade; And ye, that from the stately brow 5 Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way: 10

 Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields belov'd in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow 15 A momentary bliss bestow, As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring. 20

 Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race Disporting on thy margent green The paths of pleasure trace; Who foremost now delight to cleave 25 With pliant arm thy glassy wave? The captive linnet which enthrall? What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed, Or urge the flying ball? 30

 While some, on earnest business bent, Their murmuring labours ply 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty, Some bold adventurers disdain 35 The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy. 40

 Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed, Less pleasing when possest; The tear forgot as soon as shed, The sunshine of the breast: Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, 45 Wild wit, invention ever new, And lively cheer of vigour born; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly th' approach of morn. 50

 Alas! regardless of their doom, The little victims play; No sense have they of ills to come, No care beyond to-day: Yet see how all around 'em wait 55 The ministers of human fate, And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, show them where in ambush stand To seize their prey the murtherous band! Ah, tell them, they are men! 60

 These shall the fury Passions tear, The vultures of the mind, Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that skulks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth, 65 Or Jealousy with rankling tooth, That inly gnaws the secret heart; And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart. 70

 Ambition this shall tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, 75 And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye, That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow; And keen Remorse with blood defil'd, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe. 80

 Lo! in the vale of years beneath A grisly troop are seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen: This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 85 That every labouring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage: Lo! Poverty, to fill the band, That numbs the soul with icy hand, And slow-consuming Age. 90

 To each his sufferings: all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan; The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, 95 Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more;--where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise. 100

[Illustration: SEAL OF ETON COLLEGE. ]

[Illustration: APOLLO CITHAROEDUS. FROM THE VATICAN. ]

THE PROGRESS OF POESY. _A Pindaric Ode_. [Greek: Phônanta sunetoisin: es De to pan hermêneôn Chatizei. ]--PINDAR, _Ol_. II. 

I. 1. 

 Awake, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take: The laughing flowers that round them blow, 5 Drink life and fragrance as they flow. Now the rich stream of music winds along, Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong, Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign: Now rolling down the steep amain, 10 Headlong, impetuous, see it pour; The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. 

I. 2. 

 Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul, Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares 15 And frantic Passions hear thy soft control. On Thracia's hills the Lord of War Has curb'd the fury of his car, And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command. Perching on the sceptred hand 20 Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king With ruffled plumes and flagging wing: Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye. 

I. 3. 

 Thee the voice, the dance, obey, 25 Temper'd to thy warbled lay. O'er Idalia's velvet-green The rosy-crowned Loves are seen On Cytherea's day With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures, 30 Frisking light in frolic measures; Now pursuing, now retreating, Now in circling troops they meet: To brisk notes in cadence beating, Glance their many-twinkling feet. 35 Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare: Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay. With arms sublime, that float upon the air, In gliding state she wins her easy way: O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move 40 The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love. 

[Illustration: DELPHI AND MOUNT PARNASSUS. ]

II. 1. 

 Man's feeble race what ills await! Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! 45 The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Night and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, 50 He gives to range the dreary sky; Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war. 

II. 2. 

 In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, 55 The Muse has broke the twilight gloom To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. And oft, beneath the odorous shade Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, 60 In loose numbers wildly sweet, Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves. Her track, where'er the Goddess roves, Glory pursue, and generous Shame, Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame. 65

II. 3. 

 Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep, Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep, Fields, that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Mæander's amber waves In lingering labyrinths creep, 70 How do your tuneful echoes languish, Mute, but to the voice of anguish! Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breath'd around; Every shade and hallow'd fountain 75 Murmur'd deep a solemn sound: Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour, Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power, And coward Vice, that revels in her chains. 80 When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, They sought, O Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast. 

[Illustration: THE AVON AND STRATFORD CHURCH. ]

III. 1. 

 Far from the sun and summer gale, In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid, What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, 85 To him the mighty mother did unveil Her awful face: the dauntless child Stretch'd forth his little arms and smil'd. "This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year: 90 Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy! This can unlock the gates of joy; Of horror that, and thrilling fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. "

III. 2. 

 Nor second He, that rode sublime 95 Upon the seraph wings of Ecstasy, The secrets of th' abyss to spy. He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: The living throne, the sapphire blaze, Where angels tremble while they gaze, 100 He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, Clos'd his eyes in endless night. Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Two coursers of ethereal race, 105 With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace. 

III. 3. 

 Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er Scatters from her pictur'd urn Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. 110 But ah! 'tis heard no more---- Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit Wakes thee now? Tho' he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, That the Theban eagle bear, 115 Sailing with supreme dominion Thro' the azure deep of air, Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun: 120 Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the Good how far--but far above the Great. 

[Illustration]

THE BARD. _A Pindaric Ode_. 

I. 1. 

 "Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait; Tho' fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state. Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail, 5 Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!" Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, 10 As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side He wound with toilsome march his long array. Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechless trance: "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance. 

I. 2. 

 On a rock whose haughty brow 15 Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Rob'd in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood (Loose his beard, and hoary hair Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air), 20 And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire, Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. "Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave, Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave, 25 Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe; Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay. 

I. 3. 

 "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hush'd the stormy main; 30 Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed; Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head. On dreary Arvon's shore they lie, 35 Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale: Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail; The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by. Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, 40 Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart, Ye died amidst your dying country's cries-- No more I weep. They do not sleep. On yonder cliffs, a grisly band, I see them sit, they linger yet, 45 Avengers of their native land: With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line. 

II. 1. 

 "Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward's race. 50 Give ample room, and verge enough The characters of hell to trace. Mark the year, and mark the night, When Severn shall reëcho with affright The shrieks of death thro' Berkeley's roofs that ring, 55 Shrieks of an agonizing king! She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs, That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate, From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs The scourge of heaven. What terrors round him wait! 60 Amazement in his van, with Flight combin'd, And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind. 

II. 2. 

 "Mighty victor, mighty lord! Low on his funeral couch he lies! No pitying heart, no eye, afford 65 A tear to grace his obsequies. Is the sable warrior fled? Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead. The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born? Gone to salute the rising morn. 70 Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, 75 That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey. 

II. 3. 

 "Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare; Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Close by the regal chair 80 Fell Thirst and Famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. Heard ye the din of battle bray, Lance to lance, and horse to horse? Long years of havoc urge their destined course, 85 And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way. Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murther fed, Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame, And spare the meek usurper's holy head. 90 Above, below, the rose of snow, Twin'd with her blushing foe, we spread: The bristled boar in infant gore Wallows beneath the thorny shade. Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, 95 Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom. 

[Illustration: THE BLOODY TOWER. ]

III. 1. 

 "Edward, lo! to sudden fate (Weave we the woof. The thread is spun. ) Half of thy heart we consecrate. (The web is wove. The work is done. ) 100 Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn: In yon bright track, that fires the western skies, They melt, they vanish from my eyes. But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height 105 Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll? Visions of glory, spare my aching sight! Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail. All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue, hail! 110

III. 2. 

 "Girt with many a baron bold Sublime their starry fronts they rear; And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old In bearded majesty, appear. In the midst a form divine! 115 Her eye proclaims her of the Briton line; Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face, Attemper'd sweet to virgin-grace. What strings symphonious tremble in the air, What strains of vocal transport round her play! 120 Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear; They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings, Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colour'd wings. 

III. 3. 

 "The verse adorn again 125 Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest. In buskin'd measures move Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. 130 A voice, as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, 135 Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me; with joy I see The different doom our fates assign. 140 Be thine despair, and sceptred care; To triumph, and to die, are mine. " He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endless night. 

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH. ]

[Illustration]

HYMN TO ADVERSITY. 

 [Greek: Zêna---- Ton phronein brotous hodô- santa, tôi pathei mathan Thenta kuriôs echein. ] ÆSCHYLUS, _Agam_. 

 Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad affright, afflict the best! Bound in thy adamantine chain, 5 The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. 

 When first thy sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, design'd, 10 To thee he gave the heavenly birth, And bade to form her infant mind. Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore: What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, 15 And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe. 

 Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. 20 Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe; By vain Prosperity receiv'd, To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd. 

 Wisdom in sable garb array'd, 25 Immersed in rapturous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend; Warm Charity, the general friend, 30 With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. 

 Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, 35 Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thundering voice and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: 40

 Thy form benign, O goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart; Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound, my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, 45 Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. 

[Illustration: BERKELEY CASTLE. 

 "Mark the year, and mark the night, When Severn shall reëcho with affright The shrieks of death thro' Berkeley's roofs that ring, Shrieks of an agonizing king!" _The Bard_, 53. ]

NOTES. 

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. 

A. S. , Anglo-Saxon. 

Arc. , Milton's _Arcades_. 

C. T. , Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_. 

Cf. (_confer_), compare. 

D. V. , Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_. 

Ep. , Epistle, Epode. 

Foll. , following. 

F. Q. , Spenser's _Faërie Queene_. 

H. , Haven's _Rhetoric_ (Harper's edition). 

Hales, _Longer English Poems_, edited by Rev. J. W. Hales (London, 1872). 

Il Pens. , Milton's _Il Penseroso_. 

L'All. , Milton's _L'Allegro_. 

Ol. , Pindar's _Olympian Odes_. 

P. L. , Milton's _Paradise Lost_. 

P. R. , Milton's _Paradise Regained_. 

S. A. , Milton's _Samson Agonistes_. 

Shakes. Gr. , Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_ (the references are to_sections_, not pages). 

Shep. Kal. , Spenser's _Shepherd's Kalendar_. 

st. , stanza. 

Wb. , Webster's Dictionary (last revised quarto edition). 

Worc. , Worcester's Dictionary (quarto edition). 

Other abbreviations (names of books in the Bible, plays ofShakespeare, works of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace, etc. ) need noexplanation. 

NOTES. 

[Illustration]

ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 

This poem was begun in the year 1742, but was not finished until1750, when Gray sent it to Walpole with a letter (dated June 12, 1750) in which he says: "I have been here at Stoke a few days (whereI shall continue good part of the summer), and having put an end to athing, whose beginning you have seen long ago, I immediately send ityou. You will, I hope, look upon it in the light of a thing with anend to it: a merit that most of my writings have wanted, and are liketo want. " It was shown in manuscript to some of the author's friends, and was published in 1751 only because it was about to be printedsurreptitiously. 

February 11, 1751, Gray wrote to Walpole that the proprietors of "theMagazine of Magazines" were about to publish his _Elegy_, and added, "I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflictupon me; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsleyprint it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time)from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenientfor him, but on his best paper and character; he must correct thepress himself, [1] and print it without any interval between thestanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them;and the title must be--'Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard. ' Ifhe would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better. " Walpole did as requested, and wrote anadvertisement to the effect that accident alone brought the poembefore the public, although an apology was unnecessary to any but theauthor. On which Gray wrote, "I thank you for your advertisement, which saves my honour. "

[Footnote 1: Dodsley's proof-reading must have been somewhatcareless, for there are many errors of the press in this _editioprinceps_. Gray writes to Walpole, under date of "Ash-Wednesday, Cambridge, 1751, " as follows: "Nurse Dodsley has given it a pinch ortwo in the cradle, that (I doubt) it will bear the marks of as longas it lives. But no matter: we have ourselves suffered under herhands before now; and besides, it will only look the more carelessand by _accident_ as it were. " Again, March 3, 1751, he writes: "I donot expect any more editions; as I have appeared in more magazinesthan one. The chief errata were _sacred_ for _secret_; _hidden_ for_kindred_ (in spite of dukes and classics); and '_frowning_ as inscorn' for _smiling_. I humbly propose, for the benefit of Mr. Dodsley and his matrons, that take _awake_ [in line 92, which atfirst read "awake and faithful to her wonted fires"] for a verb, thatthey should read _asleep_, and all will be right. " Other errors were, "Their _harrow_ oft the stubborn glebe, " "And read their _destiny_ ina nation's eyes, " "With uncouth rhymes and shapeless _culture_decked, " "Slow through the churchway _pass_, " and many of minorimportance. ]

A writer in _Notes and Queries_, June 12, 1875, states that the poemfirst appeared in the _London Magazine_, March, 1751, p. 134, andthat "the Magazine of Magazines" is "a gentle term of scorn used byGray to indicate" that periodical, and not the name of any actualmagazine. But in the next number of _Notes and Queries_ (June 19, 1875) Mr. F. Locker informs us that he has in his possession atitle-page of the _Grand Magazine of Magazines_, and the page of thenumber for April, 1751, which contains the _Elegy_. The magazine issaid to be "collected and digested by Roger Woodville, Esq. , " and"published by Cooper at the Globe, in Pater Noster Row. "

Gray says nothing in his letters of the appearance of the _Elegy_ inthe _London Magazine_. The full title of that periodical was "TheLondon Magazine: or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer. " The editor'sname was not given; the publisher was "R. Baldwin, jun. At the Rosein Pater-Noster Row. " The volume for 1751 was the 20th, and thePreface (written at the close of the year) begins thus: "As the twomost formidable Enemies we have ever had, are now extinct, we havegreat Reason to conclude, that it is only the Merit, and realUsefulness of our COLLECTION, that hath supported its Sale andReputation for Twenty Years. " A foot-note informs us that the"Enemies" are the "_Magazine of Magazines_ and _Grand Magazine ofMagazines_;" from which it would appear that there were twoperiodicals of similar name published in London in 1751. [2]

[Footnote 2: May not the _Elegy_ have been printed in both of these?We do not know how otherwise to reconcile the conflicting statementsconcerning the "Magazine of Magazines, " as Gray calls it. In thefirst place, Gray appears (from other portions of his letter toWalpole) to be familiar with this magazine, and would not be likelyto confound it with another of similar name. Then, as we have seen, he writes _early in March_ to Walpole that the poem has been printed"in more magazines than one. " This cannot refer to the _GrandMagazine of Magazines_, if, as Mr. Locker states, it was the _April_number of that periodical in which the poem appeared. Nor can itrefer to the _London Magazine_, as it is clear from internal evidencethat the March number, containing the _Elegy_, was not issued untilearly in April. It contains a summary of current news down to Sunday, March 31, and the price of stocks in the London market for March 30. The _February_ number, in its "monthly catalogue" of new books, records the publication of the _Elegy_ by Dodsley thus: "An Elegywrote in a Church-yard, pr. 6d. Dodsley. "

If, then, the _Elegy_ did not appear in either the _London Magazine_or the _Grand Magazine of Magazines_ until more than a month (in thecase of the latter, perhaps two months) after Dodsley had issued it, in what magazine was it that it _did_ appear just before he issuedit? The _N. A. Review_ says that "it was a close race between theMagazine and Dodsley; but the former, having a little the start, cameout a few days ahead. " If so, it must have been the _March_ number;or the _February_ one, if it was published, like the _London_, at theend of the month. Gray calls it "the Magazine of Magazines, " and weshall take his word for it until we have reason for doubting it. Whatelse was included in his "more magazines than one" we cannot evenguess. 

We have not been able to find the _Magazine of Magazines_ or the_Grand Magazine of Magazines_ in the libraries, and know nothingabout either "of our own knowledge. " The _London Magazine_ is in theHarvard College Library, and the statements concerning that we canpersonally vouch for. ]

The author's name is not given with the _Elegy_ as printed in the_London Magazine_. The poem is sandwiched between an "Epilogue to_Alfred, a Masque_" and some coarse rhymes entitled "Strip-Me-Naked, or Royal Gin for ever. " There is not even a printer's "rule" or"dash" to separate the title of the latter from the last line of the_Elegy_. The poem is more correctly printed than in Dodsley'sauthorized edition; though, queerly enough, it has "winds" in thesecond line and the parenthesis "(all he had)" in the Epitaph. OfDodsley's misprints noted above it has only "Their _harrow_ oft" and"shapeless _culture_. " These four errors, indeed, are the only onesworth noting, except "Or _wake_ to extasy the living lyre. "

The "Magazine of Magazines" (as the writer in the _North AmericanReview_ tells us) printed the _Elegy_ with the author's name. Theauthorized though anonymous edition was thus briefly noticed by _TheMonthly Review_, the critical Rhadamanthus of the day: "_An Elegy ina Country Churchyard_. 4to. Dodsley's. Seven pages. --The excellenceof this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity. "

"Soon after its publication, " says Mason, "I remember, sitting withMr. Gray in his College apartment, he expressed to me his surprise atthe rapidity of its sale. I replied:

 'Sunt lacrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt. '

He paused awhile, and taking his pen, wrote the line on a printedcopy of it lying on his table. 'This, ' said he, 'shall be its futuremotto. ' 'Pity, ' cried I, 'that Dr. Young's Night Thoughts havepreoccupied it. ' 'So, ' replied he, 'indeed it is. '" Gray himselftells the story of its success on the margin of the manuscript copyof the _Elegy_ preserved at Cambridge among his papers, andreproduced in _fac-simile_ in Mathias's elegant edition of the poet. The following is a careful transcript of the memorandum:

 "publish'd in Feb:^{ry}, 1751. By Dodsley: & went thro' four Editions; in two months; and af- terwards a fifth 6^{th} 7^{th} & 8^{th} 9^{th} & 10^{th} & 11^{th} printed also in 1753 with M^r Bentley's Designs, of w^{ch} there is a 2^d Edition & again by Dodsley in his Miscellany, Vol: 4^{th} & in a Scotch Collection call'd _the Union_. Translated into Latin by Chr: Anstey Esq, & the Rev^d M^r Roberts, & publish'd in 1762; & again in the same year by Rob: Lloyd, M: A:"

"One peculiar and remarkable tribute to the merit of the _Elegy_, "says Professor Henry Reed, "is to be noticed in the great number oftranslations which have been made of it into various languages, bothof ancient and modern Europe. It is the same kind of tribute whichhas been rendered to _Robinson Crusoe_ and to _The Pilgrim'sProgress_, and is proof of the same universality of interest, transcending the limits of language and of race. To no poem in theEnglish language has the same kind of homage been paid so abundantly. Of what other poem is there a polyglot edition? Italy and Englandhave competed with their polyglot editions of the _Elegy_: Torri's, bearing the title, 'Elegia di Tomaso Gray sopra un Cimitero diCampagna, tradotta dall' Inglese in più lingue: Verona, 1817;Livorno, 1843;' and Van Voorst's London edition. " Professor Reed addsa list of the translations (which, however, is incomplete), includingone in Hebrew, seven in Greek, twelve in Latin, thirteen in Italian, fifteen in French, six in German, and one in Portuguese. 

"Had Gray written nothing but his _Elegy_, " remarks Byron, "high ashe stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is thecornerstone of his glory. "

The tribute paid the poem by General Wolfe is familiar to all, but wecannot refrain from quoting Lord Mahon's beautiful account of it inhis _History of England_. On the night of September 13th, 1759, thenight before the battle on the Plains of Abraham, Wolfe wasdescending the St. Lawrence with a part of his troops. The historiansays: "Swiftly, but silently, did the boats fall down with the tide, unobserved by the enemy's sentinels at their posts along the shore. Of the soldiers on board, how eagerly must every heart have throbbedat the coming conflict! how intently must every eye have contemplatedthe dark outline, as it lay pencilled upon the midnight sky, and asevery moment it grew closer and clearer, of the hostile heights! Nota word was spoken--not a sound heard beyond the rippling of thestream. Wolfe alone--thus tradition has told us--repeated in a lowtone to the other officers in his boat those beautiful stanzas withwhich a country churchyard inspired the muse of Gray. One noble line, 'The paths of glory lead but to the grave, '

must have seemed at such a moment fraught with mournful meaning. Atthe close of the recitation Wolfe added, 'Now, gentlemen, I wouldrather be the author of that poem than take Quebec. '"

Hales, in his Introduction to the poem, remarks: "The _Elegy_ isperhaps the most widely known poem in our language. The reason ofthis extensive popularity is perhaps to be sought in the fact that itexpresses in an exquisite manner feelings and thoughts that areuniversal. In the current of ideas in the _Elegy_ there is perhapsnothing that is rare, or exceptional, or out of the common way. Themusings are of the most rational and obvious character possible; itis difficult to conceive of any one musing under similarcircumstances who should not muse so; but they are not the less deepand moving on this account. The mystery of life does not becomeclearer, or less solemn and awful, for any amount of contemplation. Such inevitable, such everlasting questions as rise on the mind whenone lingers in the precincts of Death can never lose their freshness, never cease to fascinate and to move. It is with such questions, thatwould have been commonplace long ages since if they could ever be so, that the _Elegy_ deals. It deals with them in no lofty philosophicalmanner, but in a simple, humble, unpretentious way, always with thetruest and the broadest humanity. The poet's thoughts turn to thepoor; he forgets the fine tombs inside the church, and thinks only ofthe 'mouldering heaps' in the churchyard. Hence the problem thatespecially suggests itself is the potential greatness, when theylived, of the 'rude forefathers' that now lie at his feet. He doesnot, and cannot solve it, though he finds considerations to mitigatethe sadness it must inspire; but he expresses it in all its awfulnessin the most effective language and with the deepest feeling; and hisexpression of it has become a living part of our language. "

The writer in the _North American Review_ (vol. 96) from whom we haveelsewhere quoted says of the _Elegy_: "It is upon this that Gray'sfame as a poet must chiefly rest. By this he will be known foreveralike to the lettered and the unlettered. Many, in future ages, whomay never have heard of his classic Odes, his various learning, orhis sparkling letters, will revere him only as the author of the_Elegy_. For this he will be enshrined through all time in the heartsof the myriads who shall speak our English tongue. For this his namewill be held in glad remembrance in the far-off summer isles of thePacific, and amidst the waste of polar snows. If he had writtennothing else, his place as a leading poet in our language would stillbe assured. Many have asserted, with Johnson, that he was a meremechanical poet--one who brought from without, but never foundwithin; that the gift of inspiration was not native to him; that hisimagination was borrowed finery, his fancy tinsel, and his inventionthe world's well-worn jewels; that whatever in his verse was poeticwas not new, and what was new was not poetic; that he was only anunworldly dyspeptic, living amid many books, and laboriously delvingfor a lifetime between musty covers, picking out now and thenanother's gems and bits of ore, and fashioning them intoill-compacted mosaics, which he wrongly called his own. To all thisthe _Elegy_ is a sufficient answer. It is not old--it is not bookish;it is new and human. Books could not make its maker: he was born ofthe divine breath alone. Consider all the commentators, thescholiasts, the interpreters, the annotators, and other likebook-worms, from Aristarchus down to Döderlein; and may it not besaid that, among them all, 'Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum?'

"Gray wrote but little, yet he wrote that little well. He might havedone far more for us; the same is true of most men, even of thegreatest. The possibilities of a life are always in advance of itsperformance. But we cannot say that his life was a wasted one. Eventhis little _Elegy_ alone should go for much. For, suppose that hehad never written this, but instead had done much else in other ways, according to his powers: that he had written many learned treatises;that he had, with keen criticism, expounded and reconstructed Greekclassics; that he had, perchance, sat upon the woolsack, and laidrich offerings at the feet of blind Justice;--taking the yearstogether, would it have been, on the whole, better for him or for us?Would he have added so much to the sum of human happiness? He mightthus have made himself a power for a time, to be dethroned by somenew usurper in the realm of knowledge; now he is a power and a joyforever to countless thousands. "

Two manuscripts of the _Elegy_, in Gray's handwriting, still exist. Both were bequeathed by the poet, together with his library, letters, and many miscellaneous papers, to his friends the Rev. William Masonand the Rev. James Browne, as joint literary executors. Masonbequeathed the entire trust to Mr. Stonhewer. The latter, in makinghis will, divided the legacy into two parts. The larger share went tothe Master and Fellows of Pembroke Hall. Among the papers, which arestill in the possession of the College, was found a copy of the_Elegy_. An excellent fac-simile of this manuscript appears inMathias's edition of Gray, published in 1814. In referring to ithereafter we shall designate it as the "Pembroke" MS. 

The remaining portion of Gray's literary bequest, including the othermanuscript of the _Elegy_, was left by Mr. Stonhewer to his friend, Mr. Bright. In 1845 Mr. Bright's sons sold the collection at auction. The MS. Of the _Elegy_ was bought by Mr. Granville John Penn, ofStoke Park, for _one hundred pounds_--the highest sum that had everbeen known to be paid for a single sheet of paper. In 1854 thismanuscript came again into the market, and was knocked down to Mr. Robert Charles Wrightson, of Birmingham, for 131 pounds. On the 29thof May, 1875, it was once more offered for sale in London, and waspurchased by Sir William Fraser for 230 pounds, or about $1150. Aphotographic reproduction of it was published in London in 1862. Forconvenience we shall refer to it as the "Wrightson" MS. 

There can be little doubt that the Wrightson MS. Is the original one, and that the Pembroke MS. Is a fair copy made from it by the poet. The former contains a greater number of alterations, and varies morefrom the printed text. It bears internal evidence of being the roughdraft, while the other represents a later stage of the poem. We willgive the variations of both from the present version. [3]

[Footnote 3: For the readings of the Wrightson MS. We have had todepend on Mason, Mitford, and other editors of the poem, and on thearticle in the _North American Review_, already referred to. Thereadings of the Pembroke MS. Are taken from the engraved fac-similein Mathias's edition. 

The two stanzas of which a fac-simile is given on page 73 are fromthe Pembroke MS. , but the wood-cut hardly does justice to thefeminine delicacy of the poet's handwriting. ]

The Wrightson MS. Has in the first stanza, "The lowing herd _wind_slowly, " etc. See our note on this line, below. 

In the 2d stanza, it reads, "And _now_ the air, " etc. 

The 5th stanza is as follows:

 "For ever sleep: the breezy call of morn, Or swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, Or Chanticleer so shrill, or echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. "

In 8th stanza, "Their _rustic_ joys, " etc. 

In 10th stanza, the first two lines read, "Forgive, ye proud, th' involuntary fault, If memory to these no trophies raise. "

In 12th stanza, "Hands that the _reins_ of empire, " etc. 

In 13th stanza, "Chill Penury _depress'd_, " etc. 

The 15th stanza reads thus:

 "Some village Cato, who, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Tully here may rest, Some Cæsar guiltless of his country's blood. "[4]

[Footnote 4: The _Saturday Review_ for June 19, 1875, has a longarticle on the change made by Gray in this stanza, entitled, "ALesson from Gray's Elegy, " from which we cull the followingparagraphs:

"Gray, having first of all put down the names of three Romans asillustrations of his meaning, afterwards deliberately struck them outand put the names of three Englishmen instead. This is a sign of achange in the taste of the age, a change with which Gray himself hada good deal to do. The deliberate wiping out of the names of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar, to put in the names of Hampden, Milton, andCromwell, seems to us so obviously a change for the better that thereseems to be no room for any doubt about it. It is by no means certainthat Gray's own contemporaries would have thought the matter equallyclear. We suspect that to many people in his day it must have seemeda daring novelty to draw illustrations from English history, especially from parts of English history which, it must beremembered, were then a great deal more recent than they are now. Tobe sure, in choosing English illustrations, a poet of Gray's time wasin rather a hard strait. If he chose illustrations from the centuryor two before his own time, he could only choose names which hadhardly got free from the strife of recent politics. If, in a poem ofthe nature of the Elegy, he had drawn illustrations from earliertimes of English history, he would have found but few people in hisday likely to understand him. . . . 

"The change which Gray made in this well-known stanza is not only animprovement in a particular poem, it is a sign of a generalimprovement in taste. He wrote first according to the vicious tasteof an earlier time, and he then changed it according to his ownbetter taste. And of that better taste he was undoubtedly a prophetto others. Gray's poetry must have done a great deal to open men'seyes to the fact that they were Englishmen, and that on them, asEnglishmen, English things had a higher claim than Roman, and that tothem English examples ought to be more speaking than Roman ones. Butthere is another side of the case not to be forgotten. Those whowould have regretted the change from Cato, Tully, and Cæsar toHampden, Milton, and Cromwell, those who perhaps really did thinkthat the bringing in of Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell was adegradation of what they would have called the Muse, were certainlynot those who had the truest knowledge of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar. The'classic' taste from which Gray helped to deliver us was a tastewhich hardly deserves to be called a taste. Pardonable perhaps in thefirst heat of the Renaissance, when 'classic' studies and objects hadthe charm of novelty, it had become by his day a mere sillyfashion. "]

In 18th stanza, "Or _crown_ the shrine, " etc. 

After this stanza, the MS. Has the following four stanzas, nowomitted:

 "The thoughtless world to Majesty may bow, Exalt the brave, and idolize success; But more to innocence their safety owe Than Pow'r, or Genius, e'er conspir'd to bless. 

 "And thou who, mindful of the unhonour'd Dead, Dost in these notes their artless tale relate, By night and lonely contemplation led To wander in the gloomy walks of fate:

 "Hark! how the sacred Calm, that breathes around, Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease; In still small accents whisp'ring from the ground A grateful earnest of eternal peace. 

 "No more, with reason and thyself at strife, Give anxious cares and endless wishes room; But through the cool sequester'd vale of life Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom. "[5]

[Footnote 5: We follow Mason (ed. 1778) in the text of these stanzas. The _North American Review_ has "Power _and_ Genius" in the first, and "_linger_ in the _lonely_ walks" in the second. ]

The second of these stanzas has been remodelled and used as the 24thof the present version. Mason thought that there was a patheticmelancholy in all four which claimed preservation. The third heconsidered equal to any in the whole _Elegy_. The poem was originallyintended to end here, the introduction of "the hoary-headed swain"being a happy after-thought. 

In the 19th stanza, the MS. Has "never _learn'd_ to stray. "

In the 21st stanza, "fame and _epitaph_, " etc. 

In the 23d stanza, the last line reads, "And buried ashes glow with social fires. "

"Social" subsequently became "wonted, " and other changes were made(see p. 74, foot-note) before the line took its present form. 

The 24th stanza reads, "If chance that e'er some pensive Spirit more, By sympathetic musings here delay'd, With vain, though kind inquiry shall explore Thy once-lov'd haunt, this long-deserted shade. "[6]

[Footnote 6: Mitford (Eton ed. ) gives "sympathizing" in the secondline, and for the last, "Thy ever loved haunt--this long deserted shade. "

The latter is obviously wrong (Gray was incapable of such metre), andthe former is probably wrong also. ]

The last line of the 25th stanza reads, "On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn. "

Then comes the following stanza, afterwards omitted:

 "Him have we seen the greenwood side along, While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done, Oft as the woodlark pip'd her farewell song, With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun. "[7]

Mason remarked: "I rather wonder that he rejected this stanza, as itnot only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms uspeculiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the accountof his whole day; whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we haveonly his morning walk, and his noontide repose. "

[Footnote 7: Here also we follow Mason; the _North American Review_reads "our _labours_ done. "]

The first line of the 27th stanza reads, "With gestures quaint, now smiling as in scorn. "

After the 29th stanza, and before the Epitaph, the MS. Contains thefollowing omitted stanza:

 "There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are frequent violets found; The robin loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground. "

This--with two or three verbal changes only[8]--was inserted in allthe editions up to 1753, when it was dropped. The omission was notmade from any objection to the stanza in itself, but simply becauseit was too long a parenthesis in this place; on the principle whichhe states in a letter to Dr. Beattie: "As to description, I havealways thought that it made the most graceful ornament of poetry, butnever ought to make the subject. " The part was sacrificed for thegood of the whole. Mason very justly remarked that "the lines, however, are in themselves exquisitely fine, and demandpreservation. "

[Footnote 8: See next page. The writer in the _North American Review_is our only authority for the stanza as given above. He appears tohave had the photographic reproduction of the Wrightson MS. , but wecannot vouch for the accuracy of his transcripts from it. ]

The first line of the 31st stanza has "and his _heart_ sincere. "

The 32d and last stanza is as follows:

 "No farther seek his merits to disclose, Nor seek to draw them from their dread abode-- (His frailties there in trembling hope repose); The bosom of his Father and his God. "[9]

[Footnote 9: The above are all the variations from the present textin the Wrightson MS. Which are noted by the authorities on whom wehave depended; but we suspect that the following readings, mentionedby Mitford as in the MS. , belong to _that_ MS. , as they are _not_found in the other: in the 7th stanza, "sickles" for "sickle;" in18th, "shrines" for "shrine. " Two others (in stanzas 9th and 27th)are referred to in our account of the Pembroke MS. Below. ]

The Pembroke MS. Has the following variations from the presentversion:

In the 1st stanza, "wind" for "winds. "

2d stanza, "_Or_ drowsy, " etc. 

5th stanza, "_and_ the ecchoing horn. "

6th stanza, "_Nor_ climb his knees. "

9th stanza, "_Awaits_ alike. " Probably this is also the reading ofthe Wrightson MS. Mitford gives it as noted by Mason, and it isretained by Gray in the ed. Of 1768. 

The 10th stanza begins, "_Forgive_, ye Proud, _th' involuntary_ fault If Memory _to these_, " etc. , the present readings ("Nor you, " "impute to these, " and "Mem'ry o'ertheir tomb") being inserted in the margin. 

The 12th stanza has "_reins_ of empire, " with "rod" in the margin. 

In the 15th stanza, the word "lands" has been crossed out, and"fields" written above it. 

The 17th has "_Or_ shut the gates, " etc. 

In the 21st we have "fame and _epitaph_ supply. "

The 23d has "_And_ in our ashes _glow_, " the readings "Ev'n" and"live" being inserted in the margin. 

The 27th stanza has "_would he_ rove. " We suspect that this is alsothe reading of the Wrightson MS. , as Mitford says it is noted byMason. 

In the 28th stanza, the first line reads "_from_ the custom'd hill. "

In the 29th a word which we cannot make out has been erased, and"aged" substituted. 

Before the Epitaph, two asterisks refer to the bottom of the page, where the following stanza is given, with the marginal note, "Omittedin 1753:"

 "There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the Year, By Hands unseen, are Show'rs of Violets found; The Red-breast loves to build, and warble there, And little Footsteps lightly print the Ground. "

The last two lines of the 31st stanza (see note below) are pointed asfollows:

 "He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a Tear, He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a Friend. "

Some of the peculiarities of spelling in this MS. Are the following:"Curfeu;" "Plowman;" "Tinkleings;" "mopeing;" "ecchoing;" "Huswife;""Ile" (aisle); "wast" (waste); "village-Hambden;" "Rhimes;""spell't;" "chearful;" "born" (borne); etc. 

Mitford, in his Life of Gray prefixed to the "Eton" edition of hisPoems (edited by Rev. John Moultrie, 1847), says: "I possess manycurious variations from the printed text, taken from a copy of it inhis own handwriting. " He adds specimens of these variations, a few ofwhich differ from both the Wrightson and Pembroke MSS. We give thesein our notes below. See on 12, 24, and 93. 

Several localities have contended for the honor of being the scene ofthe _Elegy_, but the general sentiment has always, and justly, beenin favor of Stoke-Pogis. It was there that Gray began the poem in1742; and there, as we have seen, he finished it in 1750. In thatchurchyard his mother was buried, and there, at his request, his ownremains were afterwards laid beside her. The scene is, moreover, inall respects in perfect keeping with the spirit of the poem. 

According to the common Cambridge tradition, Granchester, a parishabout two miles southwest of the University, to which Gray was in thehabit of taking his "constitutional" daily, is the locality of thepoem; and the great bell of St. Mary's is the "curfew" of the firststanza. Another tradition makes a similar claim for Madingley, somethree miles and a half northwest of Cambridge. Both places havechurchyards such as the _Elegy_ describes; and this is about all thatcan be said in favor of their pretensions. There is also a parishcalled Burnham Beeches, in Buckinghamshire, which one writer at leasthas suggested as the scene of the poem, but for no better reason thanthat Gray once wrote a description of the place to Walpole, andcasually mentioned the existence of certain "beeches, " at the foot ofwhich he would "squat, " and "there grow to the trunk a wholemorning. " Gray's uncle had a seat in the neighborhood, and the poetoften visited here, but the spot was not hallowed to him by the fondand tender associations that gathered about Stoke. 

1. _The curfew_. Hales remarks: "It is a great mistake to supposethat the ringing of the curfew was, at its institution, a mark ofNorman oppression. If such a custom was unknown before the Conquest, it only shows that the old English police was less well-regulatedthan that of many parts of the Continent, and how much the superiorcivilization of the Norman-French was needed. Fires were the curse ofthe timber-built towns of the Middle Ages: 'Solae pestes Londoniaesunt stultorum immodica potatio et _frequens incendium_'(Fitzstephen). The enforced extinction of domestic lights at anappointed signal was designed to be a safeguard against them. "

Warton wanted to have this line read

 "The curfew tolls!--the knell of parting day. "

It is sufficient to say that Gray, as the manuscript shows, did notwant it to read so, and that we much prefer his way to Warton's. 

Mitford says that _toll_ is "not the appropriate verb, " as the curfewwas rung, not tolled. We presume that depended, to some extent, onthe fancy of the ringer. Milton (_Il Pens. _ 76) speaks of the curfewas

 "Swinging slow with sullen roar. "

Gray himself quotes here Dante, _Purgat. _ 8:

 --"squilla di lontano Che paia 'l giorno pianger, che si muore;"

and we cannot refrain from adding, for the benefit of thoseunfamiliar with Italian, Longfellow's exquisite translation:

 --"from far away a bell That seemeth to deplore the dying day. "

Mitford quotes (incorrectly, as often) Dryden, _Prol. To Troilus andCressida_, 22:

 "That tolls the knell for their departed sense. "

On _parting_=departing, cf. Shakes. _Cor. _ v. 6: "When I partedhence;" Goldsmith, _D. V. _ 171: "Beside the bed where parting lifewas laid, " etc. 

2. _The lowing herd wind_, etc. _Wind_, and not _winds_, is thereading of the MS. (see fac-simile of this stanza on p. 73) and of_all_ the early editions--that of 1768, Mason's, Wakefield's, Mathias's, etc. --but we find no note of the fact in Mitford's or anyother of the more recent editions, which have substituted _winds_. Whether the change was made as an amendment or accidentally, we donot know;[10] but the original reading seems to us by far the betterone. The poet does not refer to the herd as an aggregate, but to theanimals that compose it. He sees, not _it_, but "_them_ on theirwinding way. " The ordinary reading mars both the meaning and themelody of the line. 

[Footnote 10: Very likely the latter, as we have seen that _winds_appears in the unauthorized version of the _London Magazine_ (March, 1751), where it may be a misprint, like the others noted above. 

We may remark here that the edition of 1768--the _editio princeps_ ofthe _collected_ Poems--was issued under Gray's own supervision, andis printed with remarkable accuracy. We have detected only oneindubitable error of the type in the entire volume. Certainpeculiarities of spelling were probably intentional, as we find thelike in the fac-similes of the poet's manuscripts. The manyquotations from Greek, Latin, and Italian are correctly given(according to the received texts of the time), and the references toauthorities, so far as we have verified them, are equally exact. Thebook throughout bears the marks of Gray's scholarly and criticalhabits, and we may be sure that the poems appear in precisely theform which he meant they should retain. In doubtful cases, therefore, we have generally followed this edition. Mason's (the _second_edition: York, 1778) is also carefully edited and printed, and itsreadings seldom vary from Gray's. All of Mitford's that we haveexamined swarm with errors, especially in the notes. Pickering's(1835), edited by Mitford, is perhaps the worst of all. The Bostoned. (Little, Brown, & Co. , 1853) is a pretty careful reproduction ofPickering's, with all its inaccuracies. ]

3. The critic of the _N. A. Review_ points out that this line "isquite peculiar in its possible transformations. We have made, " headds, "twenty different versions preserving the rhythm, the generalsentiment and the rhyming word. Any one of these variations might be, not inappropriately, substituted for the original reading. "

Luke quotes Spenser, _F. Q. _ vi. 7, 39: "And now she was uppon theweary way. "

6. _Air_ is of course the object, not the subject of the verb. 

7. _Save where the beetle_, etc. Cf. Collins, _Ode to Evening_:

 "Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum. "

and _Macbeth_, iii. 2:

 "Ere the bat hath flown His cloister'd flight; ere to black Hecate's summons The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums, Hath rung night's yawning peal, " etc. 

10. _The moping owl_. Mitford quotes Ovid, _Met. _ v. 550: "Ignavusbubo, dirum mortalibus omen;" Thomson, _Winter_, 114:

 "Assiduous in his bower the wailing owl Plies his sad song;"

and Mallet, _Excursion_:

 "the wailing owl Screams solitary to the mournful moon. "

12. _Her ancient solitary reign_. Cf. Virgil, _Geo. _ iii. 476:"desertaque regna pastorum. " A MS. Variation of this line mentionedby Mitford is, "Molest and pry into her ancient reign. "

13. "As he stands in the churchyard, he thinks only of the poorerpeople, because the better-to-do lay interred inside the church. Tennyson (_In Mem. _ x. ) speaks of resting

 'beneath the clover sod That takes the sunshine and the rains, Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of God. '

In Gray's time, and long before, and some time after it, the formerresting-place was for the poor, the latter for the rich. It was so inthe first instance, for two reasons: (i. ) the interior of the churchwas regarded as of great sanctity, and all who could sought a placein it, the most dearly coveted spot being near the high altar; (ii. )when elaborate tombs were the fashion, they were built inside thechurch for the sake of security, 'gay tombs' being liable to be'robb'd' (see the funeral dirge in Webster's _White Devil_). As thesetwo considerations gradually ceased to have power, and otherconsiderations of an opposite tendency began to prevail, the insideof the church became comparatively deserted, except when ancestralreasons gave no choice" (Hales). 

17. Cf. Milton, _Arcades_, 56: "the odorous breath of morn;" _P. L. _ix. 192:

 "Now when as sacred light began to dawn In Eden on the humid flowers that breath'd Their morning incense, " etc. 

18. Hesiod ([Greek: Erg. ] 568) calls the swallow [Greek: orthogoêchelidôn. ] Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ viii. 455:

 "Evandrum ex humili tecto lux suscitat alma, Et matutini volucrum sub culmine cantus. "

19. _The cock's shrill clarion_. Cf. Philips, _Cyder_, i. 753:

 "When chanticleer with clarion shrill recalls The tardy day;"

Milton, _P. L. _ vii. 443:

 "The crested cock, whose clarion sounds The silent hours;"

_Hamlet_, i. 1:

 "The cock that is the trumpet to the morn;"

Quarles, _Argalus and Parthenia_:

 "I slept not till the early bugle-horn Of chaunticlere had summon'd in the morn;"

and Thomas Kyd, _England's Parnassus_:

 "The cheerful cock, the sad night's trumpeter, Wayting upon the rising of the sunne; The wandering swallow with her broken song, " etc. 

20. _Their lowly bed_. Wakefield remarks: "Some readers, keeping inmind the 'narrow cell' above, have mistaken the 'lowly bed' in thisverse for the grave--a most puerile and ridiculous blunder;" andMitford says: "Here the epithet 'lowly, ' as applied to 'bed, 'occasions some ambiguity as to whether the poet meant the bed onwhich they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid, which inpoetry is called a 'lowly bed. ' Of course the former is designed; butMr. Lloyd, in his Latin translation, mistook it for the latter. "

21. Cf. Lucretius, iii. 894:

 "Jam jam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor Optima nee dulces occurrent oscula nati Praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent;"

and Horace, _Epod. _ ii. 39:

 "Quod si pudica mulier in partem juvet Domum atque dulces liberos * * * * * * * Sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum Lassi sub adventum viri, " etc. 

Mitford quotes Thomson, _Winter_, 311:

 "In vain for him the officious wife prepares The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm; In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling storm, demand their sire With tears of artless innocence. "

Wakefield cites _The Idler_, 103: "There are few things, not purelyevil, of which we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, _thisis the last_. "

22. _Ply her evening care_. Mitford says, "To _ply a care_ is anexpression that is not proper to our language, and was probablyformed for the rhyme _share_. " Hales remarks: "This is probably thekind of phrase which led Wordsworth to pronounce the language of the_Elegy_ unintelligible. Compare his own

 'And she I cherished _turned her wheel_ Beside an English fire. '"

23. _No children run_, etc. Hales quotes Burns, _Cotter's SaturdayNight_, 21:

 "Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee. "

24. Among Mitford's MS. Variations we find "coming kiss. " Wakefieldcompares Virgil, _Geo. _ ii. 523:

 "Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati;"

and Mitford adds from Dryden, "Whose little arms about thy legs are cast, And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's haste. "

Cf. Thomson, _Liberty_, iii. 171:

 "His little children climbing for a kiss. "

26. _The stubborn glebe_. Cf. Gay, _Fables_, ii. 15:

 "'Tis mine to tame the stubborn glebe. "

_Broke_=broken, as often in poetry, especially in the Elizabethanwriters. See Abbott, _Shakes. Gr. _ 343. 

27. _Drive their team afield_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 27: "We drove afield;"and Dryden, _ Virgil's Ecl. _ ii. 38: "With me to drive afield. "

28. _Their sturdy stroke_. Cf. Spenser, _Shep. Kal. _ Feb. :

 "But to the roote bent his sturdy stroake, And made many wounds in the wast [wasted] Oake;"

and Dryden, _Geo. _ iii. 639:

 "Labour him with many a sturdy stroke. "

30. As Mitford remarks, _obscure_ and _poor_ make "a very imperfectrhyme;" and the same might be said of _toil_ and _smile_. 

33. Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind these verses from hisfriend West's _Monody on Queen Caroline_:

 "Ah, me! what boots us all our boasted power, Our golden treasure, and our purple state; They cannot ward the inevitable hour, Nor stay the fearful violence of fate. "

Hurd compares Cowley:

 "Beauty, and strength, and wit, and wealth, and power, Have their short flourishing hour; And love to see themselves, and smile, And joy in their pre-eminence a while: Even so in the same land Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers together stand; Alas! Death mows down all with an impartial hand. "

35. _Awaits_. The reading of the ed. Of 1768, as of the Pembroke (andprobably the other) MS. _Hour_ is the subject, not the object, of theverb. 

36. Hayley, in the Life of Crashaw, _Biographia Britannica_, saysthat this line is "literally translated from the Latin prose ofBartholinus in his Danish Antiquities. "

39. _Fretted_. The _fret_ is, strictly, an ornament used in classicalarchitecture, formed by small fillets intersecting each other atright angles. Parker (_Glossary of Architecture_) derives the wordfrom the Latin _fretum_, a strait; and Hales from _ferrum_, iron, through the Italian _ferrata_, an iron grating. It is more likely(see Stratmann and Wb. ) from the A. S. _frætu_, an ornament. 

Cf. _Hamlet_, ii. 2:

 "This majestical roof fretted with golden fire;"

and _Cymbeline_, ii. 4:

 "The roof o' the chamber With golden cherubins is fretted. "

40. _The pealing anthem_. Cf. _Il Penseroso_, 161:

 "There let the pealing organ blow To the full-voiced quire below, In service high, and anthem clear, " etc. 

41. _Storied urn_. Cf. _Il Pens. _ 159: "storied windows richlydight. " On _animated bust_, cf. Pope, _Temple of Fame_, 73: "Heroesin animated marble frown;" and Virgil, _Æn. _ vi. 847: "spirantiaaera. "

43. _Provoke_. Mitford considers this use of the word "unusuallybold, to say the least. " It is simply the etymological meaning, _tocall forth_ (Latin, _provocare_). See Wb. Cf. Pope, _Ode_:

 "But when our country's cause provokes to arms. "

44. _Dull cold ear_. Cf. Shakes. _Hen. VIII. _ iii. 2: "And sleep indull, cold marble. "

46. _Pregnant with celestial fire_. This phrase has been copied byCowper in his _Boadicea_, which is said (see notes of "Globe" ed. ) tohave been written after reading Hume's History, in 1780:

 "Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre. "

47. Mitford quotes Ovid, _Ep. _ v. 86:

 "Sunt mihi quas possint sceptra decere manus. "

48. _Living lyre_. Cf. Cowley:

 "Begin the song, and strike the living lyre;"

and Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 281:

 "Who now shall charm the shades where Cowley strung His living harp, and lofty Denham sung?"

50. Cf. Browne, _Religio Medici_: "Rich with the spoils of nature. "

51. "_Rage_ is often used in the post-Elizabethan writers of the 17thcentury, and in the 18th century writers, for inspiration, enthusiasm" (Hales). Cf. Cowley:

 "Who brought green poesy to her perfect age, And made that art which was a rage?"

and Tickell, _Prol. _:

 "How hard the task! How rare the godlike rage!"

Cf. Also the use of the Latin _rabies_ for the "divine afflatus, " asin _Æneid_, vi. 49. 

53. _Full many a gem_, etc. Cf. Bishop Hall, _Contemplations_: "Thereis many a rich stone laid up in the bowells of the earth, many a fairpearle in the bosome of the sea, that never was seene, nor nevershall bee. "

_Purest ray serene_. As Hales remarks, this is a favouritearrangement of epithets with Milton. Cf. _Hymn on Nativity_:"flower-inwoven tresses torn;" _Comus_: "beckoning shadows dire;""every alley green, " etc. ; _L'Allegro_: "native wood-notes wild;"_Lycidas_: "sad occasion dear;" "blest kingdoms meek, " etc. 

55. _Full many a flower_, etc. Cf. Pope, _Rape of the Lock_, iv. 158:

 "Like roses that in deserts bloom and die. "

Mitford cites Chamberlayne, _Pharonida_, ii. 4:

 "Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent Of odours in unhaunted deserts;"

and Young, _Univ. Pass. _ sat. V. :

 "In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen, She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green; Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace, And waste their music on the savage race;"

and Philip, _Thule_:

 "Like woodland flowers, which paint the desert glades, And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades. "

Hales quotes Waller's

 "Go, lovely rose, Tell her that's young And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts where no men abide Thou must have uncommended died. "

On _desert air_, cf. _Macbeth_, iv. 3: "That would be howl'd out inthe desert air. "

57. It was in 1636 that John Hampden, of Buckinghamshire (a cousin ofOliver Cromwell), refused to pay the ship-money tax which Charles I. Was levying without the authority of Parliament. 

58. _Little tyrant_. Cf. Thomson, _Winter_:

 "With open freedom little tyrants raged. "

The artists who have illustrated this passage (see, for instance, _Favourite English Poems_, p. 305, and _Harper's Monthly_, vol. Vii. P. 3) appear to understand "little" as equivalent to _juvenile_. Ifthat had been the meaning, the poet would have used some other phrasethan "of his fields, " or "his lands, " as he first wrote it. 

59. _Some mute inglorious Milton_. Cf. Phillips, preface to _TheatrumPoetarum_: "Even the very names of some who having perhaps beencomparable to Homer for heroic poesy, or to Euripides for tragedy, yet nevertheless sleep inglorious in the crowd of the forgottenvulgar. "

60. _Some Cromwell_, etc. Hales remarks: "The prejudice againstCromwell was extremely strong throughout the 18th century, evenamongst the more liberal-minded. That cloud of 'detractions rude, ' ofwhich Milton speaks in his noble sonnet to our 'chief of men' as inhis own day enveloping the great republican leader, still lay thickand heavy over him. His wise statesmanship, his unceasingearnestness, his high-minded purpose, were not yet seen. "

After this stanza Thomas Edwards, the author of the _Canons ofCriticism_, would add the following, to supply what he deemed adefect in the poem:

 "Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charms Shone with attraction to herself alone; Whose beauty might have bless'd a monarch's arms, Whose virtue cast a lustre on a throne. 

 "That humble beauty warm'd an honest heart, And cheer'd the labours of a faithful spouse; That virtue form'd for every decent part The healthful offspring that adorn'd their house. "

Edwards was an able critic, but it is evident that he was no poet. 

63. Mitford quotes Tickell:

 "To scatter blessings o'er the British land;"

and Mrs. Behn:

 "Is scattering plenty over all the land. "

66. _Their growing virtues_. That is, the growth of their virtues. 

67. _To wade through slaughter_, etc. Cf. Pope, _Temp. Of Fame_, 347:

 "And swam to empire through the purple flood. "

68. Cf. Shakes. _Hen. V. _ iii. 3:

 "The gates of mercy shall be all shut up. "

70. _To quench the blushes_, etc. Cf. Shakes. _W. T. _ iv. 3:

 "Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself. "

73. _Far from the madding crowd's_, etc. Rogers quotes Drummond:

 "Far from the madding worldling's hoarse discords. "

Mitford points out "the ambiguity of this couplet, which indeed givesa sense exactly contrary to that intended; to avoid which one mustbreak the grammatical construction. " The poet's meaning is, however, clear enough. 

75. Wakefield quotes Pope, _Epitaph on Fenton_:

 "Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, Content with science in the vale of peace. "

77. _These bones_. "The bones of these. So _is_ is often used inLatin, especially by Livy, as in v. 22: '_Ea_ sola pecunia, ' themoney derived from that sale, etc. " (Hales). 

84. _That teach_. Mitford censures _teach_ as ungrammatical; but itmay be justified as a "construction according to sense. "

85. Hales remarks: "At the first glance it might seem that _to dumbForgetfulness a prey_ was in apposition to _who_, and the meaningwas, 'Who that now lies forgotten, ' etc. ; in which case the secondline of the stanza must be closely connected with the fourth; for thequestion of the passage is not 'Who ever died?' but 'Who ever diedwithout wishing to be remembered?' But in this way of interpretingthis difficult stanza (i. ) there is comparatively little force in theappositional phrase, and (ii. ) there is a certain awkwardness indeferring so long the clause (virtually adverbal though apparentlycoördinate) in which, as has just been noticed, the point of thequestion really lies. Perhaps therefore it is better to take thephrase _to dumb Forgetfulness a prey_ as in fact the completion ofthe predicate _resign'd_, and interpret thus: Who ever resigned thislife of his with all its pleasures and all its pains to be utterlyignored and forgotten?=who ever, when resigning it, reconciledhimself to its being forgotten? In this case the second half of thestanza echoes the thought of the first half. "

We give the note in full, and leave the reader to take his choice ofthe two interpretations. For ourself, we incline to the first ratherthan the second. We prefer to take _to dumb Forgetfulness a prey_ asappositional and proleptic, and not as the grammatical complement of_resigned_: Who, yielding himself up a prey to dumb Forgetfulness, ever resigned this life without casting a longing, lingering lookbehind?

90. _Pious_ is used in the sense of the Latin _pius_. Ovid has "piaelacrimae. " Mitford quotes Pope, _Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady_, 49:

 "No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier; By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd. "

"In this stanza, " says Hales, "he answers in an exquisite manner thetwo questions, or rather the one question twice repeated, of thepreceding stanza. . . . What he would say is that every one while aspark of life yet remains in him yearns for some kindly lovingremembrance; nay, even after the spark is quenched, even when all isdust and ashes, that yearning must still be felt. "

91, 92. Mitford paraphrases the couplet thus: "The voice of Naturestill cries from the tomb in the language of the epitaph inscribedupon it, which still endeavours to connect us with the living; thefires of former affection are still alive beneath our ashes. "

Cf. Chaucer, _C. T. _ 3880:

 "Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken. "

Gray himself quotes Petrarch, _Sonnet_ 169:

 "Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, Fredda una lingua e due begli occhi chiusi, Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville, "

translated by Nott as follows:

 "These, my sweet fair, so warns prophetic thought, Clos'd thy bright eye, and mute thy poet's tongue, E'en after death shall still with sparks be fraught, "

the "these" meaning his love and his songs concerning it. Graytranslated this sonnet into Latin elegiacs, the last line beingrendered, "Ardebitque urna multa favilla mea. "

93. On a MS. Variation of this stanza given by Mitford, see p. 80, footnote. 

95. _Chance_ is virtually an adverb here = perchance. 

98. _The peep of dawn_. Mitford quotes _Comus_, 138:

 "Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice morn, on the Indian steep From her cabin'd loop-hole peep. "

99. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ v. 428:

 "though from off the boughs each morn We brush mellifluous dews;"

and _Arcades_, 50:

 "And from the boughs brush off the evil dew. "

Wakefield quotes Thomson, _Spring_, 103:

 "Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields, Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops From the bent brush, as through the verdant maze Of sweetbrier hedges I pursue my walk. "

100. _Upland lawn_. Cf. Milton, _Lycidas_, 25:

 "Ere the high lawns appear'd Under the opening eyelids of the morn. "

In _L'Allegro_, 92, we have "upland hamlets, " where Hales thinks"upland=country, as opposed to town. " He adds, "Gray in his _Elegy_seems to use the word loosely for 'on the higher ground;' perhaps hetook it from Milton, without quite understanding in what sense Miltonuses it. " We doubt whether Hales understands Milton here. It is truethat _upland_ used to mean country, as _uplanders_ meant countrymen, and _uplandish_ countrified (see Nares and Wb. ), but the othermeaning is older than Milton (see Halliwell's _Dict. Of ArchaicWords_), and Johnson, Keightley, and others are probably right inconsidering "upland hamlets" an instance of it. Masson, in his recentedition of Milton (1875), explains the "upland hamlets" as "littlevillages among the slopes, away from the river-meadows and thehay-making. "

101. As Mitford remarks, _beech_ and _stretch_ form an imperfectrhyme. 

102. Luke quotes Spenser, _Ruines of Rome_, st. 28:

 "Shewing her wreathed rootes and naked armes. "

103. _His listless length_. Hales compares _King Lear_, i. 4: "If youwill measure your lubber's length again, tarry. " Cf. Also _Brittain'sIda_ (formerly ascribed to Spenser, but rejected by the besteditors), iii. 2:

 "Her goodly length stretcht on a lilly-bed. "

104. Cf. Thomson, _Spring_, 644: "divided by a babbling brook;" andHorace, _Od. _ iii. 13, 15:

 "unde loquaces Lymphae desiliunt tuae. "

Wakefield quotes _As You Like It_, ii. 1:

 "As he lay along Under an oak whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this road. "

105. _Smiling as in scorn_. Cf. Shakes. _Pass. Pilgrim_, 14:

 "Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile, In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether. "

and Skelton, _Prol. To B. Of C. _:

 "Smylynge half in scorne At our foly. "

107. _Woeful-wan_. Mitford says: "_Woeful-wan_ is not a legitimatecompound, and must be divided into two separate words, for such theyare, when released from the _handcuffs_ of the hyphen. " The hyphen isnot in the edition of 1768, and we should omit it if it were notfound in the Pembroke MS. 

Wakefield quotes Spenser, _Shep. Kal. _ Jan. :

 "For pale and wanne he was (alas the while!) May seeme he lovd, or els some care he tooke. "

108. "_Hopeless_ is here used in a proleptic or anticipatory way"(Hales). 

109. _Custom'd_ is Gray's word, not _'custom'd_, as usually printed. See either Wb. Or Worc. S. V. Cf. Milton, _Ep. Damonis_: "Simulassueta seditque sub ulmo. "

114. _Churchway path_. Cf. Shakes. _M. N. D. _ v. 2:

 "Now it is the time of night, That the graves all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite In the churchway paths to glide. "

115. _For thou canst read_. The "hoary-headed swain" of course could_not_ read. 

116. _Grav'd_. The old form of the participle is _graven_, but_graved_ is also in good use. The old preterite _grove_ is obsolete. 

117. _The lap of earth_. Cf. Spenser, _F. Q. _ v. 7, 9:

 "For other beds the Priests there used none, But on their mother Earths deare lap did lie;"

and Milton, _P. L. _ x. 777:

 "How glad would lay me down, As in my mother's lap!"

Lucretius (i. 291) has "gremium matris terrai. " Mitford adds thepathetic sentence of Pliny, _Hist. Nat. _ ii. 63: "Nam terra novissimecomplexa gremio jam a reliqua natura abnegatos, tum maxime, ut mater, operit. "

123. _He gave to misery all he had, a tear_. This is the pointing ofthe line in the MSS. And in all the early editions except that ofMathias, who seems to be responsible for the change (adopted by therecent editors, almost without exception) to, "He gave to Misery (all he had) a tear. "

This alters the meaning, mars the rhythm, and spoils the sentiment. If one does not see the difference at once, it would be useless totry to make him see it. Mitford, who ought to have known better, notonly thrusts in the parenthesis, but quotes this from Pope's Homer asan illustration of it:

 "His fame ('tis all the dead can have) shall live. "

126. Mitford says that _Or_ in this line should be _Nor_. Yes, if"draw" is an imperative, like "seek;" no, if it is an infinitive, inthe same construction as "to disclose. " That the latter was theconstruction the poet had in mind is evident from the form of thestanza in the Wrightson MS. , where "seek" is repeated:

 "No farther seek his merits to disclose, Nor seek to draw them from their dread abode. "

127. _In trembling hope_. Gray quotes Petrarch, _Sonnet_ 104:"paventosa speme. " Cf. Lucan, _Pharsalia_, vii. 297: "Spe trepido;"Mallet, _Funeral Hymn_, 473:

 "With trembling tenderness of hope and fear;"

and Beaumont, _Psyche_, xv. 314:

 "Divided here twixt trembling hope and fear. "

Hooker (_Eccl. Pol. _ i. ) defines hope as "a trembling expectation ofthings far removed. "

[Illustration]

ODE ON THE SPRING. 

The original manuscript title of this ode was "Noontide. " It wasfirst printed in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. Ii. P. 271, under thetitle of "Ode. "

1. _The rosy-bosom'd Hours_. Cf. Milton, _Comus_, 984: "The Gracesand the rosy-bosom'd Hours;" and Thomson, _Spring_, 1007:

 "The rosy-bosom'd Spring To weeping Fancy pines. "

The _Horæ_, or hours, according to the Homeric idea, were thegoddesses of the seasons, the course of which was symbolicallyrepresented by "the dance of the Hours. " They were often described, in connection with the Graces, Hebe, and Aphrodite, as accompanyingwith their dancing the songs of the Muses and the lyre of Apollo. Long after the time of Homer they continued to be regarded as thegivers of the seasons, especially spring and autumn, or "Nature inher bloom and her maturity. " At first there were only two Horæ, Thallo (or Spring) and Karpo (or Autumn); but later the number wasthree, like that of the Graces. In art they are represented asblooming maidens, bearing the products of the seasons. 

2. _Fair Venus' train_. The Hours adorned Aphrodite (Venus) as sherose from the sea, and are often associated with her by Homer, Hesiod, and other classical writers. Wakefield remarks: "Venus ishere employed, in conformity to the mythology of the Greeks, as thesource of creation and beauty. "

3. _Long-expecting_. Waiting long for the spring. Sometimesincorrectly printed "long-expected. " Cf. Dryden, _Astræa Redux_, 132:"To flowers that in its womb expecting lie. "

4. _The purple year_. Cf. The _Pervigilium Veneris_, 13: "Ipsa gemmispurpurantem pingit annum floribus;" Pope, _Pastorals_, i. 28: "Andlavish Nature paints the purple year;" and Mallet, _Zephyr_: "Galesthat wake the purple year. "

5. _The Attic warbler_. The nightingale, called "the Attic bird, "either because it was so common in Attica, or from the old legendthat Philomela (or, as some say, Procne), the daughter of a king ofAttica, was changed into a nightingale. Cf. Milton's description ofAthens (_P. R. _ iv. 245):

 "where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long. "

Cf. Ovid, _Hal. _ 110: "Attica avis verna sub tempestate queratus;"and Propertius, ii. 16, 6: "Attica volucris. "

_Pours her throat_ is a metonymy. H. P. 85. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 33: "Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat?"

6, 7. Cf. Thomson, _Spring_, 577:

 "From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, The symphony of spring. "

9, 10. Cf. Milton, _Comus_, 989:

 "And west winds with musky wing About the cedarn alleys fling Nard and cassia's balmy smells. "

12. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ iv. 245: "Where the unpierc'd shade Imbrown'dthe noontide bowers;" Pope, _Eloisa_, 170: "And breathes a brownerhorror on the woods;" Thomson, _Castle of Indolence_, i. 38: "OrAutumn's varied shades imbrown the walls. "

According to Ruskin (_Modern Painters_, vol. Iii. P. 241, Amer. Ed. )there is no brown in nature. After remarking that Dante "does notacknowledge the existence of the colour of _brown_ at all, " he goeson to say: "But one day, just when I was puzzling myself about this, I happened to be sitting by one of our best living modern colourists, watching him at his work, when he said, suddenly and by mereaccident, after we had been talking about other things, 'Do you knowI have found that there is no _brown_ in nature? What we call brownis always a variety either of orange or purple. It never can berepresented by umber, unless altered by contrast. ' It is curious howfar the significance of this remark extends, how exquisitely itillustrates and confirms the mediæval sense of hue, " etc. 

14. _O'ercanopies the glade_. Gray himself quotes Shakes. _M. N. D. _ii. 1: "A bank o'ercanopied with luscious woodbine. "[1] Cf. Fletcher, _Purple Island_, i. 5, 30: "The beech shall yield a cool, safecanopy;" and Milton, _Comus_, 543: "a bank, With ivy canopied. "

[Footnote 1: The reading of the folio of 1623 is:

 "I know a banke where the wilde time blowes, Where Oxslips and the nodding Violet growes, Quite ouer-cannoped with luscious woodbine. "

Dyce and some other modern editors read, "Quite overcanopied with lush woodbine. "]

15. _Rushy brink_. Cf. _Comus_, 890: "By the rushy-fringed bank. "

19, 20. These lines, as first printed, read:

 "How low, how indigent the proud! How little are the great!"

22. _The panting herds_. Cf. Pope, _Past. _ ii. 87: "To closer shadesthe panting flocks remove. "

23. _The peopled air_. Cf. Walton, _C. A. _: "Now the wing'd people ofthe sky shall sing;" Beaumont, _Psyche_: "Every tree empeopled waswith birds of softest throats. "

24. _The busy murmur_. Cf. Milton, _P. R. _ iv. 248: "bees'industrious murmur. "

25. _The insect youth_. Perhaps suggested by a line in Green's_Hermitage_, quoted in a letter of Gray to Walpole: "Frommaggot-youth through change of state, " etc. See on 31 below. 

26. _The honied spring_. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens. _ 142: "the bee withhonied thigh;" and _Lyc. _ 140: "the honied showers. "

"There has of late arisen, " says Johnson in his Life of Gray, "apractice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives thetermination of participles, such as the _cultured plain_, the_daisied bank_; but I am sorry to see in the lines of a scholar likeGray the _honied_ spring. " But, as we have seen, _honied_ is found inMilton; and Shakespeare also uses it in _Hen. V. _ i. 1: "honey'dsentences. " _Mellitus_ is used by Cicero, Horace, and Catullus. Theeditor of an English dictionary, as Lord Grenville has remarked, ought to know "that the ready conversion of our substances intoverbs, participles, and participial adjectives is of the very essenceof our tongue, derived from its Saxon origin, and a main source ofits energy and richness. "

27. _The liquid noon_. Gray quotes Virgil, _Geo. _ iv. 59: "Nare peraestatem liquidam. "

30. _Quick-glancing to the sun_. Gray quotes Milton, _P. L. _ vii. 405:

 "Sporting with quick glance, Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold. "

31. Gray here quotes Green, _Grotto_: "While insects from thethreshold preach. " In a letter to Walpole, he says: "I send you a bitof a thing for two reasons: first, because it is of one of yourfavourites, Mr. M. Green; and next, because I would do justice. Thethought on which my second Ode turns [this Ode, afterwards placedfirst by Gray] is manifestly stole from hence; not that I knew it atthe time, but having seen this many years before, to be sure itimprinted itself on my memory, and, forgetting the Author, I took itfor my own. " Then comes the quotation from Green's _Grotto_. Thepassage referring to the insects is as follows:

 "To the mind's ear, and inward sight, There silence speaks, and shade gives light: While insects from the threshold preach, And minds dispos'd to musing teach; Proud of strong limbs and painted hues, They perish by the slightest bruise; Or maladies begun within Destroy more slow life's frail machine: From maggot-youth, thro' change of state, They feel like us the turns of fate: Some born to creep have liv'd to fly, And chang'd earth's cells for dwellings high: And some that did their six wings keep, Before they died, been forc'd to creep. They politics, like ours, profess; The greater prey upon the less. Some strain on foot huge loads to bring, Some toil incessant on the wing: Nor from their vigorous schemes desist Till death; and then they are never mist. Some frolick, toil, marry, increase, Are sick and well, have war and peace; And broke with age in half a day, Yield to successors, and away. "

47. _Painted plumage_. Cf. Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 118: "His paintedwings; and Milton, _P. L. _ vii. 433:

 "From branch to branch the smaller birds with song Solaced the woods, and spread their painted wings. "

See also Virgil, _Geo. _ iii. 243, and _Æn. _ iv. 525: "pictaequevolucres;" and Phædrus, _Fab. _ iii. 18: "pictisque plumis. "

[Illustration]

ODE ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT. 

This ode first appeared in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. Ii. P. 274, with some variations noticed below. Walpole, after the death of Gray, placed the china vase on a pedestal at Strawberry Hill, with a fewlines of the ode for an inscription. 

In a letter to Walpole, dated March 1, 1747, Gray refers to thesubject of the ode in the following jocose strain: "As one ought tobe particularly careful to avoid blunders in a compliment ofcondolence, it would be a sensible satisfaction to me (before Itestify my sorrow, and the sincere part I take in your misfortune) toknow for certain who it is I lament. I knew Zara and Selima (Selima, was it? or Fatima?), or rather I knew them both together; for Icannot justly say which was which. Then as to your handsome Cat, thename you distinguish her by, I am no less at a loss, as well knowingone's handsome cat is always the cat one likes best; or if one bealive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is thehandsomest. Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you donot think me so ill-bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all myinterest in the survivor; oh no! I would rather seem to mistake, andimagine to be sure it must be the tabby one that had met with thissad accident. Till this affair is a little better determined, youwill excuse me if I do not begin to cry, Tempus inane peto, requiem spatiumque doloris. 

". . . Heigh ho! I feel (as you to be sure have done long since) that Ihave very little to say, at least in prose. Somebody will be thebetter for it; I do not mean you, but your Cat, feuë MademoiselleSelime, whom I am about to immortalize for one week or fortnight, asfollows: [the Ode follows, which we need not reprint here]. 

"There's a poem for you, it is rather too long for an Epitaph. "

2. Cf. Lady M. W. Montagu, _Town Eclogues_:

 "Where the tall jar erects its stately pride, With antic shapes in China's azure dyed. "

3. _The azure flowers that blow_. Johnson and Wakefield find faultwith this as redundant, but it is no more so than poetic usageallows. In the _Progress of Poesy_, i. 1, we have again: "Thelaughing flowers that round them blow. " Cf. _Comus_, 992:

 "Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can shew. "

4. _Tabby_. For the derivation of this word from the French _tabis_, a kind of silk, see Wb. In the first ed. The 5th line preceded the4th. 

6. _The lake_. In the mock-heroic vein that runs through the wholepoem. 

11. _Jet_. This word comes, through the French, from Gagai, a town inLycia, where the mineral was first obtained. 

14. _Two angel forms_. In the first ed. "two beauteous forms, " whichMitford prefers to the present reading, "as the images of _angel_ and_genii_ interfere with each other, and bring different associationsto the mind. "

16. _Tyrian hue_. Explained by the "purple" in next line; an allusionto the famous Tyrian dye of the ancients. Cf. Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 142: "with fins of Tyrian dye. "

17. Cf. Virgil, _Geo. _ iv. 274:

 "_Aureus_ ipse; sed in foliis, quae plurima circum Funduntur, violae _sublucet purpura_ nigrae. "

See also Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 332: "His shining horns diffus'd agolden glow;" _Temple of Fame_, 253: "And lucid amber casts a goldengleam. "

24. In the 1st ed. "What cat's a foe to fish?" and in the next line, "with eyes intent. "

31. _Eight times_. Alluding to the proverbial "nine lives" of thecat. 

34. _No dolphin came_. An allusion to the story of Arion, who whenthrown overboard by the sailors for the sake of his wealth was bornesafely to land by a dolphin. 

_No Nereid stirr'd_. Cf. Milton, _Lycidas_, 50:

 "Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?"

35, 36. The reading of 1st ed. Is, "Nor cruel Tom nor Harry heard. What favourite has a friend?"

40. The 1st ed. Has "Not all that strikes, " etc. 

42. _Nor all that glisters gold_. A favourite proverb with the oldEnglish poets. Cf. Chaucer, _C. T. _ 16430:

 "But all thing which that shineth as the gold Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told;"

Spenser, _F. Q. _ ii. 8, 14:

 "Yet gold all is not, that doth golden seeme;"

Shakes. _M. Of V. _ ii. 7:

 "All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told;"

Dryden, _Hind and Panther_:

 "All, as they say, that glitters is not gold. "

Other examples might be given. _Glisten_ is not found in Shakes. OrMilton, but both use _glister_ several times. See _W. T. _ iii. 2;_Rich. II. _ iii. 3; _T. A. _ ii. 1, etc. ; _Lycidas_, 79; _Comus_, 219;_P. L. _ iii. 550; iv. 645, 653, etc. 

[Illustration: ETON COLLEGE. ]

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. 

This, as Mason informs us, was the first English[1] production ofGray's that appeared in print. It was published, in folio, in 1747;and appeared again in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. Ii. P. 267, without the name of the author. 

[Footnote 1: A Latin poem by him, a "Hymeneal" on the Prince ofWales's Marriage, had appeared in the _Cambridge Collection_ in1736. ]

Hazlitt (_Lectures on English Poets_) says of this Ode: "It is moremechanical and commonplace [than the _Elegy_]; but it touches oncertain strings about the heart, that vibrate in unison with it toour latest breath. No one ever passes by Windsor's 'stately heights, 'or sees the distant spires of Eton College below, without thinking ofGray. He deserves that we should think of him; for he thought ofothers, and turned a trembling, ever-watchful ear to 'the still sadmusic of humanity. '"

The writer in the _North American Review_ (vol. Xcvi. ), afterreferring to the publication of this Ode, which, "according to thecustom of the time, was judiciously swathed in folio, " adds:

"About this time Gray's portrait was painted, at Walpole's request;and on the paper which he is represented as holding, Walpole wrotethe title of the Ode, with a line from Lucan:

 'Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre. '

The poem met with very little attention until it was republished in1751, with a few other of his Odes. Gray, in speaking of it toWalpole, in connection with the Ode to Spring, merely says that tohim 'the latter seems not worse than the former. ' But the former hasalways been the greater favourite--perhaps more from the matter thanthe manner. It is the expression of the memories, the thoughts, andthe feelings which arise unbidden in the mind of the man as he looksonce more on the scenes of his boyhood. He feels a new youth in thepresence of those old joys. But the old friends are not there. Generations have come and gone, and an unknown race now frolic inboyish glee. His sad, prophetic eye cannot help looking into thefuture, and comparing these careless joys with the inevitable ills oflife. Already he sees the fury passions in wait for their littlevictims. They seem present to him, like very demons. Our languagecontains no finer, more graphic personifications than these almosttangible shapes. Spenser is more circumstantial, Collins morevehement, but neither is more real. Though but outlines in miniature, they are as distinct as Dutch art. Every epithet is a lifelikepicture; not a word could be changed without destroying the tone ofthe whole. At last the musing poet asks himself, _Cui bono?_ Why thusborrow trouble from the future? Why summon so soon the cominglocusts, to poison before their time the glad waters of youth?

 'Yet ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late. And happiness too quickly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more;--where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise. '

So feeling and the want of feeling come together for once in themoral. The gay Roman satirist--the apostle of indifferentism--reachesthe same goal, though he has travelled a different road. ToThaliarchus he says:

 'Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere: et Quem Fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro Appone. '

The same easy-going philosophy of life forms the key-note of the Odeto Leuconoë:

 'Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero;'

of that to Quinctius Hirpinus:

 'Quid aeternis minorem Consiliis animum fatigas?'

of that to Pompeius Grosphus:

 'Laetus in praesens animus, quod ultra est, Oderit curare. '

And so with many others. 'Take no thought of the morrow. '"

Wakefield translates the Greek motto, "Man is an abundant subject ofcalamity. "

2. _That crown the watery glade_. Cf. Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 128:"And lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade. "

4. _Her Henry's holy shade_. Henry the Sixth, founder of the college. Cf. _The Bard_, ii. 3: "the meek usurper's holy head;" Shakes. _Rich. III. _ v. 1: "Holy King Henry;" _Id. _ iv. 4: "When holy Harry died. "The king, though never canonized, was regarded as a saint. 

5. _And ye_. Ye "towers;" that is, of Windsor Castle. Cf. Thomson, _Summer_, 1412:

 "And now to where Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow. "

8. _Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among_. "That is, the_turf_ of whose _lawn_, the _shade_ of whose _groves_, the _flowers_of whose mead" (Wakefield). Cf. _Hamlet_, iii. 1: "The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword. "

In Anglo-Saxon and Early English prepositions were often placed aftertheir objects. In the Elizabethan period the transposition of theweaker prepositions was not allowed, except in the compounds_whereto_, _herewith_, etc. (cf. The Latin _quocum_, _secum_), butthe longer forms were still, though rarely, transposed (see _Shakes. Gr. _ 203); and in more recent writers this latter license isextremely rare. Even the use of the preposition after the relative, which was very common in Shakespeare's day, is now avoided, except incolloquial style. 

9. _The hoary Thames_. The river-god is pictured in the old classicfashion. Cf. Milton, _Lycidas_, 103: "Next Camus, reverend sire, wentfooting slow. " See also quotation from Dryden in note on 21 below. 

[Illustration: THE RIVER-GOD TIBER. ]

10. _His silver-winding way_. Cf. Thomson, _Summer_, 1425: "Thematchless vale of Thames, Fair-winding up, " etc. 

12. _Ah, fields belov'd in vain!_ Mitford remarks that thisexpression has been considered obscure, and adds the followingexplanation: "The poem is written in the character of one whocontemplates this life as a scene of misfortune and sorrow, fromwhose fatal power the brief sunshine of youth is supposed to beexempt. The fields are _beloved_ as the scene of youthful pleasures, and as affording the promise of happiness to come; but this promisenever was fulfilled. Fate, which dooms man to misery, soonoverclouded these opening prospects of delight. That is in vainbeloved which does not realize the expectations it held out. No fruitbut that of disappointment has followed the blossoms of a thoughtlesshope. "

13. _Where once my careless childhood stray'd_. Wakefield citesThomson, _Winter_, 6:

 "with frequent foot Pleas'd have I, in my cheerful morn of life, When nurs'd by careless Solitude I liv'd, And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, Pleas'd have I wander'd, " etc. 

15. _That from ye blow_. In Early English _ye_ is nominative, _you_accusative (objective). This distinction, though observed in ourversion of the Bible, was disregarded by Elizabethan writers (Shakes. _Gr. _ 236), as it has occasionally been by the poets even to our ownday. Cf. Shakes. _Hen. VIII. _ iii. 1: "The more shame for ye; holymen I thought ye;" Milton, _Comus_, 216: "I see ye visibly, " etc. Dryden, in a couplet quoted by Guest, uses both forms in the sameline:

 "What gain you by forbidding it to tease ye? It now can neither trouble _you_ nor please ye. "

19. Gray quotes Dryden, _Fable on Pythag. Syst. _: "And bees theirhoney redolent of spring. "

21. _Say, father Thames_, etc. This invocation is taken from Green's_Grotto_:

 "Say, father Thames, whose gentle pace Gives leave to view, what beauties grace Your flowery banks, if you have seen. "

Cf. Dryden, _Annus Mirabilis_, st. 232: "Old father Thames raised uphis reverend head. "

Dr. Johnson, in his hypercritical comments on this Ode, says: "Hissupplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop ortosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no bettermeans of knowing than himself. " To which Mitford replies by asking, "Are we by this rule to judge the following passage in the twentiethchapter of _Rasselas_? 'As they were sitting together, the princesscast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: "Answer, " saidshe, "great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods througheighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a singlehabitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint. "'"

23. _Margent green_. Cf. _Comus_, 232: "By slow Mæander's margentgreen. "

24. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 233: "To Virtue, in the paths ofPleasure, trod. "

26. _Thy glassy wave_. Cf. _Comus_, 861: "Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave. "

27. _The captive linnet_. The adjective is redundant and "proleptic, "as the bird must be "enthralled" before it can be called "captive. "

28. In the MS. This line reads, "To chase the hoop's illusive speed, "which seems to us better than the revised form in the text. 

30. Cf. Pope, _Dunciad_, iv. 592: "The senator at cricket urge theball. "

37. Cf. Cowley, _Ode to Hobbes_, iv. 7: "Till unknown regions itdescries. "

40. _A fearful joy_. Wakefield quotes _Matt. _ xxviii. 8 and _Psalms_ii. 11. Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ i. 513:

 "Obstupuit simul ipse simul perculsus Achates Laetitiaque metuque. "

See also _Lear_, v. 3: "'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy andgrief. "

44. Cf. Pope, _Eloisa_, 209: "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind;"and _Essay on Man_, iv. 168: "The soul's calm sunshine, and theheartfelt joy. "

45. _Buxom_. Used here in its modern sense. It originally meantpliant, flexible, yielding (from A. S. _búgan_, to bow); then, gay, frolicsome, lively; and at last it became associated with the"cheerful comeliness" of vigorous health. Chaucer has "buxom to therlawe, " and Spenser (_State of Ireland_), "more tractable and buxometo his government. " Cf. Also _F. Q. _ i. 11, 37: "the buxome aire;" anexpression which Milton uses twice (_P. L. _ ii. 842, v. 270). In_L'Allegro_, 24: "So buxom, blithe, and debonaire;" the only otherinstance in which he uses the word, it means sprightly or "free" (asin "Come thou goddess, fair and free, " a few lines before). Cf. Shakes. _Pericles_, i. Prologue:

 "So buxom, blithe, and full of face, As heaven had lent her all his grace. "

The word occurs nowhere else in Shakes. Except _Hen. V. _ iii. 6: "Ofbuxom valour;" that is, lively valour. 

Dr. Johnson appears to have had in mind the original meaning of_buxom_ in his comment on this passage: "His epithet _buxom health_is not elegant; he seems not to understand the word. "

47. _Lively cheer_. Cf. Spenser, _Shep. Kal. _ Apr. : "In either cheekedepeincten lively chere;" Milton, _Ps. _ lxxxiv. 27: "With joy andgladsome cheer. "

49. Wakefield quotes Milton, _P. L. _ v. 3:

 "When Adam wak'd, so custom'd; for his sleep Was airy light, from pure digestion bred, And temperate vapours bland. "

51. _Regardless of their doom_. Collins, in the _first manuscript_ ofhis _Ode on the Death of Col. Ross_, has

 "E'en now, regardful of his doom, Applauding Honour haunts his tomb. "[2]

[Footnote 2: Mitford gives the first line as "E'en now, _regardless_of his doom;" and just below, on verse 61, he makes the line fromPope read, "The fury Passions from that _flood_ began. " We haveverified his quotations as far as possible, and have corrected scoresof errors in them. Quite likely there are some errors in those wehave not been able to verify. ]

55. _Yet see_, etc. Mitford cites Broome, _Ode on Melancholy_:

 "While round stern ministers of fate, Pain and Disease and Sorrow, wait;"

and Otway, _Alcibiades_, v. 2: "Then enter, ye grim ministers offate. " See also _Progress of Poesy_, ii. 1: "Man's feeble race, " etc. 

59. _Murtherous_. The obsolete spelling of _murderous_, still used inGray's time. 

61. _The fury Passions_. The passions, fierce and cruel as themythical Furies. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 167: "The furyPassions from that blood began. "

66. Mitford quotes Spenser, _F. Q. _:

 "But gnawing Jealousy out of their sight, Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bite. "

68. Wakefield quotes Milton, _Sonnet to Mr. Lawes_: "With praiseenough for Envy to look wan. "

69. _Grim-visag'd, comfortless Despair_. Cf. Shakes. _Rich. III_. I. 1: "Grim-visag'd War;" and _C. Of E. _ v. 1: "grim and comfortlessDespair. "

76. _Unkindness' altered eye_. "An ungraceful elision" of thepossessive inflection, as Mason calls it. Cf. Dryden, _Hind andPanther_, iii. : "Affected Kindness with an alter'd face. "

79. Gray quotes Dryden, _Pal. And Arc. _: "Madness laughing in hisireful mood. " Cf. Shakes. _Hen. VI. _ iv. 2: "But rather moody mad;"and iii. 1: "Moody discontented fury. "

81. _The vale of years_. Cf. _Othello_, iii. 3: "Declin'd Into thevale of years. "

82. _Grisly_. Not to be confounded with _grizzly_. See Wb. 

83. _The painful family of death_. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, ii. 118:"Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain;" and Dryden, _State ofInnocence_, v. 1: "With all the numerous family of Death. " On thewhole passage cf. Milton, _P. L. _ xi. 477-493. See also Virgil, _Æn. _vi. 275. 

86. _That every labouring sinew strains_. An example of the"correspondence of sound with sense. " As Pope says (_Essay onCriticism_, 371), "The line too labours, and the words move slow. "

90. _Slow-consuming Age_. Cf. Shenstone, _Love and Honour_: "Hisslow-consuming fires. "

95. As Wakefield remarks, we meet with the same thought in _Comus_, 359:

 "Peace, brother, be not over-exquisite To cast the fashion of uncertain evils; For grant they be so, while they rest unknown What need a man forestall his date of grief, And run to meet what he would most avoid?"

97. _Happiness too swiftly flies_. Perhaps a reminiscence of Virgil, _Geo. _ iii. 66:

 "Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit. "

98. _Thought would destroy their paradise_. Wakefield quotesSophocles, _Ajax_, 554: [Greek: En tôi phronein gar mêden hêdistosbios] ("Absence of thought is prime felicity"). 

99. Cf. Prior, _Ep. To Montague_, st. 9:

 "From ignorance our comfort flows, The only wretched are the wise. "

and Davenant, _Just Italian_: "Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, it is not safe to know. "

[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, FROM THE END OF THE LONG WALK. ]

[Illustration: HOMER ENTHRONED. ]

THE PROGRESS OF POESY. 

This Ode, as we learn from one of Gray's letters to Walpole, wasfinished, with the exception of a few lines, in 1755. It was notpublished until 1757, when it appeared with _The Bard_ in a quartovolume, which was the first issue of Walpole's press at StrawberryHill. In one of his letters Walpole writes: "I send you two copies ofa very honourable opening of my press--two amazing odes of Mr. Gray. They are Greek, they are Pindaric, they are sublime, consequently Ifear a little obscure; the second particularly, by the confinement ofthe measure and the nature of prophetic vision, is mysterious. Icould not persuade him to add more notes. " In another letter Walpolesays: "I found Gray in town last week; he had brought his two odes tobe printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley's hands, and they are tobe the first-fruits of my press. " The title-page of the volume is asfollows:

 ODES BY MR. GRAY. [Greek: PHÔNANTA SUNETOISI]--PINDAR, Olymp, II. PRINTED AT STRAWBERRY-HILL, for R. And J. DODSLEY in Pall-Mall. MDCCLVII. 

Both Odes were coldly received at first. "Even my friends, " writesGray, in a letter to Hurd, Aug. 25, 1757, "tell me they do not_succeed_, and write me moving topics of consolation on that head. Inshort, I have heard of nobody but an Actor [Garrick] and a Doctor ofDivinity [Warburton] that profess their esteem for them. Oh yes, aLady of quality (a friend of Mason's) who is a great reader. She knewthere was a compliment to Dryden, but never suspected there wasanything said about Shakespeare or Milton, till it was explained toher, and wishes that there had been titles prefixed to tell what theywere about. "[1] In a letter to Dr. Wharton, dated Aug. 17, 1757, hesays: "I hear we are not at all popular. The great objection isobscurity, nobody knows what we would be at. One man (a Peer) I havebeen told of, that thinks the last stanza of the 2d Ode relates toCharles the First and Oliver Cromwell; in short, the [Greek: Sunetoi]appear to be still fewer than even I expected. " A writer in the_Critical Review_ thought that "Æolian lyre" meant the Æolian harp. Coleman the elder and Robert Lloyd wrote parodies entitled Odes toObscurity and Oblivion. Gray finally had to add explanatory notes, though he intimates that his readers ought not to have neededthem. [2]

[Footnote 1: Forster remarks that Gray might have added to theadmirers of the Odes "the poor monthly critic of _TheDunciad_"--Oliver Goldsmith, then beginning his London career as abookseller's hack. In a review of the Odes in the _London MonthlyReview_ for Sept. , 1757, after citing certain passages of _The Bard_, he says that they "will give as much pleasure to those who relishthis species of composition as anything that has hitherto appeared inour language, the odes of Dryden himself not excepted. "]

[Footnote 2: In a foot-note he says: "When the author first publishedthis and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his friends, tosubjoin some few explanatory notes; but had too much respect for theunderstanding of his readers to take that liberty. "

In a letter to Beattie, dated Feb. 1, 1768, referring to the newedition of his poems, he says: "As to the notes, I do it out ofspite, because the public did not understand the two Odes (which Ihave called Pindaric), though the first was not very dark, and thesecond alluded to a few common facts to be found in any sixpennyhistory of England, by way of question and answer, for the use ofchildren. " And in a letter to Walpole, Feb. 25, 1768, he says he hasadded "certain little Notes, partly from justice (to acknowledge thedebt where I had borrowed anything), partly from ill temper, just totell the gentle reader that Edward I. Was not Oliver Cromwell, norQueen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor. "

Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, said that "if the Bard recited hisOde only _once_ to Edward, he was sure he could not understand it. "When this was told to Gray, he said, "If he had recited it twentytimes, Edward would not have been a bit wiser; but that was no reasonwhy Mr. Fox should not. "]

"The metre of these Odes is constructed on Greek models. It is notuniform but symmetrical. The nine stanzas of each ode form threegroups. A slight examination will show that the 1st, 4th, and 7thstanzas are exactly inter-correspondent; so the 2d, 5th, and 8th; andso the remaining three. The technical Greek names for these threeparts were [Greek: strophê] (strophe), [Greek: antistrophê](antistrophe), and [Greek: epôdos] (epodos)--the Turn, theCounter-turn, and the After-song--names derived from the theatre; theTurn denoting the movement of the Chorus from one side of the [Greek:orchêstra] (orchestra), or Dance-stage, to the other, theCounter-turn the reverse movement, the After-song something sungafter two such movements. Odes thus constructed were called by theGreeks Epodic. Congreve is said to have been the first who soconstructed English odes. This system cannot be said to haveprospered with us. Perhaps no English ear would instinctivelyrecognize that correspondence between distant parts which is thesecret of it. Certainly very many readers of _The Progress of Poesy_are wholly unconscious of any such harmony" (Hales). 

[Illustration: ALCÆUS AND SAPPHO. FROM A PAINTING ON A VASE. ]

1. _Awake, Æolian lyre_. The blunder of the Critical Reviewers whosupposed the "harp of Æolus" to be meant led Gray to insert thisnote: "Pindar styles his own poetry with its musical accompaniments, [Greek: Aiolis molpê, Aiolides chordai, Aiolidôn pnoai aulôn], Æoliansong, Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute. "

Cf. Cowley, _Ode of David_: "Awake, awake, my lyre!" Gray himselfquotes _Ps. _ lvii. 8. The first reading of the line in the MS. Was, "Awake, my lyre: my glory, wake. " Gray also adds the following note:"The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. Thevarious sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all ittouches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enrichingevery subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction andluxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistiblecourse, when swollen and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuouspassions. "

2. _And give to rapture_. The first reading of the MS. Was "give totransport. "

3. _Helicon's harmonious springs_. In the mountain range of Helicon, in Boeotia, there were two fountains sacred to the Muses, Aganippeand Hippocrene, of which the former was the more famous. 

7. Cf. Pope, _Hor. Epist. _ ii. 2, 171:

 "Pour the full tide of eloquence along, Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong;"

and _Ode on St. Cecilia's Day_, 11:

 "The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow;"

also Thomson, _Liberty_, ii. 257:

 "In thy full language speaking mighty things, Like a clear torrent close, or else diffus'd A broad majestic stream, and rolling on Through all the winding harmony of sound. "

9. Cf. Shenstone, _Inscr. _: "Verdant vales and fountains bright;"also Virgil, _Geo. _ i. 96: "Flava Ceres;" and Homer, _Il. _ v. 499:[Greek: xanthê Dêmêtêr]. 

10. _Rolling_. Spelled "rowling" in the 1st and other early editions. 

_Amain_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 111: "The golden opes, the iron shuts amain;"_P. L. _ ii. 165: "when we fled amain, " etc. Also Shakes. _Temp. _ iv. 1: "Her peacocks fly amain, " etc. The word means literally _withmain_ (which we still use in "might and main"), that is, with forceor strength. Cf. Horace, _Od. _ iv. 2, 8: "Immensusque ruit profundoPindarus ore. "

11. The first MS. Reading was, "With torrent rapture see it pour. "

12. Cf. Dryden, _Virgil's Geo. _ i. : "And rocks the bellowing voice ofboiling seas resound;" Pope, _Iliad_: "Rocks rebellow to the roar. "

13. "Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. Thethoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar" (Gray). 

14. _Solemn-breathing airs_. Cf. _Comus_, 555: "a soft andsolemn-breathing sound. "

15. _Enchanting shell_. That is, lyre; alluding to the myth of theorigin of the instrument, which Mercury was said to have made fromthe shell of a tortoise. Cf. Collins, _Passions_, 3: "The Passionsoft, to hear her shell, " etc. 

17. _On Thracia's hills_. Thrace was one of the chief seats of theworship of Mars. Cf. Ovid, _Ars Am. _ ii. 588: "Mars Thracen occupat. "See also Virgil, _Æn. _ iii. 35, etc. 

19. _His thirsty lance_. Cf. Spenser, _F. Q. _ i. 5, 15: "his thristy[thirsty] blade. "

20. Gray says, "This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines inthe same ode;" that is, in "the first Pythian of Pindar, " referred toin the note on 13. The passage is an address to the lyre, and istranslated by Wakefield thus:

 "On Jove's imperial rod the king of birds Drops down his flagging wings; thy thrilling sounds Soothe his fierce beak, and pour a sable cloud Of slumber on his eyelids: up he lifts His flexile back, shot by thy piercing darts. Mars smooths his rugged brow, and nerveless drops His lance, relenting at the choral song. "

21. _The feather'd king_. Cf. Shakes. _Phoenix and Turtle_:

 "Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king. "

23. _Dark clouds_. The first reading of MS. Was "black clouds. "

24. _The terror_. This is the reading of the first ed. And also ofthat of 1768. Most of the modern eds. Have "terrors. "

25. "Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in thebody" (Gray). 

26. _Temper'd_. Modulated, "set. " Cf. _Lycidas_, 33: "Tempered to theoaten flute;" Fletcher, _Purple Island_: "Tempering their sweetestnotes unto thy lay, " etc. 

27. _O'er Idalia's velvet-green_. _Idalia_ appears to be used for_Idalium_, which was a town in Cyprus, and a favourite seat of Venus, who was sometimes called _Idalia_. Pope likewise uses _Idalia_ forthe place, in his _First Pastoral_, 65: "Celestial Venus hauntsIdalia's groves. "

Dr. Johnson finds fault with _velvet-green_, apparently supposing itto be a compound of Gray's own making. But Young had used it in his_Love of Fame_: "She rears her flowers, and spreads hervelvet-green. " It is also among the expressions of Pope which areridiculed in the _Alexandriad_. 

29. _Cytherea_ was a name of Venus, derived from _Cythera_, an islandin the Ægean Sea, one of the favourite residences of Aphrodite, orVenus. Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ i. 680: "super alta Cythera Aut superIdalium, sacrata sede, " etc. 

30. _With antic Sports_. This is the reading of the 1st ed. And alsoof the ed. Of 1768. Some eds. Have "sport. "

_Antic_ is the same word as _antique_. The association between whatis old or old-fashioned and what is odd, fantastic, or grotesque isobvious enough. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens. _ 158: "With antick pillarsmassy-proof. " In _S. A. _ 1325 he uses the word as a noun: "Jugglersand dancers, anticks, mummers, mimicks. " Shakes. Makes it a verb in_A. And C. _ ii. 7: "the wild disguise hath almost Antick'd us all. "

31. Cf. Thomson, _Spring_, 835: "In friskful glee Their frolicsplay. "

32, 33. Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ v. 580 foll. 

35. Gray quotes Homer, _Od. _ ix. 265: [Greek: marmarugas thêeitopodôn thaumaze de thumôi]. Cf. Catullus's "fulgentem plantam. " Seealso Thomson, _Spring_, 158: "the many-twinkling leaves Of aspintall. "

36. _Slow-melting strains_, etc. Cf. A poem by Barton Booth, published in 1733:

 "Now to a slow and melting air she moves, So like in air, in shape, in mien, She passes for the Paphian queen; The Graces all around her play, The wondering gazers die away; Whether her easy body bend, Or her fair bosom heave with sighs; Whether her graceful arms extend, Or gently fall, or slowly rise; Or returning or advancing, Swimming round, or sidelong glancing, Strange force of motion that subdues the soul. "

37. Cf. Dryden, _Flower and Leaf_, 191: "For wheresoe'er she turn'dher face, they bow'd. "

39. Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ i. 405: "Incessu patuit dea. " The gods wererepresented as gliding or sailing along without moving their feet. 

41. _Purple light of love_. Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ i. 590: "lumenquejuventae Purpureum. " Gray quotes Phrynichus, _apud_ Athenæum:

 [Greek: lampei d' epi porphureêisi pareiêisi phôs erôtos. ]

See also Dryden, _Brit. Red. _ 133: "and her own purple light. "

42. "To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse wasgiven to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day by itscheerful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night"(Gray). 

43 foll. See on _Eton Coll. _ 83. Cf. Horace, _Od. _ i. 3, 29-33. 

46. _Fond complaint_. Foolish complaint. Cf. Shakes. _M. Of V. _ iii. 3:

 "I do wonder, Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond To come abroad with him at his request;"

Milton, _S. A. _ 812: "fond and reasonless, " etc. This appears to bethe original meaning of the word. In Wiclif's Bible. 1 _Cor. _ i. 27, we have "the thingis that ben _fonnyd_ of the world. " In _TwelfthNight_, ii. 2, the word is used as a verb=dote:

 "And I, poor monster, fond as much on him, As she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. "

49. Hurd quotes Cowley:

 "Night and her ugly subjects thou dost fright, And Sleep, the lazy owl of night; Asham'd and fearful to appear, They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere. "

Wakefield cites Milton, _Hymn on Nativity_, 233 foll. : "The flockingshadows pale, " etc. See also _P. R. _ iv. 419-431. 

50. _Birds of boding cry_. Cf. Green's _Grotto_: "news the bodingnight-birds tell. "

52. Gray refers to Cowley, _Brutus_:

 "One would have thought 't had heard the morning crow, Or seen her well-appointed star. Come marching up the eastern hill afar. "

The following variations on 52 and 53 are found in the MS. :

 Till fierce Hyperion from afar Pours on their scatter'd rear, | Hurls at " flying " | his glittering shafts of war. " o'er " scatter'd " | " " " shadowy " | Till " " " " from far Hyperion hurls around his, etc. 

The accent of _Hyperion_ is properly on the penult, which is long inquantity, but the English poets, with rare exceptions, have thrown itback upon the antepenult. It is thus in the six instances in whichShakes. Uses the word: e. G. _Hamlet_, iii. 4: "Hyperion's curls; thefront of Jove himself. " The word does not occur in Milton. It iscorrectly accented by Drummond (of Hawthornden), _Wand. Muses_:

 "That Hyperion far beyond his bed Doth see our lions ramp, our roses spread;"

by West, _Pindar's Ol. _ viii. 22:

 "Then Hyperion's son, pure fount of day, Did to his children the strange tale reveal;"

also by Akenside, and by the author of the old play _Fuimus Troes_(A. D. 1633):

 "Blow, gentle Africus, Play on our poops when Hyperion's son Shall couch in west. "

Hyperion was a Titan, the father of Helios (the Sun), Selene (theMoon), and Eos (the Dawn). He was represented with the attributes ofbeauty and splendor afterwards ascribed to Apollo. His "glitteringshafts" are of course the sunbeams, the "lucida tela diei" ofLucretius. Cf. A very beautiful description of the dawn in Lowell's_Above and Below_:

 "'Tis from these heights alone your eyes The advancing spears of day can see, Which o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, To break your long captivity. "

We may quote also his _Vision of Sir Launfal_:

 "It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall In his siege of three hundred summers long, " etc. 

54. Gray's note here is as follows: "Extensive influence of poeticgenius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations; its connectionwith liberty and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See theErse, Norwegian, and Welsh fragments; the Lapland and Americansongs. ]" He also quotes Virgil, _Æn. _ vi. 796: "Extra anni solisquevias, " and Petrarch, _Canz. _ 2: "Tutta lontana dal camin del sole. "Cf. Also Dryden, _Thren. August. _ 353: "Out of the solar walk andHeaven's highway;" _Ann. Mirab. _ st. 160: "Beyond the year, and outof Heaven's highway;" _Brit. Red. _: "Beyond the sunny walks andcircling year;" also Pope, _Essay on Man_, i. 102: "Far as the solarwalk and milky way. "

56. _Twilight gloom_. Wakefield quotes Milton, _Hymn on Nativ. _ 188:"The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. "

57. Wakefield says, "It almost chills one to read this verse. " TheMS. Variations are "buried native's" and "chill abode. "

60. _Repeat_ [_their chiefs_, etc. ]. Sing of them again and again. 

61. _In loose numbers_, etc. Cf. Milton, _L'All. _ 133:

 "Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild;"

and Horace, _Od. _ iv. 2, 11:

 "numerisque fertur Lege solutis. "

62. _Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs_. Cf. _P. L. _ ix. 1115:

 "Such of late Columbus found the American, so girt With feather'd cincture. "

64. _Glory pursue_. Wakefield remarks that this use of a plural verbafter the first of a series of subjects is in Pindar's manner. Wartoncompares Homer, _Il. _ v. 774:

 [Greek: hêchi rhoas Simoeis sumballeton êde Skamandros. ]

Dugald Stewart (_Philos. Of Human Mind_) says: "I cannot helpremarking the effect of the solemn and uniform flow of verse in thisexquisite stanza, in retarding the pronunciation of the reader, so asto arrest his attention to every successive picture, till it has timeto produce its proper impression. "

65. _Freedom's holy flame_. Cf. Akenside, _Pleas. Of Imag. _ i. 468:"Love's holy flame. "

[Illustration: THE VALE OF TEMPE. ]

66. "Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy toEngland. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante orof Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled inItaly, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italianwriters; Milton improved on them: but this school expired soon afterthe Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which hassubsisted ever since" (Gray). 

_Delphi's steep_. Cf. Milton, _Hymn on Nativ. _ 178: "the steep ofDelphos;" _P. L. _ i. 517: "the Delphian cliff. " Both Shakes. AndMilton prefer the mediæval form _Delphos_ to the more usual _Delphi_. Delphi was at the foot of the southern uplands of Parnassus which end"in a precipitous cliff, 2000 feet high, rising to a double peaknamed the Phædriades, from their glittering appearance as they facedthe rays of the sun" (Smith's _Anc. Geog. _). 

67. _Isles_, etc. Cf. Byron:

 "The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, " etc. 

68. _Ilissus_. This river, rising on the northern slope of Hymettus, flows through the east side of Athens. 

69. _Mæander's amber waves_. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ iii. 359: "Rollso'er Elysian flowers her amber stream;" _P. R. _ iii. 288: "There Susaby Choaspes, amber stream. " See also Virgil, _Geo. _ iii. 520: "Puriorelectro campum petit amnis. " Callimachus (_Cer. _ 29) has [Greek:alektrinon hudôr]. 

70. Ovid, _Met. _ viii. 162, describes the Mæander thus:

 "Non secus ac liquidis Phrygiis Maeandros in arvis Ludit, et ambiguo lapsu refluitque fluitque. "

Cf. Also Virgil's description of the Mincius (_Geo. _ iii. 15):

 --"tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat Mincius. "

"The first great metropolis of Hellenic intellectual life was Miletuson the Mæander. Thales, Anaximander, Anaximines, Cadmus, Hecatæus, etc. , were all Milesians" (Hales). 

71 foll. Cf. Milton, _Hymn on Nativ. _ 181:

 "The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent:" etc. 

75. _Hallowed fountain_. Cf. Virgil, _Ecl. _ i. 53: "fontes sacros. "

76. The MS. Has "Murmur'd a celestial sound. "

80. _Vice that revels in her chains_. In his _Ode for Music_, 6, Grayhas "Servitude that hugs her chain. "

81. Hales quotes Collins, _Ode to Simplicity_:

 "While Rome could none esteem But Virtue's patriot theme, You lov'd her hills, and led her laureate band; But staid to sing alone To one distinguish'd throne, And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land. "

84. _Nature's darling_. "Shakespeare" (Gray). Cf. Cleveland, _Poems_:

 "Here lies within this stony shade Nature's darling; whom she made Her fairest model, her brief story, In him heaping all her glory. "

On _green lap_, cf. Milton, _Song on May Morning_:

 "The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. "

85. _Lucid Avon_. Cf. Seneca, _Thyest. _ 129: "gelido flumine lucidusAlpheos. "

86. _The mighty mother_. That is, Nature. Pope, in the _Dunciad_, i. 1, uses the same expression in a satirical way:

 "The Mighty Mother, and her Son, who brings The Smithfield Muses to the ear of kings, I sing. "

See also Dryden, _Georgics_, i. 466:

 "On the green turf thy careless limbs display, And celebrate the mighty mother's day. "

87. _The dauntless child_. Cf. Horace, _Od. _ iii. 4, 20: "non sinedis animosus infans. " Wakefield quotes Virgil, _Ecl. _ iv. 60:"Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem. " Mitford points out thatthe identical expression occurs in Sandys's translation of Ovid, _Met. _ iv. 515:

 "the child Stretch'd forth its little arms, and on him smil'd. "

See also Catullus, _In Nupt. Jun. Et Manl. _ 216:

 "Torquatus volo parvulus Matris e gremio suae Porrigens teneras manus, Dulce rideat. "

91. _These golden keys_. Cf. Young, _Resig. _:

 "Nature, which favours to the few All art beyond imparts, To him presented at his birth The key of human hearts. "

Wakefield cites _Comus_, 12:

 "Yet some there be, that with due steps aspire To lay their hands upon that golden key That opes the palace of eternity. "

See also _Lycidas_, 110:

 "Two massy keys he bore of metals twain; The golden opes, the iron shuts amain. "

93. _Of horror_. A MS. Variation is "Of terror. "

94. _Or ope the sacred source_. In a letter to Dr. Wharton, Sept. 7, 1757, Gray mentions, among other criticisms upon this ode, that "Dr. Akenside criticises opening a _source_ with a _key_. " But, as Mitfordremarks, Akenside himself in his _Ode on Lyric Poetry_ has, "While Iso late _unlock_ thy purer _springs_, " and in his _Pleasures ofImagination_, "I _unlock_ the _springs_ of ancient wisdom. "

95. _Nor second he_, etc. "Milton" (Gray). 

96, 97. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ vii. 12:

 "Up led by thee, Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed, An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air. "

98. _The flaming bounds_, etc. Gray quotes Lucretius, i. 74:"Flammantia moenia mundi. " Cf. Also Horace, _Epist. _ i. 14, 9: "amatspatiis obstantia rumpere claustra. "

99. Gray quotes _Ezekiel_ i. 20, 26, 28. See also Milton, _At aSolemn Music_, 7: "Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne;" _IlPens. _ 53: "the fiery-wheeled throne;" _P. L. _ vi. 758:

 "Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pure Amber, and colours of the showery arch;"

and _id. _ vi. 771:

 "He on the wings of cherub rode sublime, On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned. "

101. _Blasted with excess of light_. Cf. _P. L. _ iii. 380: "Dark withexcessive bright thy skirts appear. "

102. Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ x. 746: "in aeternam clauduntur luminanoctem, " which Dryden translates, "And closed her lids at last inendless night. " Gray quotes Homer, _Od. _ viii. 64:

 [Greek: Ophthalmôn men amerses, didou d' hêdeian aoidên. ]

103. Gray, according to Mason, "admired Dryden almost beyondbounds. "[3]

[Footnote 3: In a journey through Scotland in 1765, Gray becameacquainted with Beattie, to whom he commended the study of Dryden, adding that "if there was any excellence in his own numbers, he hadlearned it wholly from the great poet. "]

105. "Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy ofDryden's rhymes" (Gray). Cf. Pope, _Imit. Of Hor. Ep. _ ii. 1, 267:

 "Waller was smooth: but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full-resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine. "

106. Gray quotes _Job_ xxxix. 19: "Hast thou clothed his neck withthunder?"

108. _Bright-eyed_. The MS. Has "full-plumed. "

110. Gray quotes Cowley, _Prophet_: "Words that weep, and tears thatspeak. "

Dugald Stewart remarks upon this line: "I have sometimes thought thatGray had in view the two different effects of words alreadydescribed; the effect of some in awakening the powers of conceptionand imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions. "

111. "We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kindthan that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley (who had hismerit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. Thatof Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of latedays, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in someof his choruses; above all in the last of _Caractacus_:

 'Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread!' etc. " (Gray). 

113. _Wakes thee now_. Cf. _Elegy_, 48: "Or wak'd to ecstasy theliving lyre. "

115. "[Greek: Dios pros ornicha theion]. _Olymp. _ ii. 159. Pindarcompares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croakand clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless oftheir noise" (Gray). 

Cf. Spenser, _F. Q. _ v. 4, 42:

 "Like to an Eagle, in his kingly pride Soring through his wide Empire of the aire, To weather his brode sailes. "

Cowley, in his translation of Horace, _Od. _ iv. 2, calls Pindar "theTheban swan" ("Dircaeum cycnum"):

 "Lo! how the obsequious wind and swelling air The Theban Swan does upward bear. "

117. _Azure deep of air_. Cf. Euripides, _Med. _ 1294: [Greek: esaitheros bathos]; and Lucretius, ii. 151: "Aëris in magnum ferturmare. " Cowley has "Row through the trackless ocean of air;" andShakes. (_T. Of A. _ iv. 2), "this sea of air. "

118, 119. The MS. Reads:

 "Yet when they first were open'd on the day Before his visionary eyes would run. "

D. Stewart (_Philos. Of Human Mind_) remarks that "Gray, indescribing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed withexquisite judgment on that class of our conceptions which are derivedfrom _visible_ objects. "

120. _With orient hues_. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ i. 546: "with orientcolours waving. "

122. The MS. Has "Yet never can he fear a vulgar fate. "

123. Cf. K. Philips: "Still shew'd how much the good outshone thegreat. "

We append, as a curiosity of criticism, Dr. Johnson's comments onthis ode, from his _Lives of the Poets_. The Life of Gray has beencalled "the worst in the series, " and perhaps this is the worst partof it:[4]

"My process has now brought me to the _wonderful_ 'Wonder ofWonders, ' the two Sister Odes, by which, though either vulgarignorance or common-sense at first universally rejected them, manyhave been since persuaded to think themselves delighted. I am one ofthose that are willing to be pleased, and therefore would gladly findthe meaning of the first stanza of 'The Progress of Poetry. '

"Gray seems in his rapture to confound the images of spreading soundand running water. A 'stream of music' may be allowed; but where does'music, ' however 'smooth and strong, ' after having visited the'verdant vales, roll down the steep amain, ' so as that 'rocks andnodding groves rebellow to the roar?' If this be said of music, it isnonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the purpose. 

"The second stanza, exhibiting Mars's car and Jove's eagle, isunworthy of further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboyto his commonplaces. 

"To the third it may likewise be objected that it is drawn frommythology, though such as may be more easily assimilated to reallife. Idalia's 'velvet-green' has something of cant. An epithet ormetaphor drawn from Nature ennobles Art; an epithet or metaphor drawnfrom Art degrades Nature. Gray is too fond of words arbitrarilycompounded. 'Many-twinkling' was formerly censured as not analogical;we may say 'many-spotted, ' but scarcely 'many-spotting. ' This stanza, however, has something pleasing. 

"Of the second ternary of stanzas, the first endeavours to tellsomething, and would have told it, had it not been crossed byHyperion; the second describes well enough the universal prevalenceof poetry; but I am afraid that the conclusion will not arise fromthe premises. The caverns of the North and the plains of Chili arenot the residences of 'Glory and generous Shame. ' But that Poetry andVirtue go always together is an opinion so pleasing that I canforgive him who resolves to think it true. 

"The third stanza sounds big with 'Delphi, ' and 'Ægean, ' and'Ilissus, ' and 'Mæander, ' and with 'hallowed fountains, ' and 'solemnsound;' but in all Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrous splendourwhich we wish away. His position is at last false: in the time ofDante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by 'tyrant power' and 'coward vice;' nor was ourstate much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts. 

"Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth ofShakespeare. What is said of that mighty genius is true; but it isnot said happily: the real effects of this poetical power are put outof sight by the pomp of machinery. Where truth is sufficient to fillthe mind, fiction is worse than useless; the counterfeit debases thegenuine. 

"His account of Milton's blindness, if we suppose it caused by studyin the formation of his poem, a supposition surely allowable, ispoetically true and happily imagined. But the _car_ of Dryden, withhis _two coursers_, has nothing in it peculiar; it is a car in whichany other rider may be placed. "

[Footnote 4: Sir James Mackintosh well says of Johnson's criticisms:"Wherever understanding alone is sufficient for poetical criticism, the decisions of Johnson are generally right. But the beauties ofpoetry must be _felt_ before their causes are investigated. There isa poetical sensibility, which in the progress of the mind becomes asdistinct a power as a musical ear or a picturesque eye. Without aconsiderable degree of this sensibility, it is as vain for a man ofthe greatest understanding to speak of the higher beauties of poetryas it is for a blind man to speak of colours. To adopt the warmestsentiments of poetry, to realize its boldest imagery, to yield toevery impulse of enthusiasm, to submit to the illusions of fancy, toretire with the poet into his ideal worlds, were dispositions whollyforeign from the worldly sagacity and stern shrewdness of Johnson. Asin his judgment of life and character, so in his criticism on poetry, he was a sort of Free-thinker. He suspected the refined ofaffectation, he rejected the enthusiastic as absurd, and he took itfor granted that the mysterious was unintelligible. He came into theworld when the school of Dryden and Pope gave the law to Englishpoetry. In that school he had himself learned to be a lofty andvigorous declaimer in harmonious verse; beyond that school hisunforced admiration perhaps scarcely soared; and his highest effortof criticism was accordingly the noble panegyric on Dryden. "

W. H. Prescott, the historian, also remarks that Johnson, as acritic, "was certainly deficient in sensibility to the more delicate, the minor beauties of poetic sentiment. He analyzes verse in thecold-blooded spirit of a chemist, until all the aroma whichconstituted its principal charm escapes in the decomposition. By thiskind of process, some of the finest fancies of the Muse, the loftydithyrambics of Gray, the ethereal effusions of Collins, and ofMilton too, are rendered sufficiently vapid. "]

[Illustration: PINDAR. ]

[Illustration: EDWARD I. ]

THE BARD. 

"This ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales that Edward theFirst, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered allthe bards that fell into his hands to be put to death" (Gray). 

The original argument of the ode, as Gray had set it down in hiscommonplace-book, was as follows: "The army of Edward I. , as theymarch through a deep valley, and approach Mount Snowdon, are suddenlystopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summitof an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the desolation and misery which he hadbrought on his country; foretells the misfortunes of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares that all his cruelty shall neverextinguish the noble ardour of poetic genius in this island; and thatmen shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valour inimmortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldlycensure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitateshimself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river thatrolls at its feet. "

Mitford, in his "Essay on the Poetry of Gray, " says of this Ode: "Thetendency of _The Bard_ is to show the retributive justice thatfollows an act of tyranny and wickedness; to denounce on Edward, inhis person and his progeny, the effect of the crime he had committedin the massacre of the bards; to convince him that neither his powernor situation could save him from the natural and necessaryconsequences of his guilt; that not even the virtues which hepossessed could atone for the vices with which they were accompanied:

 'Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail, Nor e'en thy _virtues_, tyrant, shall avail. '

This is the real tendency of the poem; and well worthy it was ofbeing adorned and heightened by such a profusion of splendid imagesand beautiful machinery. We must also observe how much this moralfeeling increases as we approach the close; how the poem rises indignity; and by what a fine gradation the solemnity of the subjectascends. The Bard commenced his song with feelings of sorrow for hisdeparted brethren and his desolate country. This despondence, however, has given way to emotions of a nobler and more exaltednature. What can be more magnificent than the vision which opensbefore him to display the triumph of justice and the final glory ofhis cause? And it may be added, what can be more forcible or emphaticthan the language in which it is conveyed?

 'But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height, Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll? Visions of glory, spare my aching sight! _Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!_'

The fine apostrophe to the shade of Taliessin completes the pictureof exultation:

 'Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear; They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. '

The triumph of justice, therefore, is now complete. The vanquishedhas risen superior to his conqueror, and the reader closes the poemwith feelings of content and satisfaction. He has seen the Barduplifted both by a divine energy and by the natural superiority ofvirtue; and the conqueror has shrunk into a creature of hatred andabhorrence:

 'Be thine despair, and sceptred care; To triumph, and to die, are mine. '"

With regard to the _obscurity_ of the poem, the same writer remarksthat "it is such only as of necessity arises from the plan andconduct of a prophecy. " "In the prophetic poem, " he adds, "one pointof history alone is told, and the rest is to be acquired previouslyby the reader; as in the contemplation of an historical picture, which commands only one moment of time, our memory must supply uswith the necessary links of knowledge; and that point of timeselected by the painter must be illustrated by the spectator'sknowledge of the past or future, of the cause or the consequences. "

He refers, for corroboration of this opinion, to Dr. Campbell, who inhis "Philosophy of Rhetoric, " says: "I know no style to whichdarkness of a certain sort is more suited than to the prophetical:many reasons might be assigned which render it improper that prophecyshould be perfectly understood before it be accomplished. Besides, weare certain that a prediction may be very dark before theaccomplishment, and yet so plain afterwards as scarcely to admit adoubt in regard to the events suggested. It does not belong tocritics to give laws to prophets, nor does it fall within theconfines of any human art to lay down rules for a species ofcomposition so far above art. Thus far, however, we may warrantablyobserve, that when the prophetic style is imitated in poetry, thepiece ought, as much as possible, to possess the character abovementioned. This character, in my opinion, is possessed in a veryeminent degree by Mr. Gray's ode called _The Bard_. It is alldarkness to one who knows nothing of the English history posterior tothe reign of Edward the First, and all light to one who is acquaintedwith that history. But this is a kind of writing whose peculiaritiescan scarcely be considered as exceptions from ordinary rules. "

Farther on in the same essay, Mitford remarks: "The skill of Gray is, I think, eminently shown in the superior distinctness with which hehas marked those parts of his prophecies which are speedily to beaccomplished; and in the gradations by which, as he descends, he hasinsensibly melted the more remote into the deeper and deepershadowings of general language. The first prophecy is the fate ofEdward the Second. In that the Bard has pointed out the very night inwhich he is to be destroyed; has named the river that flowed aroundhis prison, and the castle that was the scene of his sufferings:

 'Mark the _year_, and mark the _night_, When _Severn_ shall re-echo with affright The shrieks of death thro' Berkeley's roofs that ring, Shrieks of an agonizing king. '

How different is the imagery when Richard the Second is described;and how indistinctly is the luxurious monarch marked out in the formof the morning, and his country in the figure of the vessel!

 'The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born? Gone to salute the rising morn. Fair laughs the morn, ' etc. 

The last prophecy is that of the civil wars, and of the death of thetwo young princes. No place, no name is now noted: and all is seenthrough the dimness of figurative expression:

 'Above, below, the rose of snow, Twin'd with her blushing foe, we spread: The bristled boar in infant gore Wallows beneath the thorny shade. '"

Hales remarks: "It is perhaps scarcely now necessary to say that thetradition on which _The Bard_ is founded is wholly groundless. EdwardI. Never did massacre Welsh bards. Their name is legion in thebeginning of the 14th century. Miss Williams, the latest historian ofWales, does not even mention the old story. "[1]

[Footnote 1: The _Saturday Review_, for June 19, 1875, in the articlefrom which we have elsewhere quoted (p. 79, foot-note), refers tothis point as follows:

"Gray was one of the first writers to show that earlier parts ofEnglish history were not only worth attending to, but were capable ofpoetic treatment. We can almost forgive him for dressing up in hissplendid verse a foul and baseless calumny against Edward the First, when we remember that to most of Gray's contemporaries Edward theFirst must have seemed a person almost mythical, a benighted Popishsavage, of whom there was very little to know, and that little hardlyworth knowing. Our feeling towards Gray in this matter is much thesame as our feeling towards Mitford in the matter of Greek history. We are angry with Mitford for misrepresenting Demosthenes and a crowdof other Athenian worthies, but we do not forget that he was thefirst to deal with Demosthenes and his fellows, neither as mere namesnor as demi-gods, but as real living men like ourselves. It was apity to misrepresent Demosthenes, but even the misrepresentation wassomething; it showed that Demosthenes could be made the subject ofhuman feeling one way or another. It is unpleasant to hear the Kingwhose praise it was that

 'Velox est ad veniam, ad vindictam tardus, '

spoken of as 'ruthless, ' and the rest of it. But Gray at least feltthat Edward was a real man, while to most of his contemporaries hecould have been little more than 'the figure of an old Gothic king, 'such as Sir Roger de Coverley looked when he sat in Edward's ownchair. "]

1. A good example of alliteration. 

2. Cf. Shakes. _K. John_, iv. 2: "and vast confusion waits. "

4. Gray quotes _K. John_, v. 1: "Mocking the air with colours idlyspread. "

5. "The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body, and adapted itselfto every motion" (Gray). 

Cf. Robert of Gloucester: "With helm and hauberk;" and Dryden, _Pal. And Arc. _ iii. 603: "Hauberks and helms are hewed with many a wound. "

7. _Nightly_. Nocturnal, as often in poetry. Cf. _Il Pens. _ 84, etc. 

9. _The crested pride_. Gray quotes Dryden, _Indian Queen_: "Thecrested adder's pride. "

11. "Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tractwhich the Welsh themselves call _Craigian-eryri_: it included all thehighlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as theriver Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built byKing Edward the First, says: 'Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montisErery;' and Matthew of Westminster (ad ann. 1283), 'Apud Aberconwayad pedes montis Snowdoniae fecit erigi castrum forte'" (Gray). 

It was in the spring of 1283 that English troops at last forced theirway among the defiles of Snowdon. Llewellyn had preserved thosepasses and heights intact until his death in the preceding December. The surrender of Dolbadern in the April following that dispiritingevent opened a way for the invader; and William de Beauchamp, Earl ofWarwick, at once advanced by it (Hales). 

The epithet _shaggy_ is highly appropriate, as Leland (_Itin. _) saysthat great woods clothed the mountain in his time. Cf. Dyer, _Ruinsof Rome_:

 "as Britannia's oaks On Merlin's mount, or Snowdon's rugged sides, Stand in the clouds. "

See also _Lycidas_, 54: "Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high;" and _P. L. _ vi. 645: "the shaggy tops. "

13. _Stout Gloster_. "Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl ofGloucester and Hereford, son-in-law to King Edward" (Gray). He had, in 1282, conducted the war in South Wales; and after overthrowing theenemy near Llandeilo Fawr, had reinforced the king in the northwest. 

14. _Mortimer_. "Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore" (Gray). It wasby one of his knights, named Adam de Francton, that Llewellyn, not atfirst known to be he, was slain near Pont Orewyn (Hales). 

On _quivering lance_, cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ xii. 94: "hastam quassatquetrementem. "

15. _On a rock whose haughty brow_. Cf. Daniel, _Civil Wars_: "A hugeaspiring rock, whose surly brow. "

The _rock_ is probably meant for Penmaen-mawr, the northerntermination of the Snowdon range. It is a mass of rock, 1545 feethigh, a few miles from the mouth of the Conway, the valley of whichit overlooks. Towards the sea it presents a rugged and almostperpendicular front. On its summit is Braich-y-Dinas, an ancientfortified post, regarded as the strongest hold of the Britons in thedistrict of Snowdon. Here the reduced bands of the Welsh army werestationed during the negotiation between their prince Llewellyn andEdward I. Within the inner enclosure is a never-failing well of purewater. The rock is now pierced with a tunnel 1890 feet long for theChester and Holyhead railway. 

17. _Rob'd in the sable garb of woe_. It would appear that Whartonhad criticised this line, for in a letter to him, dated Aug. 21, 1757, Gray writes: "You may alter that '_Robed in_ the sable, ' etc. , almost in your own words, thus, 'With fury pale, and pale with woe, Secure of Fate, the Poet stood, ' etc. 

Though _haggard_, which conveys to you the idea of a _witch_, isindeed only a metaphor taken from an unreclaimed hawk, which iscalled a _haggard_, and looks wild and _farouche_, and jealous of itsliberty. " Gray seems to have afterwards returned to his first (and wethink better) reading. 

19. "The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There aretwo of these paintings (both believed originals), one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans's collection at Paris" (Gray). 

20. _Like a meteor_. Gray quotes _P. L. _ i. 537: "Shone like a meteorstreaming to the wind. "

21, 22. Wakefield remarks: "This is poetical language in perfection;and breathes the sublime spirit of Hebrew poetry, which delights inthis grand rhetorical substitution. "

23. _Desert caves_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 39: "The woods and desert caves. "

26. _Hoarser murmurs_. That is, perhaps, with continually increasinghoarseness, hoarser and hoarser; or it may mean with unwontedhoarseness, like the comparative sometimes in Latin (Hales). 

28. Hoel is called _high-born_, being the son of Owen Gwynedd, princeof North Wales, by Finnog, an Irish damsel. He was one of hisfather's generals in his wars against the English, Flemings, andNormans, in South Wales; and was a famous bard, as his poems that areextant testify. 

_Soft Llewellyn's lay_. "The lay celebrating the mild Llewellyn, "says Hales, though he afterwards remarks that, "looking at thecontext, it would be better to take _Llewellyn_ here for a bard. "Many bards celebrated the warlike prowess and princely qualities ofLlewellyn. A poem by Einion the son of Guigan calls him "atender-hearted prince;" and another, by Llywarch Brydydd y Moch, says: "Llewellyn, though in battle he killed with fury, though heburned like an outrageous fire, yet was a mild prince when themead-horns were distributed. " In an ode by Llygard Gwr he is alsocalled "Llewellyn the mild. "

29. Cadwallo and Urien were bards of whose songs nothing has beenpreserved. Taliessin (see 121 below) dedicated many poems to thelatter, and wrote an elegy on his death: he was slain by treachery inthe year 560. 

30. _That hush'd the stormy main_. Cf. Shakes. _M. N. D. _ ii. 2:

 "Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song. "

33. _Modred_. This name is not found in the lists of the old bards. It may have been borrowed from the Arthurian legends; or, as Mitfordsuggests, it may refer to "the famous Myrddin ab Morvyn, calledMerlyn the Wild, a disciple of Taliessin, the form of the name beingchanged for the sake of euphony. "

34. _Plinlimmon_. One of the loftiest of the Welsh mountains, being2463 feet in height. It is really a group of mountains, three ofwhich tower high above the others, and on each of these is a_carnedd_, or pile of stones. The highest of the three is furtherdivided into two peaks, and on these, as well as on another prominentpart of the same height, are other piles of stones. These five piles, according to the common tradition, mark the graves of slain warriors, and serve as memorials of their exploits; but some believe that theywere intended as landmarks or military signals, and that from themthe mountain was called _Pump-lumon_ or _Pum-lumon_, "the fivebeacons"--a name somehow corrupted into _Plinlimmon_. Five riverstake their rise in the recesses of Plinlimmon--the Wye, the Severn, the Rheidol, the Llyfnant, and the Clywedog. 

35. _Arvon's shore_. "The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite theisle of Anglesey" (Gray). _Caernarvon_, or _Caer yn Arvon_, means thecamp in Arvon. 

38. "Camden and others observe that eagles used annually to buildtheir aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as somethink) were named by the Welsh _Craigian-eryri_, or the crags of theeagles. At this day (I am told) the highest point of Snowdon iscalled _the Eagle's Nest_. That bird is certainly no stranger to thisisland, as the Scots, and the people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, etc. , can testify; it even has built its nest in the peak ofDerbyshire [see Willoughby's Ornithology, published by Ray]" (Gray). 

40. _Dear as the light_. Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ iv. 31: "O luce magisdilecta sorori. "

41. _Dear as the ruddy drops_. Gray quotes Shakes. _J. C. _ ii. 1:

 "As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart. "

Cf. Also Otway, _Venice Preserved_:

 "Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life, Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o'er thee. "

42. Wakefield quotes Pope: "And greatly falling with a fallen state;"and Dryden: "And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate. "

44. _Grisly_. See on _Eton Coll. _ 82. Cf. _Lycidas_, 52:

 "the steep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie. "

48. "See the Norwegian ode that follows" (Gray). This ode (_The FatalSisters_, translated from the Norse) describes the _Valkyriur_, "thechoosers of the slain, " or warlike Fates of the Gothic mythology, asweaving the destinies of those who were doomed to perish in battle. It begins thus:

 "Now the storm begins to lower (Haste, the loom of hell prepare), Iron sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darken'd air. 

 "Glittering lances are the loom, Where the dusky warp we strain, Weaving many a soldier's doom, Orkney's woe, and Randver's bane. 

 * * * * * *

 "Shafts for shuttles, dipt in gore, Shoot the trembling cords along; Swords, that once a monarch bore, Keep the tissue close and strong. 

 * * * * * *

 "(Weave the crimson web of war) Let us go, and let us fly, Where our friends the conflict share, Where they triumph, where they die. "

51. Cf. Dryden, _Sebastian_, i. 1:

 "I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more. "

55. "Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkeley Castle" (Gray). The 1st ed. And that of 1768 have "roofs;" the modern eds. "roof. "

Berkeley Castle is on the southeast side of the town of Berkeley, ona height commanding a fine view of the Severn and the surroundingcountry, and is in a state of perfect preservation. It is said tohave been founded by Roger de Berkeley soon after the NormanConquest. About the year 1150 it was granted by Henry II. To RobertFitzhardinge, Governor of Bristol, who strengthened and enlarged it. On the right of the great staircase leading to the keep, andapproached by a gallery, is the room in which it is supposed thatEdward II. Was murdered, Sept. 21, 1327. The king, during hiscaptivity here, composed a dolorous poem, of which the following isan extract:

 "Moste blessed Jesu, Roote of all vertue, Graunte I may the sue, In all humylyte, Sen thou for our good, Lyste to shede thy blood, An stretche the upon the rood, For our iniquyte. I the beseche, Most holsome leche, That thou wylt seche For me such grace, That when my body vyle My soule shall exyle Thou brynge in short wyle It in reste and peace. "

Walpole, who visited the place in 1774, says: "The room shown for themurder of Edward II. , and the shrieks of an agonizing king, I verilybelieve to be genuine. It is a dismal chamber, almost at the top ofthe house, quite detached, and to be approached only by a kind offoot-bridge, and from that descends a large flight of steps, thatterminates on strong gates; exactly a situation for a _corps degarde_. "

56. Cf. Hume's description: "The screams with which the agonizingking filled the castle. "

57. _She-wolf of France_. "Isabel of France, Edward the Second'sadulterous queen" (Gray). Cf. Shakes. 3 _Hen. VI. _ i. 4: "She-wolf ofFrance, but worse than wolves of France;" and read the context. 

60. "Triumphs of Edward the Third in France" (Gray). 

61. Cf. Cowley: "Ruin behind him stalks, and empty desolation;" andOldham, _Ode to Homer_:

 "Where'er he does his dreadful standard bear, Horror stalks in the van, and slaughter in the rear. "

63. For _victor_ the MS. Has "conqueror;" also in next line "the" for_his_; and in 65, "what . . . What" for _no_ . . . _no_. 

64. "Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbedin his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress" (Gray). 

67. "Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father"(Gray). 

69. The MS. Has "hover'd in thy noontide ray, " and in the next line"the rising day. "

In _Agrippina_, a fragment of a tragedy, published among theposthumous poems of Gray, we have the same figure:

 "around thee call The gilded swarm that wantons in the sunshine Of thy full favour. "

71. "Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign. See Froissard andother contemporary writers" (Gray). 

For this line and the remainder of the stanza, the MS. Has thefollowing:

 "Mirrors of Saxon truth and loyalty, Your helpless, old, expiring master view! They hear not: scarce religion does supply Her mutter'd requiems, and her holy dew. Yet thou, proud boy, from Pomfret's walls shalt send A sigh, and envy oft thy happy grandsire's end. "

On the passage as it stands, cf. Shakes. _M. Of V. _ ii. 6:

 "How like a younger, or a prodigal, The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, " etc. 

Also Spenser, _Visions of World's Vanitie_, ix:

 "Looking far foorth into the Ocean wide, A goodly ship with banners bravely dight, And flag in her top-gallant, I espide Through the maine sea making her merry flight. Faire blew the winde into her bosome right; And th' heavens looked lovely all the while That she did seeme to daunce, as in delight, And at her owne felicitie did smile, " etc. ;

and again, _Visions of Petrarch_, ii. :

 "After, at sea a tall ship did appeare, Made all of heben and white yvorie; The sailes of golde, of silke the tackle were: Milde was the winde, calme seem'd the sea to bee, The skie eachwhere did show full bright and faire: With rich treasures this gay ship fraighted was: But sudden storme did so turmoyle the aire, And tumbled up the sea, that she (alas) Strake on a rock, that under water lay, And perished past all recoverie. "

See also Milton, _S. A. _ 710 foll. 

72. _The azure realm_. Cf. Virgil, _Ciris_, 483: "Caeruleo pollensconjunx Neptunia regno. "

73. Note the alliteration. Cf. Dryden, _Annus Mirab. _ st. 151:

 "The goodly London, in her gallant trim, The phoenix-daughter of the vanish'd old, Like a rich bride does to the ocean swim, And on her shadow rides in floating gold. "

75. _Sweeping whirlwind's sway_. Cf. The posthumous fragment by Grayon _Education and Government_, 48: "And where the deluge burst withsweepy sway. " The expression is from Dryden, who uses it repeatedly;as in _Geo. _ i. 483: "And rolling onwards with a sweepy sway;" _Ov. Met. _: "Rushing onwards with a sweepy sway;" _Æn. _ vii. : "Thebranches bend beneath their sweepy sway, " etc. 

76. _That hush'd in grim repose_, etc. Cf. Dryden, _Sigismonda andGuiscardo_, 242:

 "So, like a lion that unheeded lay, Dissembling sleep, and watchful to betray, With inward rage he meditates his prey;"

and _Absalom and Achitophel_, 447:

 "And like a lion, slumbering in the way, Or sleep dissembling, while he waits his prey. "

77. "Richard the Second (as we are told by Archbishop Scroop and theconfederate Lords in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsingham, andall the older writers) was starved to death. The story of hisassassination by Sir Piers of Exon is of much later date" (Gray). 

79. _Reft of a crown_. Wakefield quotes Mallet's ballad of _Williamand Margaret_:

 "Such is the robe that kings must wear When death has reft their crown. "

82. _A baleful smile_. The MS. Has "A smile of horror on. " Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ ii. 846: "Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile. "

[Illustration: THE TRAITOR'S GATE OF THE TOWER. ]

83. "Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster" (Gray). Cf. _P. L. _ vi. 209:"Arms on armour clashing brayed. "

84. Cf. Shakes. 1 _Hen. IV. _ iv. 1: "Harry to Harry shall, hot horseto horse;" and Massinger, _Maid of Honour_: "Man to man, and horse tohorse. "

87. "Henry the Sixth, George Duke of Clarence, Edward the Fifth, Richard Duke of York, etc. , believed to be murdered secretly in theTower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgarlyattributed to Julius Cæsar" (Gray). The MS. Has "Grim towers. "

88. _Murther_. See on _murthorous_, p. 105. 

89. _His consort_. "Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, whostruggled hard to save her husband and her crown" (Gray). 

_His father_. "Henry the Fifth" (Gray). 

[Illustration: HENRY V. ]

90. _The meek usurper_. "Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown"(Gray). See on _Eton Coll. _ 4. The MS. Has "hallow'd head. "

91. _The rose of snow_, etc. "The white and red roses, devices ofYork and Lancaster" (Gray). 

Cf. Shakes. 1 _Hen. VI. _ ii. 4:

 "No, Plantagenet, 'Tis not for shame, but anger, that thy cheeks Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our roses. "

93. _The bristled boar_. "The silver boar was the badge of Richardthe Third; whence he was usually known in his own time by the name of_the Boar_" (Gray). Scott (notes to _Lay of Last Minstrel_) says:"The crest or bearing of a warrior was often used as a _nom deguerre_. Thus Richard III. Acquired his well-known epithet, 'the Boarof York. '" Cf. Shakes. _Rich. III. _ iv. 5: "this most bloody boar;"v. 2: "The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar, " etc. 

98. See on 48 above. 

99. _Half of thy heart_. "Eleanor of Castile died a few years afterthe conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection forher lord is well known. [2] The monuments of his regret and sorrow forthe loss of her[3] are still to be seen at Northampton, Geddington, Waltham, and other places" (Gray). Cf. Horace, _Od. _ i. 3, 8: "animaedimidium meae. "

[Footnote 2: See Tennyson, _Dream of Fair Women_:

 "Or her who knew that Love can vanquish Death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in spring. "]

[Footnote 3: Gray refers to the "Eleanor crosses, " erected at theplaces where the funeral procession halted each night on the journeyfrom Hardby, in Nottinghamshire (near Lincoln), where the queen died, to Westminster. Of the thirteen (or, as some say, fifteen) crossesonly three now remain--at Northampton, Geddington, and Waltham. Theone at Charing Cross in London has been replaced by a fac-simile ofthe original. These monuments were all exquisite works of Gothic art, fitting memorials of _la chère Reine_, "the beloved of all England, "as Walsingham calls her. ]

101. _Nor thus forlorn_. In MS. "nor here forlorn;" in next line, "Leave your despairing Caradoc to mourn;" in 103, "yon black clouds;"in 104, "They sink, they vanish;" in 105, "But oh! what scenes ofheaven on Snowdon's height;" in 106, "their golden skirts. "

107. Cf. Dryden, _State of Innocence_, iv. 1: "Their glory shootsupon my aching sight. "

109. "It was the common belief of the Welsh nation that King Arthurwas still alive in Fairyland, and would return again to reign overBritain" (Gray). 

In the MS. This line and the next read thus:

 "From Cambria's thousand hills a thousand strains Triumphant tell aloud, another Arthur reigns. "

110. "Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh shouldregain their sovereignty over this island; which seemed to beaccomplished in the house of Tudor" (Gray). 

111. _Many a baron bold_. Cf. _L'Allegro_, 119: "throngs of knightsand barons bold. "

The reading in the MS. Is, "Youthful knights, and barons bold, With dazzling helm, and horrent spear. "

112. _Their starry fronts_. Cf. Milton, _Ode on the Passion_, 18:"His starry front;" Statius, _Theb. _ 613: "Heu! ubi siderei vultus. "

115. _A form divine_. Elizabeth. Wakefield quotes Spenser's eulogy ofthe queen, _Shep. Kal. _ Apr. :

 "Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face, Like Phoebe fayre? Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace, Can you well compare? The Redde rose medled with the White yfere, In either cheeke depeincten lively chere; Her modest eye, Her Majestie, Where have you seene the like but there?"

117. "Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to PaulDzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says: 'And thus she, lion-likerising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port andmajestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princeliecheckes'" (Gray). The MS. Reads "A lion-port, an awe-commandingface. "

121. "Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high venerationamong his countrymen" (Gray). 

As Hales remarks, there is no authority for connecting him withArthur, as Tennyson does in his _Holy Grail_. 

123. Cf. Congreve, _Ode to Lord Godolphin_: "And soars with rapturewhile she sings. "

124. _The eye of heaven_. Wakefield quotes Spenser, _F. Q. _ 1. 3. 4, "Her angel's face As the great eye of heaven shined bright. "

Cf. Shakes. _Rich. II. _ iii. 2: "the searching eye of heaven. "

_Many-colour'd wings_. Cf. Shakes. _Temp. _ iv. 1: "Hail, many-colour'd messenger;" and Milton, _P. L. _ iii. 642:

 "Wings he wore Of many a colour'd plume sprinkled with gold. "

126. Gray quotes Spenser, _F. Q. _ Proeme, 9:

 "Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song. "

128. "Shakespeare" (Gray). Cf. _Il Penseroso_, 102: "the buskin'dstage;" that is, the tragic stage. 

129. _Pleasing pain_. Cf. Spenser, _F. Q. _ vi. 9, 10: "sweet pleasingpayne;" and Dryden, _Virg. Ecl. _ iii. 171: "Pleasing pains of love. "

131. "Milton" (Gray). 

133. "The succession of poets after Milton's time" (Gray). 

135. _Fond_. Foolish. See on _Prog. Of Poesy_, 46. 

On the couplet, cf. Dekker, _If this be not a good play_, etc. :

 "Thinkest thou, base lord, Because the glorious Sun behind black clouds Has awhile hid his beams, he's darken'd forever, Eclips'd never more to shine?"

137. Cf. _Lycidas_, 169: "And yet anon repairs his drooping head;"and Fletcher, _Purple Island_, vi. 64: "So soon repairs her light, trebling her new-born raies. "

141. Mitford remarks that there is a passage (which he misquotes, asusual) in the _Thebaid_ of Statius (iii. 81) similar to this, describing a bard who had survived his companions:

 "Sed jam nudaverat ensem Magnanimus vates, et nunc trucis ora tyranni, Nunc ferrum adspectans: 'Nunquam tibi sanguinis hujus Jus erit, aut magno feries imperdita Tydeo Pectora; _vado equidem exsultans_ et _ereptaque fata_ Insequor, et comites feror expectatus ad umbras; _Te_ Superis, fratrique. ' Et jam media orsa loquentis Abstulerat plenum capulo latus. "

Cf. Also a passage in Pindar (_Olymp. _ i. 184), which Gray seems tohave had in mind:

 [Greek: Eiê se te touton Hupsou chronon patein, eme Te tossade nikaphorois Homilein, k. T. L. 

143. Cf. Virgil, _Ecl. _ viii. 59:

 "Praeceps aërii specula de montis in undas Deferar; extremum hoc munus morientis habeto. "

As we have given Johnson's criticism on _The Progress of Poesy_, weappend his comments on this "Sister Ode:"

"'The Bard' appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti andothers have remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. Algarotti thinks it superior to its original; and, if preferencedepends only on the imagery and animation of the two poems, hisjudgment is right. There is in 'The Bard' more force, more thought, and more variety. But to copy is less than to invent, and the copyhas been unhappily produced at a wrong time. The fiction of Horacewas to the Romans credible; but its revival disgusts us with apparentand unconquerable falsehood. _Incredulus odi_. 

"To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk byfabulous appendages of spectres and predictions, has littledifficulty; for he that forsakes the probable may always find themarvellous. And it has little use; we are affected only as webelieve; we are improved only as we find something to be imitated ordeclined. I do not see that 'The Bard' promotes any truth, moral orpolitical. 

"His stanzas are too long, especially his epodes; the ode is finishedbefore the ear has learned its measures, and consequently before itcan receive pleasure from their consonance and recurrence. 

"Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; buttechnical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It is in thepower of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject, that has read theballad of 'Johnny Armstrong, '

 'Is there ever a man in all Scotland--'

"The initial resemblances, or alliterations, 'ruin, ruthless, helm orhauberk, ' are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours atsublimity. 

"In the second stanza the Bard is well described; but in the third wehave the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that'Cadwallo hush'd the stormy main, ' and that 'Modred made hugePlinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head, ' attention recoils from therepetition of a tale that, even when it was first heard, was heardwith scorn. 

"The _weaving_ of the _winding-sheet_ he borrowed, as he owns, fromthe Northern Bards; but their texture, however, was very properly thework of female powers, as the act of spinning the thread of life isanother mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weaversof slaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and incongruous. Theyare then called upon to 'Weave the warp, and weave the woof, ' perhapswith no great propriety; for it is by crossing the _woof_ with the_warp_ that men weave the _web_ or piece; and the first line wasdearly bought by the admission of its wretched correspondent, 'Giveample room and verge enough. ' He has, however, no other line as bad. 

"The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, beyondits merit. The personification is indistinct. _Thirst_ and _Hunger_are not alike; and their features, to make the imagery perfect, should have been discriminated. We are told, in the same stanza, how'towers are fed. ' But I will no longer look for particular faults;yet let it be observed that the ode might have been concluded with anaction of better example; but suicide is always to be had, withoutexpense of thought. "

[Illustration: "Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame!"]

[Illustration: HEAD OF OLYMPIAN JOVE. ]

HYMN TO ADVERSITY. 

This poem first appeared in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. Iv. , together with the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard. " In Mason's andWakefield's editions it is called an "Ode, " but the title given bythe author is as above. 

The motto from Æschylus is not in Dodsley, but appears in the firstedition of the poems (1768) in the form given in the text. The bestmodern editions of Æschylus have the reading, [Greek: ton (some, tôi)pathei mathos]. Keck translates the passage into German thus:

 "Ihn der uns zur Sinnigkeit leitet, ihn der fest den Satz Stellet, 'Lehre durch das Leid. '"

Plumptre puts it into English as follows:

 "Yea, Zeus, who leadeth men in wisdom's way, And fixeth fast the law Wisdom by pain to gain. "

Cf. Mrs. Browning's _Vision of Poets_:

 "Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death. "

1. Mitford remarks: "[Greek: Atê], who may be called the goddess ofAdversity, is said by Homer to be the daughter of Jupiter (_Il. _[Greek: t. ] 91: [Greek: presba Dios thugatêr Atê, hê pantas aatai). Perhaps, however, Gray only alluded to the passage of Æschylus whichhe quoted, and which describes Affliction as sent by Jupiter for thebenefit of man. " The latter is the more probable explanation. 

2. Mitford quotes Pope, _Dunciad_, i. 163: "Then he: 'Great tamer ofall human art. '"

3. _Torturing hour_. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ ii. 90:

 "The vassals of his anger, when the scourge Inexorable, and the torturing hour, Calls us to penance. "

5. _Adamantine chains_. Wakefield quotes Æschylus, _Prom. Vinct. _vi. : [Greek: Adamantinôn desmôn en arrêktois pedais]. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ i. 48: "In adamantine chains and penal fire;" and Pope, _Messiah_, 47: "In adamantine chains shall Death be bound. "

7. _Purple tyrants_. Cf. Pope, _Two Choruses to Tragedy of Brutus_:"Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand. " Wakefield cites Horace, _Od. _ i. 35, 12: "Purpurei metuunt tyranni. "

8. _With pangs unfelt before_. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ ii. 703: "Strangehorror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before. "

9-12. Cf. Bacon, _Essays_, v. (ed. 1625): "Certainly, Vertue is likepretious Odours, most fragrant when they are incensed [that is, burned], or crushed:[1] For _Prosperity_ doth best discover Vice;[2]But _Adversity_ doth best discover Vertue. "

[Footnote 1: So in his _Apophthegms_, 253, Bacon says: "Mr. Bettenhamsaid: that virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that givenot their sweet smell till they be broken or crushed. "]

[Footnote 2: Cf. Shakespeare, _Julius Cæsar_, ii. 1: "It is thebright day that brings forth the adder. "]

Cf. Also Thomson:

 "If Misfortune comes, she brings along The bravest virtues. And so many great Illustrious spirits have convers'd with woe, Have in her school been taught, as are enough To consecrate distress, and make ambition E'en wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune. "

16. Cf. Virgil, _Æn. _ i. 630: "Non ignara mali, miseris succurreredisco. "

18. _Folly's idle brood_. Cf. The opening lines of _Il Penseroso_:

 "Hence, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly, without father bred!"

20. Mitford quotes Oldham, _Ode_: "And know I have not yet theleisure to be good. "

22. _The summer friend_. Cf. Geo. Herbert, _Temple_: "like summerfriends, flies of estates and sunshine;" Quarles, _Sion's Elegies_, xix. : "Ah, summer friendship with the summer ends;" Massinger, _Maidof Honour_: "O summer friendship. " See also Shakespeare, _T. Of A. _iii. 6:

"_2d Lord_. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we yourlordship. 

"_Timon_ [_aside_]. Nor more willingly leaves winter; suchsummer-birds are men;"

and _T. And C. _ iii. 3:

 "For men, like butterflies, Shew not their mealy wings but to the summer. "

Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind Horace, _Od. _ i. 35, 25:

 "At vulgus infidum et meretrix retro Perjura cedit; diffugiunt cadis Cum faece siccatis amici Ferre jugum pariter dolosi. "

25. _In sable garb_. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens. _ 16: "O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue. "

28. _With leaden eye_. Evidently suggested by Milton's description ofMelancholy, _Il Pens. _ 43:

 "Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes; There, held in holy passion still, Forget thyself to marble, till With a sad leaden downward cast Thou fix them on the earth as fast. "

Mitford cites Sidney, _Astrophel and Stella_, song 7: "So leadeneyes;" Dryden, _Cymon and Iphigenia_, 57: "And stupid eyes that everlov'd the ground;" Shakespeare, _Pericles_, i. 2: "The sad companion, dull-eyed Melancholy;" and _L. L. L. _ iv. 3: "In leadencontemplation. " Cf. Also _The Bard_, 69, 70. 

31. _To herself severe_. Cf. Carew:

 "To servants kind, to friendship dear, To nothing but herself severe;"

and Dryden: "Forgiving others, to himself severe;" and Waller: "TheMuses' friend, unto himself severe. " Mitford quotes several othersimilar passages. 

32. _The sadly pleasing tear_. Rogers cites Dryden's "sadly pleasingthought" (Virgil's _Æn. _ x. ); and Mitford compares Thomson's"lenient, not unpleasing tear. "

35. _Gorgon terrors_. Cf. Milton, _P. L. _ ii. 611: "Medusa withGorgonian terror. "

36-40. Cf. _Ode on Eton College_, 55-70 and 81-90. 

45-48. Cf. Shakespeare, _As You Like It_, ii. 1:

 "these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am. Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;"

and Mallet:

 "Who hath not known ill-fortune, never knew Himself, or his own virtue. "

Guizot, in his _Cromwell_, says: "The effect of supreme andirrevocable misfortune is to elevate those souls which it does notdeprive of all virtue;" and Sir Philip Sidney remarks: "A nobleheart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowestestate. "

[Illustration: "Now rolling down the steep amain, Headlong, impetuous, see it pour; The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. " _The Progress of Poesy_, 10. ]

APPENDIX TO NOTES. 

Just as this book is going to press we have received _The QuarterlyReview_ (London) for January, 1876, which contains an interestingpaper on "Wordsworth and Gray. " After quoting Wordsworth's remarkthat "Gray was at the head of those poets who, by their reasonings, have attempted to widen the space of separation between prose andmetrical composition, and was, more than any other man, curiouslyelaborate in the construction of his own poetic diction, " thereviewer remarks:

"The indictment, then, brought by Wordsworth against Gray is twofold. Gray, it seems, had in the first place a false conception of thenature of poetry; and, secondly, a false standard of poeticaldiction. To begin with the first count, Gray, we are told, sought towiden the space of separation betwixt prose and metrical composition. What this charge amounts to we shall see hereafter. Meantime, didWordsworth think that between prose and poetry there was any line ofdemarcation at all? In the Preface [to the "Lyrical Ballads"] fromwhich we have quoted we read:

"'There neither is nor can be any essential difference between thelanguage of prose and metrical composition. We are fond of tracingthe resemblance between Poetry and Painting, and accordingly we callthem sisters; but where shall we find bonds of connectionsufficiently strong to typify the connection betwixt prose andmetrical composition?'

"Now this question admits of a very definite answer. Take the Iliadof Homer and a proposition of Euclid. Is it conceivable that thelatter could have been expressed at all in metre, or the formerexpressed half so well in prose? If not, what is the reason? Is itnot plain that the poem contains a predominant element of imaginationand feeling which is absolutely excluded from the proposition? And inthe same way it may be shown that whenever a man expresses himselfproperly in metre, the subject-matter of his composition belongs toimagination or feeling; whenever he writes in prose his subjectbelongs to or (if the prose be fiction) intimately resembles matterof fact. We may decide then with certainty that the sphere of poetrylies in Imagination, and that the larger the amount of _just_ libertythe Imagination enjoys, the better will be the poetry it produces. But then a further question arises, and this is the key of the wholeposition, How far does this liberty extend? Is Imagination absolute, supreme, and uncontrolled in its own sphere, or is it under theguidance and government of reason? That its dominion is not universalis obvious, but of its influence we are all conscious, and there isno exaggeration in the eloquent words of Pascal:

"'This mighty power, the perpetual antagonist of reason, whichdelights to show its ascendency by bringing her under its control anddominion, has created a second nature in man. It has its joys and itssorrows; its health, its sickness; its wealth, its poverty; itcompels reason, in spite of herself, to believe, to doubt, to deny;it suspends the exercise of the senses, and imparts to them again anartificial acuteness; it has its follies and its wisdom; and the mostperverse thing of all is that it fills its votaries with acomplacency more full and complete even than that which reason cansupply. '

"If such be the force of Imagination in active life, how absolutemust be its dominion in poetry! And absolute it is, if we are tobelieve Wordsworth, who defines poetry to be 'the spontaneousoverflow of powerful emotion. ' This definition coincides well withmodern notions on the nature of the art. But how different is theview if we turn from theory to practice! It would surely be a seriousmistake to describe the noblest poems, like the 'Æneid' or 'ParadiseLost, ' as the product of mere spontaneous emotion. And even in lyricverse, to which it may be said Wordsworth is specially alluding, wefind the greatest poets, like Pindar and Simonides, composing theirodes for set occasions like the public games, in honour of personswith whom they were but little acquainted, and (most significant factof all) in the expectation of receiving liberal rewards. We need notsay that such considerations detract nothing from the genius of thesegreat poets; but they prove very conclusively that poetry is not whatWordsworth's definition asserts, and what in these days it is toooften assumed to be, the mere gush of unconscious inspiration. Thedefinition of Wordsworth may perhaps suit short lyrics, such as hewas himself in the habit of composing, but it would be fatal to theclaims of poetry to rank among the higher arts, for it would excludethat quality which, in poetry as in all art, is truly sovereign, Invention. The poet, no less than the mechanical inventor, excels bythe exercise of reason, by his knowledge of the required effect, hispower of adapting means to ends, and his skill in availing himself ofcircumstances. Consider for a moment the external difficulties whichrestrict the poet's liberty, and require the most vigorous efforts ofreason to subdue them. To begin with, in order to secure the happyresult promised by Horace, 'Cui lecta potenter erit res Nec facundia deseret hunc nec lucidus ordo, '

he has to take the exact measure of his own powers. How many a poethas failed for want of judgment by trespassing on a subject and stylefor which his genius is unfitted! Again, he is confronted by the mostobvious difficulties of language and metre, which limit his freedomto a degree unknown to the prose-writer. And beyond this, if hewishes to be read--and a poem without readers is no more than amusical instrument without a musician--he has to consider thecharacter of his audience. He must have all the instinct of anorator, all the intuitive knowledge of the world, as well as all thepractical resource, which are required to gain command over thehearts of men, and to subdue, by the charms of eloquence, theirpassions, their prejudices, and their judgment. To achieve suchresults something more is required than 'the spontaneous overflow ofpowerful feeling. '

"How far Wordsworth's own poetry illustrates his principles we shallconsider presently; meantime his definition helps us to understandwhat he meant by Gray's fault of widening the space of separationbetwixt prose and metrical composition. Neither in respect of thequantity nor the quality of his verse could Gray's manner ofcomposition be described as spontaneous. Compared with Wordsworth'snumerous volumes of poetry, the slender volume that contains thepoetry of Gray looks meagre indeed; yet almost every poem in thissmall collection is a considered work of art. To begin with 'TheBard. ' Few readers, we suppose, would rise from this ode without asense of its poetical 'effect. ' The details may be thought to requiretoo much attention; the allusions, from the nature of the subject, are, no doubt, difficult; but a feeling of loftiness, of harmony, ofproportion, remains in the mind at the close of the poem, which isnot likely to pass away. How, then, was this effect produced? Firstof all we see that Gray had selected a good subject; his rawmaterials, so to speak, were poetical. The imagination, unembarrassedby common associations, breathes freely in its own region, and isinstinctively elevated as it moves among the great events of thepast, dwelling on the misfortunes of monarchs, the rise of dynasties, and the splendours of literature. But, in the second place, when hehas chosen his subject, it is the part of the poet to impress thegreat ideas derived from it on the feelings and the memory by thedistinctness of the form under which he presents it; and herepoetical invention first begins to work. By the imaginative fictionof 'The Bard, ' Gray is enabled to cast the whole course of Englishhistory into the form of a prophecy, and to excite the patrioticfeelings of the reader, as Virgil roused the pride of his owncountrymen by Anchises' forecast of the grandeur of Rome. Finally, when the main design of the poem is thus conceived, observe with whatart all the different parts are made to emphasize the beauty of thegeneral conception; with what dramatic propriety the calamities ofthe conquering Plantagenet are prophesied by his vanquished foe;while on the other hand, the literary glories of the Tudor Elizabethawaken the triumph of the patriot and the poet; how martial andspirited is the opening of the poem! how lofty and enthusiastic itsclose! Perhaps there is no English lyric which, animated by equalfervour, displays so much architectural genius as 'The Bard. '

"Take, again, the 'Ode on the Prospect of Eton College. ' A subjectbetter adapted far the indulgence of personal feeling, or for thosesentimental confidences between the reader and the poet, in which themodern muse so much delights, could not be imagined. But what do wefind? The theme is treated in the most general manner. Thoughemphasizing the irony of his reflection by the beautiful touch ofmemory in the second stanza, the poet speaks throughout as a moralistor spectator; from first to last he seems to lose all thought ofhimself in contemplating the tragedies he foresees for others; thesubject is in fact handled with the most skilful rhetoric, and everystanza is made to strengthen and elaborate the leading thought. Inthe 'Progress of Poesy, ' though the general constructive effect isperhaps inferior to 'The Bard, ' we see the same evidence of carefulpreconsideration, while the course of the poem is particularlydistinguished by the beauty of the transitions. Of the form of the'Elegy' it is superfluous to speak; a poem so dignified and yet sotender, appeals immediately, and will continue to appeal, to theheart of every Englishman, so long as the care of public liberty andlove of the soil maintain their hold in this country. In this poem, as indeed in all that Gray ever wrote, we find it his first principle_to prefer his subject to himself_; he never forgot that while he wasa man he was also an artist, and he knew that the function of art wasnot merely to indulge nature, but to dignify and refine it. 

"Yet, in spite of his love of form, there is nothing frigid orstatuesque in the genius of Gray. A vein of deep melancholy, evidently constitutional, runs through his poetry, and, consideringhow little he produced, the number of personal allusions in hisverses is undoubtedly large. But he is entirely free from thategotism which we have had frequent occasion to blame as theprevailing vice of modern poetry. For whereas the modern poet thrustshis private feelings into prominence, and finds a luxury in theconfession of his sorrows, Gray's references to himself areintroduced on public grounds, or, in other words, with a view topoetical effect. He, like our own bards, is 'condemned to groan, ' butfor different reasons--

 'The tender for _another's_ pain, The unfeeling for his own. '

"We have already remarked on the public character of the 'Ode on EtonCollege;' but the second stanza of this poem is a pure expression ofindividual feeling:

 'Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields belov'd in vain! Where once my careless childhood play'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring. '

Every one will perceive the art which enforces the truth of thegeneral reflections that follow by the personal experience of thespeaker. Again, the 'Progress of Poesy' closes with a personalallusion which, as it is a climax, might, if ill-managed, haveappeared arrogant, but which is, in fact, a masterpiece of oratory. After confessing his own inferiority to Pindar, the poet proceeds:

 'Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray, With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun; Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way, Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the Good how far--but far above the Great!'

There is something very noble in the elevated manner in which theself-complacent triumph of genius, expressed by so many poets fromEnnius downwards, is at once justified and chastened by thereflection in these lines. We see in them that the poet alludes tohimself in the third person, and he repeats this style in the'Elegy, ' where, after the fourth line, the first personal pronoun isnever again used. How just and beautiful is the turn where, aftercontemplating the general lot of the lowly society he is celebrating, he proceeds to identify his own fate with theirs:

 'For _thee_, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, If, chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, 'Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, ' etc. 

"The two great characteristics of Gray's poetry that we havenoticed--his self-suppression and his sense of form and dignity--arebest described by the word 'classical. ' What we particularly admirein the great authors of Greece and Rome is their public spirit. Theirwritings are full of patriotism, good-breeding, and common-sense, andhave that happy mixture of art and nature which is only acquired bymen who have learned from liberty how to discipline individualinstincts by social refinement. Their style is masculine, clear, andmoderate; they seem, as it were, never to lose the sense of beingbefore an audience, and, like orators who know that they are alwaysexposed to the judgment of their intellectual equals, they aim atputting intelligible thoughts into the most natural and forciblewords. Precisely the same qualities are observable in all the bestEnglish writers of the eighteenth century. Addison, Pope, andGoldsmith are perhaps the most shining examples, but the rest are'classical' in the sense which we have just indicated; and we canhardly be wrong in ascribing this common rhetorical instinct to theintimate connection between the men of thought and the men of action, which existed both in the free states of antiquity, and in Englandunder the rule of the aristocracy. With the advance of the eighteenthcentury the instinct in English literature seems to grow weaker; thestyle of our authors becomes more formal and constrained, andsymptoms of that dislike of society encouraged by the philosophy ofRousseau more frequently betray themselves. As the poetry of Cowpershows less social instinct than that of Gray, so Gray himself isinferior in this respect to Pope and Goldsmith. But his style has thesame lofty public spirit that distinguishes his favourite models, andno worthier form could be imagined to express the ardour excited inthe heart of a patriotic poet by the rising fortunes of his nativecountry. We feel that it is in every way fitting that the author ofthe 'Elegy' should have been the favourite of Wolfe and thecountryman of Chatham. "

[Illustration: CLIO, THE MUSE OF HISTORY. ]

INDEX OF WORDS EXPLAINED. 

Æolian, 109. 

afield, 86. 

amain, 110. 

antic, 111. 

Arvon, 125. 

Attic warbler, 95. 

Berkeley, 126. 

boar (of Richard III. ), 130. 

broke (=broken), 86. 

buskined, 132. 

buxom, 104. 

Cadwallo, 125. 

Caernarvon, 125. 

captive (proleptic), 104. 

chance (adverb), 91. 

cheer, 104. 

churchway, 92. 

curfew, 83. 

customed, 92. 

Cytherea, 111. 

Delphi, 114. 

fond (=foolish), 111, 132. 

fretted, 87. 

glister, 99. 

Gloster, 124. 

Gorgon, 137. 

graved, 93. 

grisly, 105, 126. 

grove (=graved), 93. 

haggard, 124. 

hauberk, 123. 

Helicon, 109. 

Hoel, 124. 

honied, 96. 

Horæ, 94. 

Hyperion, 112. 

Idalia, 110. 

Ilissus, 114. 

jet, 99. 

leaden (eye), 136. 

lion-port, 132. 

little (=petty), 89. 

Llewellyn, 124. 

long-expecting, 95. 

Mæander, 114. 

margent, 104. 

Modred, 125. 

Mortimer, 124. 

murther, 129. 

murtherous, 105. 

nightly (=nocturnal), 123. 

parting (=departing), 83. 

pious (=_pius_), 90. 

Plinlimmon, 125. 

provoke (=_provocare_), 87. 

purple, 95, 111, 135. 

rage, 88. 

repair, 132. 

repeat, 113. 

rose (of snow), 130. 

rushy, 96. 

shaggy, 123. 

shell (=lyre), 110. 

slow-consuming, 105. 

Snowdon, 123. 

solemn-breathing, 110. 

summer friend, 136. 

tabby, 99. 

Taliessin, 132. 

tempered, 110. 

Thracia, 110. 

Tyrian, 99. 

upland, 91. 

Urien, 125. 

velvet-green, 110. 

woeful-wan, 92. 

ye (accusative), 103.