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diff --git a/30357-0.txt b/30357-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31a2b83 --- /dev/null +++ b/30357-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5819 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30357 *** + +SELECT POEMS OF THOMAS GRAY. + + +EDITED, WITH NOTES, +BY +WILLIAM 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, by +HARPER & 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 editorial +labor, but not one, so far as I am aware, critically exact either in +text or in notes. No editor since Mathias (A.D. 1814) has given the +2d line of the _Elegy_ as Gray wrote and printed it; while Mathias's +mispunctuation of the 123d line has been copied by his successors, +almost without exception. Other variations from the early editions +are mentioned in the notes. + +It is a curious fact that the most accurate edition of Gray's +collected poems is the _editio princeps_ of 1768, printed under his +own supervision. The first edition of the two Pindaric odes, _The +Progress of Poesy_ and _The Bard_ (Strawberry-Hill, 1757), was +printed with equal care, and the proofs were probably read by the +poet. The text of the present edition has been collated, line by +line, with that of these early editions, and in no instance have I +adopted a later reading. All the MS. variations, and the various +readings I have noted in the modern editions, are given in the notes. + +Pickering's edition of 1835, edited by Mitford, has been followed +blindly 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 the +corresponding stanzas of the two Pindaric odes, which any careful +proof-reader ought to have corrected, have been copied again and +again--as in the Boston (1853) reprint of Pickering, the pretty +little edition of Bickers & Son (London, n. d.), the fac-simile of +the latter printed at our University Press, Cambridge (1866), etc. + +Of former editions of Gray, the only one very fully annotated is +Mitford's (Pickering, 1835), already mentioned. I have drawn freely +from that, correcting many errors, and also from Wakefield's and +Mason's editions, and from Hales's notes (_Longer English Poems_, +London, 1872) on the _Elegy_ and the Pindaric odes. To all this +material many original notes and illustrations have been added. + +The facts concerning the first publication of the _Elegy_ are not +given correctly by any of the editors, and even the "experts" of +_Notes and Queries_ have not been able to disentangle the snarl of +conflicting evidence. I am not sure that I have settled the question +myself (see p. 74 and foot-note), but I have at least shown that Gray +is a more credible witness in the case than any of his critics. Their +testimony is obviously inconsistent and inconclusive; he may have +confounded the names of two magazines, but that remains to be +proved.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Since writing the above to-day, I have found by the +merest chance in my own library another bit of evidence in the case, +which fully confirms my surmise that the _Elegy_ was printed in _The +Magazine of Magazines_ before it appeared in the _Grand Magazine of +Magazines_. _Chambers's Book of Days_ (vol. ii. p. 146), in an +article 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 convivial +assembly, and thus announce it: 'Gentlemen, give me leave to soothe +my own melancholy, and amuse you in a most noble manner, with a full +copy of verses by the very ingenious Mr. Gray, of Peterhouse, +Cambridge. They are stanzas written in a country churchyard.' Then +follow the verses. A few days afterwards, Dodsley's edition +appeared," etc. + +The same authority gives the four stanzas omitted after the 18th (see +p. 79) as they appear in the _North American Review_, except that the +first line of the third is "Hark how the sacred calm that _reigns_ +around," a reading which I have found nowhere else. The stanza "There +scattered oft," etc. (p. 81), is given as in the review. The reading +on p. 82 must be a later one.] + +I have retained most of the "parallel passages" from the poets given +by the editors, and have added others, without regard to the critics +who have sneered at this kind of annotations. Whether Gray borrowed +from 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, and +probably these were all that he was aware of. Some of these he +contracted unwittingly (see what he says of one of them in a letter +to Walpole, quoted in the note on the _Ode on the Spring_, 31), and +the same may have been true of some apparently similar cases pointed +out by modern editors. To me, however, the chief interest of these +coincidences and resemblances of thought or expression is as studies +in the "comparative anatomy" of poetry. The teacher will find them +useful as pegs to hang questions upon, or texts for oral instruction. +The pupil, or the young reader, who finds out who all these poets +were, when they lived, what they wrote, etc., will have learned no +small amount of English literary history. If he studies the +quotations merely as illustrations of style and expression, or as +examples of the poetic diction of various periods, he will have +learned 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." (the +Hon. Mrs. Boyle); the rest are from various sources. + + _Cambridge_, Feb. 29, 1876. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE +THE 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 Country +Churchyard_, was born in Cornhill, London, December 26, 1716. His +father, Philip Gray, an exchange broker and scrivener, was a wealthy +and nominally respectable citizen, but he treated his family with +brutal severity and neglect, and the poet was altogether indebted for +the advantages of a learned education to the affectionate care and +industry of his mother, whose maiden name was Antrobus, and who, in +conjunction with a maiden sister, kept a millinery shop. A brother of +Mrs. Gray was assistant to the Master of Eton, and was also a fellow +of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Under his protection the poet was +educated at Eton, and from thence went to Peterhouse, attending +college from 1734 to September, 1738. At Eton he had as +contemporaries Richard West, son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, +and Horace Walpole, son of the triumphant Whig minister, Sir Robert +Walpole. West died early in his 26th year, but his genius and virtues +and his sorrows will forever live in the correspondence of his +friend. In the spring of 1739, Gray was invited by Horace Walpole to +accompany him as travelling companion in a tour through France and +Italy. They made the usual route, and Gray wrote remarks on all he +saw in Florence, Rome, Naples, etc. His observations on arts and +antiquities, and his sketches of foreign manners, evince his +admirable taste, learning, and discrimination. Since Milton, no such +accomplished English traveller had visited those classic shores. In +their journey through Dauphiny, Gray's attention was strongly +arrested by the wild and picturesque site of the Grande Chartreuse, +surrounded by its dense forest of beech and fir, its enormous +precipices, cliffs, and cascades. He visited it a second time on his +return, and in the album of the mountain convent he wrote his famous +Alcaic Ode. At Reggio the travellers quarrelled and parted. Walpole +took the whole blame on himself. He was fond of pleasure and +amusements, "intoxicated by vanity, indulgence, and the insolence of +his situation as a prime minister's son"--his own confession--while +Gray was studious, of a serious disposition, and independent spirit. +The immediate cause of the rupture is said to have been Walpole's +clandestinely opening, reading, and resealing a letter addressed to +Gray, in which he expected to find a confirmation of his suspicions +that Gray had been writing unfavourably of him to some friends in +England. A partial reconciliation was effected about three years +afterwards by the intervention of a lady, and Walpole redeemed his +youthful error by a life-long sincere admiration and respect for his +friend. From Reggio Gray proceeded to Venice, and thence travelled +homewards, attended by a _laquais de voyage_. He arrived in England +in September, 1741, having been absent about two years and a half. +His father died in November, and it was found that the poet's fortune +would not enable him to prosecute the study of the law. He therefore +retired to Cambridge, and fixed his residence at the university. +There he continued for the remainder of his life, with the exception +of about two years spent in London, when the treasures of the British +Museum were thrown open. At Cambridge he had the range of noble +libraries. His happiness consisted in study, and he perused with +critical attention the Greek and Roman poets, philosophers, +historians, and orators. Plato and the Anthologia he read and +annotated with great care, as if for publication. He compiled tables +of Greek chronology, added notes to Linnæus and other naturalists, +wrote geographical disquisitions on Strabo; and, besides being +familiar with French and Italian literature, was a zealous +archæological student, and profoundly versed in architecture, botany, +painting, and music. In all departments of human learning, except +mathematics, he was a master. But it follows that one so studious, so +critical, and so fastidious, could not be a voluminous writer. A few +poems include all the original compositions of Gray--the +quintessence, as it were, of thirty years of ceaseless study and +contemplation, irradiated by bright and fitful gleams of inspiration. +In 1742 Gray composed his _Ode to Spring_, his _Ode on a Distant +Prospect of Eton College_, and his _Ode to Adversity_--productions +which most readers of poetry can repeat from memory. He commenced a +didactic poem, _On the Alliance of Education and Government_, but +wrote only about a hundred lines. Every reader must regret that this +philosophical poem is but a fragment. It is in the style and measure +of Dryden, of whom Gray was an ardent admirer and close student. His +_Elegy written in a Country Churchyard_ was completed and published +in 1751. In the form of a sixpenny _brochure_ it circulated rapidly, +four editions being exhausted the first year. This popularity +surprised the poet. He said sarcastically that it was owing entirely +to the subject, and that the public would have received it as well if +it had been written in prose. The solemn and affecting nature of the +poem, applicable to all ranks and classes, no doubt aided its sale; +it required high poetic sensibility and a cultivated taste to +appreciate the rapid transitions, the figurative language, and +lyrical magnificence of the odes; but the elegy went home to all +hearts; while its musical harmony, originality, and pathetic train of +sentiment and feeling render it one of the most perfect of English +poems. No vicissitudes of taste or fashion have affected its +popularity. When the original manuscript of the poem was lately +(1854) offered for sale, it brought the almost incredible sum of 131 +pounds. The two great odes of Gray, _The Progress of Poetry_ and _The +Bard_, were published in 1757, and were but coldly received. His +name, however, stood high, and on the death of Cibber, the same year, +he was offered the laureateship, which he wisely declined. He was +ambitious, however, of obtaining the more congenial and dignified +appointment of Professor of Modern History in the University of +Cambridge, which fell vacant in 1762, and, by the advice of his +friends, he made application to Lord Bute, but was unsuccessful. Lord +Bute had designed it for the tutor of his son-in-law, Sir James +Lowther. No one had heard of the tutor, but the Bute influence was +all-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 replete +with interest and with touches of his peculiar humour and graphic +description. One other poem proceeded from his pen. In 1768 the +Professorship of Modern History was again vacant, and the Duke of +Grafton bestowed it upon Gray. A sum of 400 pounds per annum was thus +added to his income; but his health was precarious--he had lost it, +he said, just when he began to be easy in his circumstances. The +nomination of the Duke of Grafton to the office of Chancellor of the +University enabled Gray to acknowledge the favour conferred on +himself. He thought it better that gratitude should sing than +expectation, and he honoured his grace's installation with an ode. +Such occasional productions are seldom happy; but Gray preserved his +poetic dignity and select beauty of expression. He made the founders +of Cambridge, as Mr. Hallam has remarked, "pass before our eyes like +shadows over a magic glass." When the ceremony of the installation +was over, the poet-professor went on a tour to the lakes of +Cumberland and Westmoreland, and few of the beauties of the +lake-country, since so famous, escaped his observation. This was to +be his last excursion. While at dinner one day in the college-hall he +was seized with an attack of gout in his stomach, which resisted all +the powers of medicine, and proved fatal in less than a week. He died +on the 30th of July, 1771, and was buried, according to his own +desire, beside the remains of his mother at Stoke-Pogis, near Slough, +in Buckinghamshire, in a beautiful sequestered village churchyard +that is supposed to have furnished the scene of his elegy.[1] The +literary habits and personal peculiarities of Gray are familiar to us +from the numerous representations and allusions of his friends. It is +easy to fancy the recluse-poet sitting in his college-chambers in the +old quadrangle of Pembroke Hall. His windows are ornamented with +mignonette and choice flowers in China vases, but outside may be +discerned some iron-work intended to be serviceable as a fire-escape, +for he has a horror of fire. His furniture is neat and select; his +books, rather for use than show, are disposed around him. He has a +harpsichord in the room. In the corner of one of the apartments is a +trunk containing his deceased mother's dresses, carefully folded up +and preserved. His fastidiousness, bordering upon effeminacy, is +visible in his gait and manner--in his handsome features and small, +well-dressed person, especially when he walks abroad and sinks the +author and hard student in "the gentleman who sometimes writes for +his amusement." He writes always with a crow-quill, speaks slowly and +sententiously, and shuns the crew of dissonant college revellers, who +call him "a prig," and seek to annoy him. Long mornings of study, and +nights feverish from ill-health, are spent in those chambers; he is +often listless and in low spirits; yet his natural temper is not +desponding, and he delights in employment. He has always something to +learn or to communicate--some sally of humour or quiet stroke of +satire for his friends and correspondents--some note on natural +history to enter in his journal--some passage of Plato to unfold and +illustrate--some golden thought of classic inspiration to inlay on +his page--some bold image to tone down--some verse to retouch and +harmonize. His life is on the whole innocent and happy, and a feeling +of thankfulness to the Great Giver is breathed over all. + +[Footnote 1: A claim has been put up for the churchyard of +Granchester, about two miles from Cambridge, the great bell of St. +Mary's serving for the "curfew." But Stoke-Pogis is more likely to +have been the spot, if any individual locality were indicated. The +poet often visited the village, his aunt and mother residing there, +and his aunt was interred in the churchyard of the place. Gray's +epitaph on his mother is characterized not only by the tenderness +with which he always regarded her memory, but by his style and cast +of thought. It runs thus: "Beside her friend and sister here sleep +the remains of Dorothy Gray, widow, the careful, tender mother of +many 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 and +affection. Mrs. Gray's will commences in a similar touching strain: +"In the name of God, amen. This is the last will and desire of +Dorothy Gray to her son Thomas Gray." [Cunningham's edit. of +_Johnson's Lives_.] They were all in all to each other. The father's +cruelty and neglect, their straitened circumstances, the sacrifices +made by the mother to maintain her son at the university, her pride +in the talents and conduct of that son, and the increasing gratitude +and affection of the latter, nursed in his scholastic and cloistered +solitude--these form an affecting but noble record in the history of +genius. + +[One would infer from the above that Mrs. Gray was _not_ "interred in +the churchyard of the place," though the epitaph given immediately +after shows that she _was_. Gray in his will directed that he should +be 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 my +dear mother in the churchyard of Stoke-Pogeis, near Slough in +Buckinghamshire, by her remains, in a coffin of seasoned oak, neither +lined nor covered, and (unless it be inconvenient) I could wish that +one of my executors may see me laid in the grave, and distribute +among such honest and industrious poor persons in said parish as he +thinks 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 has +been often reprinted, and forms the groundwork of the editions by +Mathias (1814) and Mitford (1816). Mr. Mitford, in 1843, published +Gray's correspondence with the Rev. Norton Nicholls; and in 1854 +another collection of Gray's letters was published, edited also by +Mr. Mitford. Every scrap of the poet's MSS. is eagerly sought after, +and every year seems to add to his popularity as a poet and +letter-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 is +described 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 of +Gray. Here he used to spend his vacations, not only when a youth at +Eton, but during the whole of his future life, while his mother and +his aunts lived. Here it was that his _Ode on a Distant Prospect of +Eton College_, his celebrated _Elegy written in a Country +Churchyard_, and his _Long Story_ were not only written, but were +mingled with the circumstances and all the tenderest feelings of his +own life. + +His mother and aunts lived at an old-fashioned house in a very +retired spot at Stoke, called West-End. This house stood in a hollow, +much screened by trees. A small stream ran through the garden, and it +is said that Gray used to employ himself when here much in this +garden, and that many of the trees still remaining are of his +planting. On one side of the house extended an upland field, which +was planted round so as to give a charming retired walk; and at the +summit of the field was raised an artificial mound, and upon it was +built a sort of arcade or summer-house, which gave full prospect of +Windsor and Eton. Here Gray used to delight to sit; here he was +accustomed to read and write much; and it is just the place to +inspire the _Ode on Eton College_, which lay in the midst of its fine +landscape, beautifully in view. The old house inhabited by Gray and +his mother has just been pulled down, and replaced by an Elizabethan +mansion by the present proprietor, Mr. Penn, of Stoke Park, just +by.[2] The garden, of course, has shared in the change, and now +stands gay with its fountain and its modern greenhouse, and, +excepting for some fine trees, no longer reminds you of Gray. The +woodland walk still remains round the adjoining field, and the +summer-house on its summit, though now much cracked by time, and only +held together by iron cramps. The trees are now so lofty that they +completely obstruct the view, and shut out both Eton and Windsor. + +[Footnote 2: This was written (or published, at least) in 1846; but +Mitford, in the Life of Gray prefixed to the "Eton edition" of his +Poems, published in 1847, says: "The house, which is now called +_West-End_, lies in a secluded part of the parish, on the road to +Fulmer. It has lately been much enlarged and adorned by its present +proprietor [Mr. Penn], but the room called 'Gray's' (distinguished by +a small balcony) is still preserved; and a shady walk round an +adjoining meadow, with a summer-house on the rising land, are still +remembered as favourite places frequented by the poet."--_Ed_.] + + * * * * * * + +Stoke Park is about a couple of miles from Slough. The country is +flat, but its monotony is broken up by the noble character and +disposition 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 three +hundred yards from the north front of the house stands a column, +sixty-eight feet high, bearing on the top a colossal statue of Sir +Edward Coke, by Rosa. The woods of the park shut out the view of +West-End House, Gray's occasional residence, but the space is open +from the mansion across the park, so as to take in the view both of +the 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 the +monument. This is composed of fine freestone, and consists of a large +sarcophagus, supported on a square pedestal, with inscriptions on +each 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 a +winding walk approaching from the shade of the neighbouring trees. To +the right, across the park, at some little distance, backed by fine +trees, stands the rural little church and churchyard where Gray wrote +his _Elegy_, and where he lies. As you walk on to this, the mansion +closes the distant view between the woods with fine effect. The +church has often been engraved, and is therefore tolerably familiar +to the general reader. It consists of two barn-like structures, with +tall roofs, set side by side, and the tower and finely tapered spire +rising above them at the northwest corner. The church is thickly hung +with 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 and +within, as any village church can well be. No village, however, is to +be seen. Stoke consists chiefly of scattered houses, and this is now +in 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 the +southeast window, completes the impression of the scene. It is a +plain brick altar tomb, covered with a blue slate slab, and, besides +his own ashes, contains those of his mother and aunt. On the slab are +inscribed the following lines by Gray himself: "In the vault beneath +are deposited, in hope of a joyful resurrection, the remains of _Mary +Antrobus_. She died unmarried, Nov. 5, 1749, aged sixty-six. In the +same pious confidence, beside her friend and sister, here sleep the +remains of _Dorothy Gray_, widow; the careful, tender mother of many +children, ONE of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her. She +died, March 11, 1753, aged LXXII." + +No testimony of the interment of Gray in the same tomb was inscribed +anywhere till Mr. Penn, in 1799, erected the monument already +mentioned, and placed a small slab in the wall, under the window, +opposite to the tomb itself, recording the fact of Gray's burial +there. The whole scene is well worthy of a summer day's stroll, +especially for such as, pent in the metropolis, know how to enjoy the +quiet freshness of the country and the associations of poetry and the +past. + +[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 of +Shakespeare, works of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace, etc.) need no +explanation. + + + + +NOTES. + +[Illustration] + + +ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. + + +This poem was begun in the year 1742, but was not finished until +1750, 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 (where +I shall continue good part of the summer), and having put an end to a +thing, whose beginning you have seen long ago, I immediately send it +you. You will, I hope, look upon it in the light of a thing with an +end to it: a merit that most of my writings have wanted, and are like +to 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 printed +surreptitiously. + +February 11, 1751, Gray wrote to Walpole that the proprietors of "the +Magazine of Magazines" were about to publish his _Elegy_, and added, +"I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict +upon me; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley +print 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 convenient +for him, but on his best paper and character; he must correct the +press himself,[1] and print it without any interval between the +stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; +and the title must be--'Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard.' If +he 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 an +advertisement to the effect that accident alone brought the poem +before the public, although an apology was unnecessary to any but the +author. On which Gray wrote, "I thank you for your advertisement, +which saves my honour." + +[Footnote 1: Dodsley's proof-reading must have been somewhat +careless, for there are many errors of the press in this _editio +princeps_. Gray writes to Walpole, under date of "Ash-Wednesday, +Cambridge, 1751," as follows: "Nurse Dodsley has given it a pinch or +two in the cradle, that (I doubt) it will bear the marks of as long +as it lives. But no matter: we have ourselves suffered under her +hands before now; and besides, it will only look the more careless +and by _accident_ as it were." Again, March 3, 1751, he writes: "I do +not expect any more editions; as I have appeared in more magazines +than one. The chief errata were _sacred_ for _secret_; _hidden_ for +_kindred_ (in spite of dukes and classics); and '_frowning_ as in +scorn' for _smiling_. I humbly propose, for the benefit of Mr. +Dodsley and his matrons, that take _awake_ [in line 92, which at +first read "awake and faithful to her wonted fires"] for a verb, that +they should read _asleep_, and all will be right." Other errors were, +"Their _harrow_ oft the stubborn glebe," "And read their _destiny_ in +a nation's eyes," "With uncouth rhymes and shapeless _culture_ +decked," "Slow through the churchway _pass_," and many of minor +importance.] + +A writer in _Notes and Queries_, June 12, 1875, states that the poem +first appeared in the _London Magazine_, March, 1751, p. 134, and +that "the Magazine of Magazines" is "a gentle term of scorn used by +Gray to indicate" that periodical, and not the name of any actual +magazine. But in the next number of _Notes and Queries_ (June 19, +1875) Mr. F. Locker informs us that he has in his possession a +title-page of the _Grand Magazine of Magazines_, and the page of the +number for April, 1751, which contains the _Elegy_. The magazine is +said 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_ in +the _London Magazine_. The full title of that periodical was "The +London Magazine: or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer." The editor's +name was not given; the publisher was "R. Baldwin, jun. at the Rose +in Pater-Noster Row." The volume for 1751 was the 20th, and the +Preface (written at the close of the year) begins thus: "As the two +most formidable Enemies we have ever had, are now extinct, we have +great Reason to conclude, that it is only the Merit, and real +Usefulness of our COLLECTION, that hath supported its Sale and +Reputation for Twenty Years." A foot-note informs us that the +"Enemies" are the "_Magazine of Magazines_ and _Grand Magazine of +Magazines_;" from which it would appear that there were two +periodicals 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 statements +concerning the "Magazine of Magazines," as Gray calls it. In the +first place, Gray appears (from other portions of his letter to +Walpole) to be familiar with this magazine, and would not be likely +to 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 _Grand +Magazine of Magazines_, if, as Mr. Locker states, it was the _April_ +number of that periodical in which the poem appeared. Nor can it +refer to the _London Magazine_, as it is clear from internal evidence +that the March number, containing the _Elegy_, was not issued until +early 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 Elegy +wrote 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 the +case of the latter, perhaps two months) after Dodsley had issued it, +in what magazine was it that it _did_ appear just before he issued +it? The _N. A. Review_ says that "it was a close race between the +Magazine and Dodsley; but the former, having a little the start, came +out 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 the +end of the month. Gray calls it "the Magazine of Magazines," and we +shall take his word for it until we have reason for doubting it. What +else was included in his "more magazines than one" we cannot even +guess. + +We have not been able to find the _Magazine of Magazines_ or the +_Grand Magazine of Magazines_ in the libraries, and know nothing +about either "of our own knowledge." The _London Magazine_ is in the +Harvard College Library, and the statements concerning that we can +personally 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's +authorized edition; though, queerly enough, it has "winds" in the +second line and the parenthesis "(all he had)" in the Epitaph. Of +Dodsley's misprints noted above it has only "Their _harrow_ oft" and +"shapeless _culture_." These four errors, indeed, are the only ones +worth noting, except "Or _wake_ to extasy the living lyre." + +The "Magazine of Magazines" (as the writer in the _North American +Review_ tells us) printed the _Elegy_ with the author's name. The +authorized though anonymous edition was thus briefly noticed by _The +Monthly Review_, the critical Rhadamanthus of the day: "_An Elegy in +a Country Churchyard_. 4to. Dodsley's. Seven pages.--The excellence +of this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity." + +"Soon after its publication," says Mason, "I remember, sitting with +Mr. Gray in his College apartment, he expressed to me his surprise at +the 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 printed +copy of it lying on his table. 'This,' said he, 'shall be its future +motto.' 'Pity,' cried I, 'that Dr. Young's Night Thoughts have +preoccupied it.' 'So,' replied he, 'indeed it is.'" Gray himself +tells the story of its success on the margin of the manuscript copy +of the _Elegy_ preserved at Cambridge among his papers, and +reproduced 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 of +translations which have been made of it into various languages, both +of ancient and modern Europe. It is the same kind of tribute which +has been rendered to _Robinson Crusoe_ and to _The Pilgrim's +Progress_, and is proof of the same universality of interest, +transcending the limits of language and of race. To no poem in the +English language has the same kind of homage been paid so abundantly. +Of what other poem is there a polyglot edition? Italy and England +have competed with their polyglot editions of the _Elegy_: Torri's, +bearing the title, 'Elegia di Tomaso Gray sopra un Cimitero di +Campagna, tradotta dall' Inglese in più lingue: Verona, 1817; +Livorno, 1843;' and Van Voorst's London edition." Professor Reed adds +a list of the translations (which, however, is incomplete), including +one 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 as +he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is the +cornerstone of his glory." + +The tribute paid the poem by General Wolfe is familiar to all, but we +cannot refrain from quoting Lord Mahon's beautiful account of it in +his _History of England_. On the night of September 13th, 1759, the +night before the battle on the Plains of Abraham, Wolfe was +descending the St. Lawrence with a part of his troops. The historian +says: "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 throbbed +at the coming conflict! how intently must every eye have contemplated +the dark outline, as it lay pencilled upon the midnight sky, and as +every moment it grew closer and clearer, of the hostile heights! Not +a word was spoken--not a sound heard beyond the rippling of the +stream. Wolfe alone--thus tradition has told us--repeated in a low +tone to the other officers in his boat those beautiful stanzas with +which 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. At +the close of the recitation Wolfe added, 'Now, gentlemen, I would +rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec.'" + +Hales, in his Introduction to the poem, remarks: "The _Elegy_ is +perhaps the most widely known poem in our language. The reason of +this extensive popularity is perhaps to be sought in the fact that it +expresses in an exquisite manner feelings and thoughts that are +universal. In the current of ideas in the _Elegy_ there is perhaps +nothing that is rare, or exceptional, or out of the common way. The +musings are of the most rational and obvious character possible; it +is difficult to conceive of any one musing under similar +circumstances who should not muse so; but they are not the less deep +and moving on this account. The mystery of life does not become +clearer, or less solemn and awful, for any amount of contemplation. +Such inevitable, such everlasting questions as rise on the mind when +one lingers in the precincts of Death can never lose their freshness, +never cease to fascinate and to move. It is with such questions, that +would have been commonplace long ages since if they could ever be so, +that the _Elegy_ deals. It deals with them in no lofty philosophical +manner, but in a simple, humble, unpretentious way, always with the +truest and the broadest humanity. The poet's thoughts turn to the +poor; he forgets the fine tombs inside the church, and thinks only of +the 'mouldering heaps' in the churchyard. Hence the problem that +especially suggests itself is the potential greatness, when they +lived, of the 'rude forefathers' that now lie at his feet. He does +not, and cannot solve it, though he finds considerations to mitigate +the sadness it must inspire; but he expresses it in all its awfulness +in the most effective language and with the deepest feeling; and his +expression of it has become a living part of our language." + +The writer in the _North American Review_ (vol. 96) from whom we have +elsewhere quoted says of the _Elegy_: "It is upon this that Gray's +fame as a poet must chiefly rest. By this he will be known forever +alike to the lettered and the unlettered. Many, in future ages, who +may never have heard of his classic Odes, his various learning, or +his sparkling letters, will revere him only as the author of the +_Elegy_. For this he will be enshrined through all time in the hearts +of the myriads who shall speak our English tongue. For this his name +will be held in glad remembrance in the far-off summer isles of the +Pacific, and amidst the waste of polar snows. If he had written +nothing else, his place as a leading poet in our language would still +be assured. Many have asserted, with Johnson, that he was a mere +mechanical poet--one who brought from without, but never found +within; that the gift of inspiration was not native to him; that his +imagination was borrowed finery, his fancy tinsel, and his invention +the world's well-worn jewels; that whatever in his verse was poetic +was not new, and what was new was not poetic; that he was only an +unworldly dyspeptic, living amid many books, and laboriously delving +for a lifetime between musty covers, picking out now and then +another's gems and bits of ore, and fashioning them into +ill-compacted mosaics, which he wrongly called his own. To all this +the _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 of +the divine breath alone. Consider all the commentators, the +scholiasts, the interpreters, the annotators, and other like +book-worms, from Aristarchus down to Döderlein; and may it not be +said that, among them all, 'Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum?' + +"Gray wrote but little, yet he wrote that little well. He might have +done far more for us; the same is true of most men, even of the +greatest. The possibilities of a life are always in advance of its +performance. But we cannot say that his life was a wasted one. Even +this little _Elegy_ alone should go for much. For, suppose that he +had 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 Greek +classics; that he had, perchance, sat upon the woolsack, and laid +rich offerings at the feet of blind Justice;--taking the years +together, 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 might +thus have made himself a power for a time, to be dethroned by some +new usurper in the realm of knowledge; now he is a power and a joy +forever 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 Mason +and the Rev. James Browne, as joint literary executors. Mason +bequeathed the entire trust to Mr. Stonhewer. The latter, in making +his will, divided the legacy into two parts. The larger share went to +the Master and Fellows of Pembroke Hall. Among the papers, which are +still in the possession of the College, was found a copy of the +_Elegy_. An excellent fac-simile of this manuscript appears in +Mathias's edition of Gray, published in 1814. In referring to it +hereafter we shall designate it as the "Pembroke" MS. + +The remaining portion of Gray's literary bequest, including the other +manuscript 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, of +Stoke Park, for _one hundred pounds_--the highest sum that had ever +been known to be paid for a single sheet of paper. In 1854 this +manuscript came again into the market, and was knocked down to Mr. +Robert Charles Wrightson, of Birmingham, for 131 pounds. On the 29th +of May, 1875, it was once more offered for sale in London, and was +purchased by Sir William Fraser for 230 pounds, or about $1150. A +photographic reproduction of it was published in London in 1862. For +convenience 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 more +from the printed text. It bears internal evidence of being the rough +draft, while the other represents a later stage of the poem. We will +give the variations of both from the present version.[3] + +[Footnote 3: For the readings of the Wrightson MS. we have had to +depend on Mason, Mitford, and other editors of the poem, and on the +article in the _North American Review_, already referred to. The +readings of the Pembroke MS. are taken from the engraved fac-simile +in Mathias's edition. + +The two stanzas of which a fac-simile is given on page 73 are from +the Pembroke MS., but the wood-cut hardly does justice to the +feminine 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 long +article on the change made by Gray in this stanza, entitled, "A +Lesson from Gray's Elegy," from which we cull the following +paragraphs: + +"Gray, having first of all put down the names of three Romans as +illustrations of his meaning, afterwards deliberately struck them out +and put the names of three Englishmen instead. This is a sign of a +change in the taste of the age, a change with which Gray himself had +a good deal to do. The deliberate wiping out of the names of Cato, +Tully, and Cæsar, to put in the names of Hampden, Milton, and +Cromwell, seems to us so obviously a change for the better that there +seems to be no room for any doubt about it. It is by no means certain +that Gray's own contemporaries would have thought the matter equally +clear. We suspect that to many people in his day it must have seemed +a daring novelty to draw illustrations from English history, +especially from parts of English history which, it must be +remembered, were then a great deal more recent than they are now. To +be sure, in choosing English illustrations, a poet of Gray's time was +in rather a hard strait. If he chose illustrations from the century +or two before his own time, he could only choose names which had +hardly got free from the strife of recent politics. If, in a poem of +the nature of the Elegy, he had drawn illustrations from earlier +times of English history, he would have found but few people in his +day likely to understand him.... + +"The change which Gray made in this well-known stanza is not only an +improvement in a particular poem, it is a sign of a general +improvement in taste. He wrote first according to the vicious taste +of an earlier time, and he then changed it according to his own +better taste. And of that better taste he was undoubtedly a prophet +to others. Gray's poetry must have done a great deal to open men's +eyes to the fact that they were Englishmen, and that on them, as +Englishmen, English things had a higher claim than Roman, and that to +them English examples ought to be more speaking than Roman ones. But +there is another side of the case not to be forgotten. Those who +would have regretted the change from Cato, Tully, and Cæsar to +Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell, those who perhaps really did think +that the bringing in of Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell was a +degradation of what they would have called the Muse, were certainly +not those who had the truest knowledge of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar. The +'classic' taste from which Gray helped to deliver us was a taste +which hardly deserves to be called a taste. Pardonable perhaps in the +first heat of the Renaissance, when 'classic' studies and objects had +the charm of novelty, it had become by his day a mere silly +fashion."] + +In 18th stanza, "Or _crown_ the shrine," etc. + +After this stanza, the MS. has the following four stanzas, now +omitted: + + "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 24th +of the present version. Mason thought that there was a pathetic +melancholy in all four which claimed preservation. The third he +considered equal to any in the whole _Elegy_. The poem was originally +intended 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 second +line, and for the last, + + "Thy ever loved haunt--this long deserted shade." + +The latter is obviously wrong (Gray was incapable of such metre), and +the 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 it +not only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms us +peculiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the account +of his whole day; whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we have +only 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 the +following 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 all +the editions up to 1753, when it was dropped. The omission was not +made from any objection to the stanza in itself, but simply because +it was too long a parenthesis in this place; on the principle which +he states in a letter to Dr. Beattie: "As to description, I have +always thought that it made the most graceful ornament of poetry, but +never ought to make the subject." The part was sacrificed for the +good of the whole. Mason very justly remarked that "the lines, +however, are in themselves exquisitely fine, and demand +preservation." + +[Footnote 8: See next page. The writer in the _North American Review_ +is our only authority for the stanza as given above. He appears to +have had the photographic reproduction of the Wrightson MS., but we +cannot 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 text +in the Wrightson MS. which are noted by the authorities on whom we +have depended; but we suspect that the following readings, mentioned +by Mitford as in the MS., belong to _that_ MS., as they are _not_ +found in the other: in the 7th stanza, "sickles" for "sickle;" in +18th, "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 present +version: + +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 of +the Wrightson MS. Mitford gives it as noted by Mason, and it is +retained 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'er +their 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 also +the reading of the Wrightson MS., as Mitford says it is noted by +Mason. + +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, "Omitted +in 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 as +follows: + + "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 his +Poems (edited by Rev. John Moultrie, 1847), says: "I possess many +curious variations from the printed text, taken from a copy of it in +his own handwriting." He adds specimens of these variations, a few of +which differ from both the Wrightson and Pembroke MSS. We give these +in our notes below. See on 12, 24, and 93. + + +Several localities have contended for the honor of being the scene of +the _Elegy_, but the general sentiment has always, and justly, been +in favor of Stoke-Pogis. It was there that Gray began the poem in +1742; and there, as we have seen, he finished it in 1750. In that +churchyard his mother was buried, and there, at his request, his own +remains were afterwards laid beside her. The scene is, moreover, in +all respects in perfect keeping with the spirit of the poem. + +According to the common Cambridge tradition, Granchester, a parish +about two miles southwest of the University, to which Gray was in the +habit of taking his "constitutional" daily, is the locality of the +poem; and the great bell of St. Mary's is the "curfew" of the first +stanza. Another tradition makes a similar claim for Madingley, some +three miles and a half northwest of Cambridge. Both places have +churchyards such as the _Elegy_ describes; and this is about all that +can be said in favor of their pretensions. There is also a parish +called Burnham Beeches, in Buckinghamshire, which one writer at least +has suggested as the scene of the poem, but for no better reason than +that Gray once wrote a description of the place to Walpole, and +casually mentioned the existence of certain "beeches," at the foot of +which he would "squat," and "there grow to the trunk a whole +morning." Gray's uncle had a seat in the neighborhood, and the poet +often visited here, but the spot was not hallowed to him by the fond +and tender associations that gathered about Stoke. + + +1. _The curfew_. Hales remarks: "It is a great mistake to suppose +that the ringing of the curfew was, at its institution, a mark of +Norman oppression. If such a custom was unknown before the Conquest, +it only shows that the old English police was less well-regulated +than that of many parts of the Continent, and how much the superior +civilization of the Norman-French was needed. Fires were the curse of +the timber-built towns of the Middle Ages: 'Solae pestes Londoniae +sunt stultorum immodica potatio et _frequens incendium_' +(Fitzstephen). The enforced extinction of domestic lights at an +appointed 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 not +want 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 curfew +was rung, not tolled. We presume that depended, to some extent, on +the fancy of the ringer. Milton (_Il Pens._ 76) speaks of the curfew +as + + "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 those +unfamiliar 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 and +Cressida_, 22: + + "That tolls the knell for their departed sense." + +On _parting_=departing, cf. Shakes. _Cor._ v. 6: "When I parted +hence;" Goldsmith, _D. V._ 171: "Beside the bed where parting life +was laid," etc. + +2. _The lowing herd wind_, etc. _Wind_, and not _winds_, is the +reading 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 any +other of the more recent editions, which have substituted _winds_. +Whether the change was made as an amendment or accidentally, we do +not know;[10] but the original reading seems to us by far the better +one. The poet does not refer to the herd as an aggregate, but to the +animals that compose it. He sees, not _it_, but "_them_ on their +winding way." The ordinary reading mars both the meaning and the +melody 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_ of +the _collected_ Poems--was issued under Gray's own supervision, and +is printed with remarkable accuracy. We have detected only one +indubitable error of the type in the entire volume. Certain +peculiarities of spelling were probably intentional, as we find the +like in the fac-similes of the poet's manuscripts. The many +quotations from Greek, Latin, and Italian are correctly given +(according to the received texts of the time), and the references to +authorities, so far as we have verified them, are equally exact. The +book throughout bears the marks of Gray's scholarly and critical +habits, and we may be sure that the poems appear in precisely the +form 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 its +readings seldom vary from Gray's. All of Mitford's that we have +examined swarm with errors, especially in the notes. Pickering's +(1835), edited by Mitford, is perhaps the worst of all. The Boston +ed. (Little, Brown, & Co., 1853) is a pretty careful reproduction of +Pickering's, with all its inaccuracies.] + +3. The critic of the _N. A. Review_ points out that this line "is +quite peculiar in its possible transformations. We have made," he +adds, "twenty different versions preserving the rhythm, the general +sentiment 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 the +weary 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: "Ignavus +bubo, 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 mentioned +by Mitford is, "Molest and pry into her ancient reign." + +13. "As he stands in the churchyard, he thinks only of the poorer +people, 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 former +resting-place was for the poor, the latter for the rich. It was so in +the first instance, for two reasons: (i.) the interior of the church +was regarded as of great sanctity, and all who could sought a place +in it, the most dearly coveted spot being near the high altar; (ii.) +when elaborate tombs were the fashion, they were built inside the +church for the sake of security, 'gay tombs' being liable to be +'robb'd' (see the funeral dirge in Webster's _White Devil_). As these +two considerations gradually ceased to have power, and other +considerations of an opposite tendency began to prevail, the inside +of the church became comparatively deserted, except when ancestral +reasons 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: orthogoê +chelidôn.] 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 in +mind the 'narrow cell' above, have mistaken the 'lowly bed' in this +verse for the grave--a most puerile and ridiculous blunder;" and +Mitford says: "Here the epithet 'lowly,' as applied to 'bed,' +occasions some ambiguity as to whether the poet meant the bed on +which they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid, which in +poetry is called a 'lowly bed.' Of course the former is designed; but +Mr. 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 purely +evil, of which we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, _this +is the last_." + +22. _Ply her evening care_. Mitford says, "To _ply a care_ is an +expression that is not proper to our language, and was probably +formed for the rhyme _share_." Hales remarks: "This is probably the +kind 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 Saturday +Night_, 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." Wakefield +compares 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 Elizabethan +writers. 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 imperfect +rhyme;" and the same might be said of _toil_ and _smile_. + +33. Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind these verses from his +friend 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 (and +probably the other) MS. _Hour_ is the subject, not the object, of the +verb. + +36. Hayley, in the Life of Crashaw, _Biographia Britannica_, says +that this line is "literally translated from the Latin prose of +Bartholinus in his Danish Antiquities." + +39. _Fretted_. The _fret_ is, strictly, an ornament used in classical +architecture, formed by small fillets intersecting each other at +right angles. Parker (_Glossary of Architecture_) derives the word +from 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 richly +dight." On _animated bust_, cf. Pope, _Temple of Fame_, 73: "Heroes +in animated marble frown;" and Virgil, _Æn._ vi. 847: "spirantia +aera." + +43. _Provoke_. Mitford considers this use of the word "unusually +bold, to say the least." It is simply the etymological meaning, _to +call 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 in +dull, cold marble." + +46. _Pregnant with celestial fire_. This phrase has been copied by +Cowper in his _Boadicea_, which is said (see notes of "Globe" ed.) to +have 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 17th +century, 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," as +in _Æneid_, vi. 49. + +53. _Full many a gem_, etc. Cf. Bishop Hall, _Contemplations_: "There +is many a rich stone laid up in the bowells of the earth, many a fair +pearle in the bosome of the sea, that never was seene, nor never +shall bee." + +_Purest ray serene_. As Hales remarks, this is a favourite +arrangement 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 in +the desert air." + +57. It was in 1636 that John Hampden, of Buckinghamshire (a cousin of +Oliver 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_. If +that had been the meaning, the poet would have used some other phrase +than "of his fields," or "his lands," as he first wrote it. + +59. _Some mute inglorious Milton_. Cf. Phillips, preface to _Theatrum +Poetarum_: "Even the very names of some who having perhaps been +comparable to Homer for heroic poesy, or to Euripides for tragedy, +yet nevertheless sleep inglorious in the crowd of the forgotten +vulgar." + +60. _Some Cromwell_, etc. Hales remarks: "The prejudice against +Cromwell was extremely strong throughout the 18th century, even +amongst the more liberal-minded. That cloud of 'detractions rude,' of +which Milton speaks in his noble sonnet to our 'chief of men' as in +his own day enveloping the great republican leader, still lay thick +and heavy over him. His wise statesmanship, his unceasing +earnestness, his high-minded purpose, were not yet seen." + +After this stanza Thomas Edwards, the author of the _Canons of +Criticism_, would add the following, to supply what he deemed a +defect 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 gives +a sense exactly contrary to that intended; to avoid which one must +break 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 in +Latin, especially by Livy, as in v. 22: '_Ea_ sola pecunia,' the +money derived from that sale, etc." (Hales). + +84. _That teach_. Mitford censures _teach_ as ungrammatical; but it +may be justified as a "construction according to sense." + +85. Hales remarks: "At the first glance it might seem that _to dumb +Forgetfulness a prey_ was in apposition to _who_, and the meaning +was, 'Who that now lies forgotten,' etc.; in which case the second +line of the stanza must be closely connected with the fourth; for the +question of the passage is not 'Who ever died?' but 'Who ever died +without wishing to be remembered?' But in this way of interpreting +this difficult stanza (i.) there is comparatively little force in the +appositional phrase, and (ii.) there is a certain awkwardness in +deferring so long the clause (virtually adverbal though apparently +coördinate) in which, as has just been noticed, the point of the +question really lies. Perhaps therefore it is better to take the +phrase _to dumb Forgetfulness a prey_ as in fact the completion of +the predicate _resign'd_, and interpret thus: Who ever resigned this +life of his with all its pleasures and all its pains to be utterly +ignored and forgotten?=who ever, when resigning it, reconciled +himself to its being forgotten? In this case the second half of the +stanza echoes the thought of the first half." + +We give the note in full, and leave the reader to take his choice of +the two interpretations. For ourself, we incline to the first rather +than the second. We prefer to take _to dumb Forgetfulness a prey_ as +appositional 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 look +behind? + +90. _Pious_ is used in the sense of the Latin _pius_. Ovid has "piae +lacrimae." 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 the +two questions, or rather the one question twice repeated, of the +preceding stanza.... What he would say is that every one while a +spark of life yet remains in him yearns for some kindly loving +remembrance; nay, even after the spark is quenched, even when all is +dust and ashes, that yearning must still be felt." + +91, 92. Mitford paraphrases the couplet thus: "The voice of Nature +still cries from the tomb in the language of the epitaph inscribed +upon it, which still endeavours to connect us with the living; the +fires 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. Gray +translated this sonnet into Latin elegiacs, the last line being +rendered, + + "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 he +took it from Milton, without quite understanding in what sense Milton +uses it." We doubt whether Hales understands Milton here. It is true +that _upland_ used to mean country, as _uplanders_ meant countrymen, +and _uplandish_ countrified (see Nares and Wb.), but the other +meaning is older than Milton (see Halliwell's _Dict. of Archaic +Words_), and Johnson, Keightley, and others are probably right in +considering "upland hamlets" an instance of it. Masson, in his recent +edition of Milton (1875), explains the "upland hamlets" as "little +villages among the slopes, away from the river-meadows and the +hay-making." + +101. As Mitford remarks, _beech_ and _stretch_ form an imperfect +rhyme. + +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 you +will measure your lubber's length again, tarry." Cf. also _Brittain's +Ida_ (formerly ascribed to Spenser, but rejected by the best +editors), iii. 2: + + "Her goodly length stretcht on a lilly-bed." + +104. Cf. Thomson, _Spring_, 644: "divided by a babbling brook;" and +Horace, _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 legitimate +compound, and must be divided into two separate words, for such they +are, when released from the _handcuffs_ of the hyphen." The hyphen is +not in the edition of 1768, and we should omit it if it were not +found 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_: "Simul +assueta 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 the +pathetic sentence of Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ ii. 63: "Nam terra novissime +complexa 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 of +the line in the MSS. and in all the early editions except that of +Mathias, who seems to be responsible for the change (adopted by the +recent 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 to +try to make him see it. Mitford, who ought to have known better, not +only thrusts in the parenthesis, but quotes this from Pope's Homer as +an 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, in +the same construction as "to disclose." That the latter was the +construction the poet had in mind is evident from the form of the +stanza 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 of +things far removed." + + + + +[Illustration] + + +ODE ON THE SPRING. + + +The original manuscript title of this ode was "Noontide." It was +first printed in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. ii. p. 271, under the +title of "Ode." + +1. _The rosy-bosom'd Hours_. Cf. Milton, _Comus_, 984: "The Graces +and 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 the +goddesses of the seasons, the course of which was symbolically +represented by "the dance of the Hours." They were often described, +in connection with the Graces, Hebe, and Aphrodite, as accompanying +with their dancing the songs of the Muses and the lyre of Apollo. +Long after the time of Homer they continued to be regarded as the +givers of the seasons, especially spring and autumn, or "Nature in +her bloom and her maturity." At first there were only two Horæ, +Thallo (or Spring) and Karpo (or Autumn); but later the number was +three, like that of the Graces. In art they are represented as +blooming maidens, bearing the products of the seasons. + +2. _Fair Venus' train_. The Hours adorned Aphrodite (Venus) as she +rose from the sea, and are often associated with her by Homer, +Hesiod, and other classical writers. Wakefield remarks: "Venus is +here employed, in conformity to the mythology of the Greeks, as the +source of creation and beauty." + +3. _Long-expecting_. Waiting long for the spring. Sometimes +incorrectly 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 gemmis +purpurantem pingit annum floribus;" Pope, _Pastorals_, i. 28: "And +lavish Nature paints the purple year;" and Mallet, _Zephyr_: "Gales +that 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 legend +that Philomela (or, as some say, Procne), the daughter of a king of +Attica, was changed into a nightingale. Cf. Milton's description of +Athens (_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'd +the noontide bowers;" Pope, _Eloisa_, 170: "And breathes a browner +horror on the woods;" Thomson, _Castle of Indolence_, i. 38: "Or +Autumn'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 not +acknowledge the existence of the colour of _brown_ at all," he goes +on 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 mere +accident, after we had been talking about other things, 'Do you know +I have found that there is no _brown_ in nature? What we call brown +is always a variety either of orange or purple. It never can be +represented by umber, unless altered by contrast.' It is curious how +far the significance of this remark extends, how exquisitely it +illustrates 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, safe +canopy;" 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 shades +the panting flocks remove." + +23. _The peopled air_. Cf. Walton, _C. A._: "Now the wing'd people of +the sky shall sing;" Beaumont, _Psyche_: "Every tree empeopled was +with 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: "From +maggot-youth through change of state," etc. See on 31 below. + +26. _The honied spring_. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens._ 142: "the bee with +honied thigh;" and _Lyc._ 140: "the honied showers." + +"There has of late arisen," says Johnson in his Life of Gray, "a +practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the +termination of participles, such as the _cultured plain_, the +_daisied bank_; but I am sorry to see in the lines of a scholar like +Gray the _honied_ spring." But, as we have seen, _honied_ is found in +Milton; and Shakespeare also uses it in _Hen. V._ i. 1: "honey'd +sentences." _Mellitus_ is used by Cicero, Horace, and Catullus. The +editor of an English dictionary, as Lord Grenville has remarked, +ought to know "that the ready conversion of our substances into +verbs, participles, and participial adjectives is of the very essence +of our tongue, derived from its Saxon origin, and a main source of +its energy and richness." + +27. _The liquid noon_. Gray quotes Virgil, _Geo._ iv. 59: "Nare per +aestatem 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 the +threshold preach." In a letter to Walpole, he says: "I send you a bit +of a thing for two reasons: first, because it is of one of your +favourites, Mr. M. Green; and next, because I would do justice. The +thought on which my second Ode turns [this Ode, afterwards placed +first by Gray] is manifestly stole from hence; not that I knew it at +the time, but having seen this many years before, to be sure it +imprinted itself on my memory, and, forgetting the Author, I took it +for my own." Then comes the quotation from Green's _Grotto_. The +passage 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 painted +wings; 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: "pictaeque +volucres;" 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 few +lines of the ode for an inscription. + +In a letter to Walpole, dated March 1, 1747, Gray refers to the +subject of the ode in the following jocose strain: "As one ought to +be particularly careful to avoid blunders in a compliment of +condolence, it would be a sensible satisfaction to me (before I +testify my sorrow, and the sincere part I take in your misfortune) to +know 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 I +cannot justly say which was which. Then as to your handsome Cat, the +name you distinguish her by, I am no less at a loss, as well knowing +one's handsome cat is always the cat one likes best; or if one be +alive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is the +handsomest. Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you do +not think me so ill-bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all my +interest in the survivor; oh no! I would rather seem to mistake, and +imagine to be sure it must be the tabby one that had met with this +sad accident. Till this affair is a little better determined, you +will 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 I +have very little to say, at least in prose. Somebody will be the +better for it; I do not mean you, but your Cat, feuë Mademoiselle +Selime, whom I am about to immortalize for one week or fortnight, as +follows: [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 fault +with this as redundant, but it is no more so than poetic usage +allows. In the _Progress of Poesy_, i. 1, we have again: "The +laughing 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 the +4th. + +6. _The lake_. In the mock-heroic vein that runs through the whole +poem. + +11. _Jet_. This word comes, through the French, from Gagai, a town in +Lycia, where the mineral was first obtained. + +14. _Two angel forms_. In the first ed. "two beauteous forms," which +Mitford prefers to the present reading, "as the images of _angel_ and +_genii_ interfere with each other, and bring different associations +to the mind." + +16. _Tyrian hue_. Explained by the "purple" in next line; an allusion +to 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 a +golden glow;" _Temple of Fame_, 253: "And lucid amber casts a golden +gleam." + +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 the +cat. + +34. _No dolphin came_. An allusion to the story of Arion, who when +thrown overboard by the sailors for the sake of his wealth was borne +safely 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 old +English 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. or +Milton, 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 of +Gray'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 of +Wales's Marriage, had appeared in the _Cambridge Collection_ in +1736.] + +Hazlitt (_Lectures on English Poets_) says of this Ode: "It is more +mechanical and commonplace [than the _Elegy_]; but it touches on +certain strings about the heart, that vibrate in unison with it to +our latest breath. No one ever passes by Windsor's 'stately heights,' +or sees the distant spires of Eton College below, without thinking of +Gray. He deserves that we should think of him; for he thought of +others, and turned a trembling, ever-watchful ear to 'the still sad +music of humanity.'" + +The writer in the _North American Review_ (vol. xcvi.), after +referring to the publication of this Ode, which, "according to the +custom 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 wrote +the 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 in +1751, with a few other of his Odes. Gray, in speaking of it to +Walpole, in connection with the Ode to Spring, merely says that to +him 'the latter seems not worse than the former.' But the former has +always been the greater favourite--perhaps more from the matter than +the manner. It is the expression of the memories, the thoughts, and +the feelings which arise unbidden in the mind of the man as he looks +once more on the scenes of his boyhood. He feels a new youth in the +presence of those old joys. But the old friends are not there. +Generations have come and gone, and an unknown race now frolic in +boyish glee. His sad, prophetic eye cannot help looking into the +future, and comparing these careless joys with the inevitable ills of +life. Already he sees the fury passions in wait for their little +victims. They seem present to him, like very demons. Our language +contains no finer, more graphic personifications than these almost +tangible shapes. Spenser is more circumstantial, Collins more +vehement, but neither is more real. Though but outlines in miniature, +they are as distinct as Dutch art. Every epithet is a lifelike +picture; not a word could be changed without destroying the tone of +the whole. At last the musing poet asks himself, _Cui bono?_ Why thus +borrow trouble from the future? Why summon so soon the coming +locusts, 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 the +moral. The gay Roman satirist--the apostle of indifferentism--reaches +the same goal, though he has travelled a different road. To +Thaliarchus 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 Ode +to 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 of +calamity." + + +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 after +their objects. In the Elizabethan period the transposition of the +weaker prepositions was not allowed, except in the compounds +_whereto_, _herewith_, etc. (cf. the Latin _quocum_, _secum_), but +the longer forms were still, though rarely, transposed (see _Shakes. +Gr._ 203); and in more recent writers this latter license is +extremely rare. Even the use of the preposition after the relative, +which was very common in Shakespeare's day, is now avoided, except in +colloquial style. + +9. _The hoary Thames_. The river-god is pictured in the old classic +fashion. Cf. Milton, _Lycidas_, 103: "Next Camus, reverend sire, went +footing 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: "The +matchless vale of Thames, Fair-winding up," etc. + +12. _Ah, fields belov'd in vain!_ Mitford remarks that this +expression has been considered obscure, and adds the following +explanation: "The poem is written in the character of one who +contemplates this life as a scene of misfortune and sorrow, from +whose fatal power the brief sunshine of youth is supposed to be +exempt. The fields are _beloved_ as the scene of youthful pleasures, +and as affording the promise of happiness to come; but this promise +never was fulfilled. Fate, which dooms man to misery, soon +overclouded these opening prospects of delight. That is in vain +beloved which does not realize the expectations it held out. No fruit +but that of disappointment has followed the blossoms of a thoughtless +hope." + +13. _Where once my careless childhood stray'd_. Wakefield cites +Thomson, _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 our +version of the Bible, was disregarded by Elizabethan writers (Shakes. +_Gr._ 236), as it has occasionally been by the poets even to our own +day. Cf. Shakes. _Hen. VIII._ iii. 1: "The more shame for ye; holy +men I thought ye;" Milton, _Comus_, 216: "I see ye visibly," etc. +Dryden, in a couplet quoted by Guest, uses both forms in the same +line: + + "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 their +honey 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 up +his reverend head." + +Dr. Johnson, in his hypercritical comments on this Ode, says: "His +supplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or +tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no better +means of knowing than himself." To which Mitford replies by asking, +"Are we by this rule to judge the following passage in the twentieth +chapter of _Rasselas_? 'As they were sitting together, the princess +cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: "Answer," said +she, "great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through +eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king. +Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single +habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint."'" + +23. _Margent green_. Cf. _Comus_, 232: "By slow Mæander's margent +green." + +24. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 233: "To Virtue, in the paths of +Pleasure, 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 the +ball." + +37. Cf. Cowley, _Ode to Hobbes_, iv. 7: "Till unknown regions it +descries." + +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 and +grief." + +44. Cf. Pope, _Eloisa_, 209: "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind;" +and _Essay on Man_, iv. 168: "The soul's calm sunshine, and the +heartfelt joy." + +45. _Buxom_. Used here in its modern sense. It originally meant +pliant, 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 ther +lawe," and Spenser (_State of Ireland_), "more tractable and buxome +to his government." Cf. also _F. Q._ i. 11, 37: "the buxome aire;" an +expression which Milton uses twice (_P. L._ ii. 842, v. 270). In +_L'Allegro_, 24: "So buxom, blithe, and debonaire;" the only other +instance in which he uses the word, it means sprightly or "free" (as +in "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: "Of +buxom 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 cheeke +depeincten lively chere;" Milton, _Ps._ lxxxiv. 27: "With joy and +gladsome 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_ of +his _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 from +Pope read, "The fury Passions from that _flood_ began." We have +verified his quotations as far as possible, and have corrected scores +of errors in them. Quite likely there are some errors in those we +have 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 of +fate." See also _Progress of Poesy_, ii. 1: "Man's feeble race," etc. + +59. _Murtherous_. The obsolete spelling of _murderous_, still used in +Gray's time. + +61. _The fury Passions_. The passions, fierce and cruel as the +mythical Furies. Cf. Pope, _Essay on Man_, iii. 167: "The fury +Passions 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 praise +enough 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 comfortless +Despair." + +76. _Unkindness' altered eye_. "An ungraceful elision" of the +possessive inflection, as Mason calls it. Cf. Dryden, _Hind and +Panther_, iii.: "Affected Kindness with an alter'd face." + +79. Gray quotes Dryden, _Pal. and Arc._: "Madness laughing in his +ireful 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 the +vale 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 of +Innocence_, v. 1: "With all the numerous family of Death." On the +whole 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 on +Criticism_, 371), + + "The line too labours, and the words move slow." + +90. _Slow-consuming Age_. Cf. Shenstone, _Love and Honour_: "His +slow-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 quotes +Sophocles, _Ajax_, 554: [Greek: En tôi phronein gar mêden hêdistos +bios] ("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, was +finished, with the exception of a few lines, in 1755. It was not +published until 1757, when it appeared with _The Bard_ in a quarto +volume, which was the first issue of Walpole's press at Strawberry +Hill. In one of his letters Walpole writes: "I send you two copies of +a very honourable opening of my press--two amazing odes of Mr. Gray. +They are Greek, they are Pindaric, they are sublime, consequently I +fear a little obscure; the second particularly, by the confinement of +the measure and the nature of prophetic vision, is mysterious. I +could not persuade him to add more notes." In another letter Walpole +says: "I found Gray in town last week; he had brought his two odes to +be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley's hands, and they are to +be the first-fruits of my press." The title-page of the volume is as +follows: + + 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," writes +Gray, in a letter to Hurd, Aug. 25, 1757, "tell me they do not +_succeed_, and write me moving topics of consolation on that head. In +short, I have heard of nobody but an Actor [Garrick] and a Doctor of +Divinity [Warburton] that profess their esteem for them. Oh yes, a +Lady of quality (a friend of Mason's) who is a great reader. She knew +there was a compliment to Dryden, but never suspected there was +anything said about Shakespeare or Milton, till it was explained to +her, and wishes that there had been titles prefixed to tell what they +were about."[1] In a letter to Dr. Wharton, dated Aug. 17, 1757, he +says: "I hear we are not at all popular. The great objection is +obscurity, nobody knows what we would be at. One man (a Peer) I have +been told of, that thinks the last stanza of the 2d Ode relates to +Charles 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 to +Obscurity and Oblivion. Gray finally had to add explanatory notes, +though he intimates that his readers ought not to have needed +them.[2] + +[Footnote 1: Forster remarks that Gray might have added to the +admirers of the Odes "the poor monthly critic of _The +Dunciad_"--Oliver Goldsmith, then beginning his London career as a +bookseller's hack. In a review of the Odes in the _London Monthly +Review_ for Sept., 1757, after citing certain passages of _The Bard_, +he says that they "will give as much pleasure to those who relish +this species of composition as anything that has hitherto appeared in +our language, the odes of Dryden himself not excepted."] + +[Footnote 2: In a foot-note he says: "When the author first published +this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his friends, to +subjoin some few explanatory notes; but had too much respect for the +understanding of his readers to take that liberty." + +In a letter to Beattie, dated Feb. 1, 1768, referring to the new +edition of his poems, he says: "As to the notes, I do it out of +spite, because the public did not understand the two Odes (which I +have called Pindaric), though the first was not very dark, and the +second alluded to a few common facts to be found in any sixpenny +history of England, by way of question and answer, for the use of +children." And in a letter to Walpole, Feb. 25, 1768, he says he has +added "certain little Notes, partly from justice (to acknowledge the +debt where I had borrowed anything), partly from ill temper, just to +tell the gentle reader that Edward I. was not Oliver Cromwell, nor +Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor." + +Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, said that "if the Bard recited his +Ode 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 twenty +times, Edward would not have been a bit wiser; but that was no reason +why Mr. Fox should not."] + +"The metre of these Odes is constructed on Greek models. It is not +uniform but symmetrical. The nine stanzas of each ode form three +groups. A slight examination will show that the 1st, 4th, and 7th +stanzas are exactly inter-correspondent; so the 2d, 5th, and 8th; and +so the remaining three. The technical Greek names for these three +parts were [Greek: strophê] (strophe), [Greek: antistrophê] +(antistrophe), and [Greek: epôdos] (epodos)--the Turn, the +Counter-turn, and the After-song--names derived from the theatre; the +Turn denoting the movement of the Chorus from one side of the [Greek: +orchêstra] (orchestra), or Dance-stage, to the other, the +Counter-turn the reverse movement, the After-song something sung +after two such movements. Odes thus constructed were called by the +Greeks Epodic. Congreve is said to have been the first who so +constructed English odes. This system cannot be said to have +prospered with us. Perhaps no English ear would instinctively +recognize that correspondence between distant parts which is the +secret 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 who +supposed the "harp of Æolus" to be meant led Gray to insert this +note: "Pindar styles his own poetry with its musical accompaniments, +[Greek: Aiolis molpê, Aiolides chordai, Aiolidôn pnoai aulôn], Æolian +song, Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute." + +Cf. Cowley, _Ode of David_: "Awake, awake, my lyre!" Gray himself +quotes _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. The +various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it +touches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enriching +every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and +luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible +course, when swollen and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous +passions." + +2. _And give to rapture_. The first reading of the MS. was "give to +transport." + +3. _Helicon's harmonious springs_. In the mountain range of Helicon, +in Boeotia, there were two fountains sacred to the Muses, Aganippe +and 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 _with +main_ (which we still use in "might and main"), that is, with force +or strength. Cf. Horace, _Od._ iv. 2, 8: "Immensusque ruit profundo +Pindarus 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 of +boiling seas resound;" Pope, _Iliad_: "Rocks rebellow to the roar." + +13. "Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The +thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar" (Gray). + +14. _Solemn-breathing airs_. Cf. _Comus_, 555: "a soft and +solemn-breathing sound." + +15. _Enchanting shell_. That is, lyre; alluding to the myth of the +origin of the instrument, which Mercury was said to have made from +the shell of a tortoise. Cf. Collins, _Passions_, 3: "The Passions +oft, to hear her shell," etc. + +17. _On Thracia's hills_. Thrace was one of the chief seats of the +worship 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 in +the same ode;" that is, in "the first Pythian of Pindar," referred to +in the note on 13. The passage is an address to the lyre, and is +translated 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 of +that of 1768. Most of the modern eds. have "terrors." + +25. "Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the +body" (Gray). + +26. _Temper'd_. Modulated, "set." Cf. _Lycidas_, 33: "Tempered to the +oaten flute;" Fletcher, _Purple Island_: "Tempering their sweetest +notes 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_ for +the place, in his _First Pastoral_, 65: "Celestial Venus haunts +Idalia's groves." + +Dr. Johnson finds fault with _velvet-green_, apparently supposing it +to be a compound of Gray's own making. But Young had used it in his +_Love of Fame_: "She rears her flowers, and spreads her +velvet-green." It is also among the expressions of Pope which are +ridiculed in the _Alexandriad_. + +29. _Cytherea_ was a name of Venus, derived from _Cythera_, an island +in the Ægean Sea, one of the favourite residences of Aphrodite, or +Venus. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ i. 680: "super alta Cythera Aut super +Idalium, sacrata sede," etc. + +30. _With antic Sports_. This is the reading of the 1st ed. and also +of the ed. of 1768. Some eds. have "sport." + +_Antic_ is the same word as _antique_. The association between what +is old or old-fashioned and what is odd, fantastic, or grotesque is +obvious enough. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens._ 158: "With antick pillars +massy-proof." In _S. A._ 1325 he uses the word as a noun: "Jugglers +and 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 frolics +play." + +32, 33. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ v. 580 foll. + +35. Gray quotes Homer, _Od._ ix. 265: [Greek: marmarugas thêeito +podôn thaumaze de thumôi]. Cf. Catullus's "fulgentem plantam." See +also Thomson, _Spring_, 158: "the many-twinkling leaves Of aspin +tall." + +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'd +her face, they bow'd." + +39. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ i. 405: "Incessu patuit dea." The gods were +represented as gliding or sailing along without moving their feet. + +41. _Purple light of love_. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ i. 590: "lumenque +juventae 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 was +given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day by its +cheerful 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 be +the original meaning of the word. In Wiclif's Bible. 1 _Cor._ i. 27, +we have "the thingis that ben _fonnyd_ of the world." In _Twelfth +Night_, 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 flocking +shadows pale," etc. See also _P. R._ iv. 419-431. + +50. _Birds of boding cry_. Cf. Green's _Grotto_: "news the boding +night-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 in +quantity, but the English poets, with rare exceptions, have thrown it +back upon the antepenult. It is thus in the six instances in which +Shakes. uses the word: e.g. _Hamlet_, iii. 4: "Hyperion's curls; the +front of Jove himself." The word does not occur in Milton. It is +correctly 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 (the +Moon), and Eos (the Dawn). He was represented with the attributes of +beauty and splendor afterwards ascribed to Apollo. His "glittering +shafts" are of course the sunbeams, the "lucida tela diei" of +Lucretius. 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 poetic +genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations; its connection +with liberty and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the +Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh fragments; the Lapland and American +songs.]" He also quotes Virgil, _Æn._ vi. 796: "Extra anni solisque +vias," and Petrarch, _Canz._ 2: "Tutta lontana dal camin del sole." +Cf. also Dryden, _Thren. August._ 353: "Out of the solar walk and +Heaven's highway;" _Ann. Mirab._ st. 160: "Beyond the year, and out +of Heaven's highway;" _Brit. Red._: "Beyond the sunny walks and +circling year;" also Pope, _Essay on Man_, i. 102: "Far as the solar +walk 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." The +MS. 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 verb +after the first of a series of subjects is in Pindar's manner. Warton +compares Homer, _Il._ v. 774: + + [Greek: hêchi rhoas Simoeis sumballeton êde Skamandros.] + +Dugald Stewart (_Philos. of Human Mind_) says: "I cannot help +remarking the effect of the solemn and uniform flow of verse in this +exquisite stanza, in retarding the pronunciation of the reader, so as +to arrest his attention to every successive picture, till it has time +to 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 to +England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or +of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in +Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian +writers; Milton improved on them: but this school expired soon after +the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has +subsisted ever since" (Gray). + +_Delphi's steep_. Cf. Milton, _Hymn on Nativ._ 178: "the steep of +Delphos;" _P. L._ i. 517: "the Delphian cliff." Both Shakes. and +Milton 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 peak +named the Phædriades, from their glittering appearance as they faced +the 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: "Rolls +o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream;" _P. R._ iii. 288: "There Susa +by Choaspes, amber stream." See also Virgil, _Geo._ iii. 520: "Purior +electro 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 Miletus +on 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, Gray +has "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 lucidus +Alpheos." + +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 sine +dis animosus infans." Wakefield quotes Virgil, _Ecl._ iv. 60: +"Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem." Mitford points out that +the 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 Mitford +remarks, Akenside himself in his _Ode on Lyric Poetry_ has, "While I +so late _unlock_ thy purer _springs_," and in his _Pleasures of +Imagination_, "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: "amat +spatiis obstantia rumpere claustra." + +99. Gray quotes _Ezekiel_ i. 20, 26, 28. See also Milton, _At a +Solemn Music_, 7: "Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne;" _Il +Pens._ 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 with +excessive bright thy skirts appear." + +102. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ x. 746: "in aeternam clauduntur lumina +noctem," which Dryden translates, "And closed her lids at last in +endless night." Gray quotes Homer, _Od._ viii. 64: + + [Greek: Ophthalmôn men amerses, didou d' hêdeian aoidên.] + +103. Gray, according to Mason, "admired Dryden almost beyond +bounds."[3] + +[Footnote 3: In a journey through Scotland in 1765, Gray became +acquainted with Beattie, to whom he commended the study of Dryden, +adding that "if there was any excellence in his own numbers, he had +learned it wholly from the great poet."] + +105. "Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of +Dryden'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 with +thunder?" + +108. _Bright-eyed_. The MS. has "full-plumed." + +110. Gray quotes Cowley, _Prophet_: "Words that weep, and tears that +speak." + +Dugald Stewart remarks upon this line: "I have sometimes thought that +Gray had in view the two different effects of words already +described; the effect of some in awakening the powers of conception +and imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions." + +111. "We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind +than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley (who had his +merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That +of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of late +days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some +of 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 the +living lyre." + +115. "[Greek: Dios pros ornicha theion]. _Olymp._ ii. 159. Pindar +compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak +and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of +their 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 "the +Theban 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: es +aitheros bathos]; and Lucretius, ii. 151: "Aëris in magnum fertur +mare." Cowley has "Row through the trackless ocean of air;" and +Shakes. (_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, in +describing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed with +exquisite judgment on that class of our conceptions which are derived +from _visible_ objects." + +120. _With orient hues_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ i. 546: "with orient +colours 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 the +great." + + +We append, as a curiosity of criticism, Dr. Johnson's comments on +this ode, from his _Lives of the Poets_. The Life of Gray has been +called "the worst in the series," and perhaps this is the worst part +of it:[4] + +"My process has now brought me to the _wonderful_ 'Wonder of +Wonders,' the two Sister Odes, by which, though either vulgar +ignorance or common-sense at first universally rejected them, many +have been since persuaded to think themselves delighted. I am one of +those that are willing to be pleased, and therefore would gladly find +the meaning of the first stanza of 'The Progress of Poetry.' + +"Gray seems in his rapture to confound the images of spreading sound +and 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 and +nodding groves rebellow to the roar?' If this be said of music, it is +nonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the purpose. + +"The second stanza, exhibiting Mars's car and Jove's eagle, is +unworthy of further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy +to his commonplaces. + +"To the third it may likewise be objected that it is drawn from +mythology, though such as may be more easily assimilated to real +life. Idalia's 'velvet-green' has something of cant. An epithet or +metaphor drawn from Nature ennobles Art; an epithet or metaphor drawn +from Art degrades Nature. Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily +compounded. '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 tell +something, and would have told it, had it not been crossed by +Hyperion; the second describes well enough the universal prevalence +of poetry; but I am afraid that the conclusion will not arise from +the premises. The caverns of the North and the plains of Chili are +not the residences of 'Glory and generous Shame.' But that Poetry and +Virtue go always together is an opinion so pleasing that I can +forgive 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 'solemn +sound;' but in all Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrous splendour +which we wish away. His position is at last false: in the time of +Dante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of poetry, +Italy was overrun by 'tyrant power' and 'coward vice;' nor was our +state much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts. + +"Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of +Shakespeare. What is said of that mighty genius is true; but it is +not said happily: the real effects of this poetical power are put out +of sight by the pomp of machinery. Where truth is sufficient to fill +the mind, fiction is worse than useless; the counterfeit debases the +genuine. + +"His account of Milton's blindness, if we suppose it caused by study +in the formation of his poem, a supposition surely allowable, is +poetically true and happily imagined. But the _car_ of Dryden, with +his _two coursers_, has nothing in it peculiar; it is a car in which +any 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 of +poetry must be _felt_ before their causes are investigated. There is +a poetical sensibility, which in the progress of the mind becomes as +distinct a power as a musical ear or a picturesque eye. Without a +considerable degree of this sensibility, it is as vain for a man of +the greatest understanding to speak of the higher beauties of poetry +as it is for a blind man to speak of colours. To adopt the warmest +sentiments of poetry, to realize its boldest imagery, to yield to +every impulse of enthusiasm, to submit to the illusions of fancy, to +retire with the poet into his ideal worlds, were dispositions wholly +foreign from the worldly sagacity and stern shrewdness of Johnson. As +in his judgment of life and character, so in his criticism on poetry, +he was a sort of Free-thinker. He suspected the refined of +affectation, he rejected the enthusiastic as absurd, and he took it +for granted that the mysterious was unintelligible. He came into the +world when the school of Dryden and Pope gave the law to English +poetry. In that school he had himself learned to be a lofty and +vigorous declaimer in harmonious verse; beyond that school his +unforced admiration perhaps scarcely soared; and his highest effort +of criticism was accordingly the noble panegyric on Dryden." + +W. H. Prescott, the historian, also remarks that Johnson, as a +critic, "was certainly deficient in sensibility to the more delicate, +the minor beauties of poetic sentiment. He analyzes verse in the +cold-blooded spirit of a chemist, until all the aroma which +constituted its principal charm escapes in the decomposition. By this +kind of process, some of the finest fancies of the Muse, the lofty +dithyrambics of Gray, the ethereal effusions of Collins, and of +Milton too, are rendered sufficiently vapid."] + +[Illustration: PINDAR.] + + + + +[Illustration: EDWARD I.] + + +THE BARD. + + +"This ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales that Edward the +First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all +the 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 his +commonplace-book, was as follows: "The army of Edward I., as they +march through a deep valley, and approach Mount Snowdon, are suddenly +stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summit +of an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, +reproaches the king with all the desolation and misery which he had +brought on his country; foretells the misfortunes of the Norman race, +and with prophetic spirit declares that all his cruelty shall never +extinguish the noble ardour of poetic genius in this island; and that +men shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valour in +immortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly +censure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitates +himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that +rolls at its feet." + +Mitford, in his "Essay on the Poetry of Gray," says of this Ode: "The +tendency of _The Bard_ is to show the retributive justice that +follows an act of tyranny and wickedness; to denounce on Edward, in +his person and his progeny, the effect of the crime he had committed +in the massacre of the bards; to convince him that neither his power +nor situation could save him from the natural and necessary +consequences of his guilt; that not even the virtues which he +possessed 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 of +being adorned and heightened by such a profusion of splendid images +and beautiful machinery. We must also observe how much this moral +feeling increases as we approach the close; how the poem rises in +dignity; and by what a fine gradation the solemnity of the subject +ascends. The Bard commenced his song with feelings of sorrow for his +departed brethren and his desolate country. This despondence, +however, has given way to emotions of a nobler and more exalted +nature. What can be more magnificent than the vision which opens +before him to display the triumph of justice and the final glory of +his cause? And it may be added, what can be more forcible or emphatic +than 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 picture +of 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 vanquished +has risen superior to his conqueror, and the reader closes the poem +with feelings of content and satisfaction. He has seen the Bard +uplifted both by a divine energy and by the natural superiority of +virtue; and the conqueror has shrunk into a creature of hatred and +abhorrence: + + 'Be thine despair, and sceptred care; + To triumph, and to die, are mine.'" + +With regard to the _obscurity_ of the poem, the same writer remarks +that "it is such only as of necessity arises from the plan and +conduct of a prophecy." "In the prophetic poem," he adds, "one point +of history alone is told, and the rest is to be acquired previously +by the reader; as in the contemplation of an historical picture, +which commands only one moment of time, our memory must supply us +with the necessary links of knowledge; and that point of time +selected by the painter must be illustrated by the spectator's +knowledge of the past or future, of the cause or the consequences." + +He refers, for corroboration of this opinion, to Dr. Campbell, who in +his "Philosophy of Rhetoric," says: "I know no style to which +darkness of a certain sort is more suited than to the prophetical: +many reasons might be assigned which render it improper that prophecy +should be perfectly understood before it be accomplished. Besides, we +are certain that a prediction may be very dark before the +accomplishment, and yet so plain afterwards as scarcely to admit a +doubt in regard to the events suggested. It does not belong to +critics to give laws to prophets, nor does it fall within the +confines of any human art to lay down rules for a species of +composition so far above art. Thus far, however, we may warrantably +observe, that when the prophetic style is imitated in poetry, the +piece ought, as much as possible, to possess the character above +mentioned. This character, in my opinion, is possessed in a very +eminent degree by Mr. Gray's ode called _The Bard_. It is all +darkness to one who knows nothing of the English history posterior to +the reign of Edward the First, and all light to one who is acquainted +with that history. But this is a kind of writing whose peculiarities +can 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 he +has marked those parts of his prophecies which are speedily to be +accomplished; and in the gradations by which, as he descends, he has +insensibly melted the more remote into the deeper and deeper +shadowings of general language. The first prophecy is the fate of +Edward the Second. In that the Bard has pointed out the very night in +which he is to be destroyed; has named the river that flowed around +his 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 form +of 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 the +two young princes. No place, no name is now noted: and all is seen +through 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 the +tradition on which _The Bard_ is founded is wholly groundless. Edward +I. never did massacre Welsh bards. Their name is legion in the +beginning of the 14th century. Miss Williams, the latest historian of +Wales, does not even mention the old story."[1] + +[Footnote 1: The _Saturday Review_, for June 19, 1875, in the article +from which we have elsewhere quoted (p. 79, foot-note), refers to +this point as follows: + +"Gray was one of the first writers to show that earlier parts of +English history were not only worth attending to, but were capable of +poetic treatment. We can almost forgive him for dressing up in his +splendid verse a foul and baseless calumny against Edward the First, +when we remember that to most of Gray's contemporaries Edward the +First must have seemed a person almost mythical, a benighted Popish +savage, of whom there was very little to know, and that little hardly +worth knowing. Our feeling towards Gray in this matter is much the +same as our feeling towards Mitford in the matter of Greek history. +We are angry with Mitford for misrepresenting Demosthenes and a crowd +of other Athenian worthies, but we do not forget that he was the +first to deal with Demosthenes and his fellows, neither as mere names +nor as demi-gods, but as real living men like ourselves. It was a +pity to misrepresent Demosthenes, but even the misrepresentation was +something; it showed that Demosthenes could be made the subject of +human feeling one way or another. It is unpleasant to hear the King +whose praise it was that + + 'Velox est ad veniam, ad vindictam tardus,' + +spoken of as 'ruthless,' and the rest of it. But Gray at least felt +that Edward was a real man, while to most of his contemporaries he +could 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 own +chair."] + + +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 idly +spread." + +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 itself +to 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_: "The +crested adder's pride." + +11. "Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract +which the Welsh themselves call _Craigian-eryri_: it included all the +highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the +river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built by +King Edward the First, says: 'Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis +Erery;' and Matthew of Westminster (ad ann. 1283), 'Apud Aberconway +ad pedes montis Snowdoniae fecit erigi castrum forte'" (Gray). + +It was in the spring of 1283 that English troops at last forced their +way among the defiles of Snowdon. Llewellyn had preserved those +passes and heights intact until his death in the preceding December. +The surrender of Dolbadern in the April following that dispiriting +event opened a way for the invader; and William de Beauchamp, Earl of +Warwick, at once advanced by it (Hales). + +The epithet _shaggy_ is highly appropriate, as Leland (_Itin._) says +that great woods clothed the mountain in his time. Cf. Dyer, _Ruins +of 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 of +Gloucester and Hereford, son-in-law to King Edward" (Gray). He had, +in 1282, conducted the war in South Wales; and after overthrowing the +enemy near Llandeilo Fawr, had reinforced the king in the northwest. + +14. _Mortimer_. "Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore" (Gray). It was +by one of his knights, named Adam de Francton, that Llewellyn, not at +first known to be he, was slain near Pont Orewyn (Hales). + +On _quivering lance_, cf. Virgil, _Æn._ xii. 94: "hastam quassatque +trementem." + +15. _On a rock whose haughty brow_. Cf. Daniel, _Civil Wars_: "A huge +aspiring rock, whose surly brow." + +The _rock_ is probably meant for Penmaen-mawr, the northern +termination of the Snowdon range. It is a mass of rock, 1545 feet +high, a few miles from the mouth of the Conway, the valley of which +it overlooks. Towards the sea it presents a rugged and almost +perpendicular front. On its summit is Braich-y-Dinas, an ancient +fortified post, regarded as the strongest hold of the Britons in the +district of Snowdon. Here the reduced bands of the Welsh army were +stationed during the negotiation between their prince Llewellyn and +Edward I. Within the inner enclosure is a never-failing well of pure +water. The rock is now pierced with a tunnel 1890 feet long for the +Chester and Holyhead railway. + +17. _Rob'd in the sable garb of woe_. It would appear that Wharton +had 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_, is +indeed only a metaphor taken from an unreclaimed hawk, which is +called a _haggard_, and looks wild and _farouche_, and jealous of its +liberty." Gray seems to have afterwards returned to his first (and we +think better) reading. + +19. "The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, +representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are +two 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 meteor +streaming to the wind." + +21, 22. Wakefield remarks: "This is poetical language in perfection; +and breathes the sublime spirit of Hebrew poetry, which delights in +this grand rhetorical substitution." + +23. _Desert caves_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 39: "The woods and desert caves." + +26. _Hoarser murmurs_. That is, perhaps, with continually increasing +hoarseness, hoarser and hoarser; or it may mean with unwonted +hoarseness, like the comparative sometimes in Latin (Hales). + +28. Hoel is called _high-born_, being the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince +of North Wales, by Finnog, an Irish damsel. He was one of his +father's generals in his wars against the English, Flemings, and +Normans, in South Wales; and was a famous bard, as his poems that are +extant testify. + +_Soft Llewellyn's lay_. "The lay celebrating the mild Llewellyn," +says Hales, though he afterwards remarks that, "looking at the +context, it would be better to take _Llewellyn_ here for a bard." +Many bards celebrated the warlike prowess and princely qualities of +Llewellyn. A poem by Einion the son of Guigan calls him "a +tender-hearted prince;" and another, by Llywarch Brydydd y Moch, +says: "Llewellyn, though in battle he killed with fury, though he +burned like an outrageous fire, yet was a mild prince when the +mead-horns were distributed." In an ode by Llygard Gwr he is also +called "Llewellyn the mild." + +29. Cadwallo and Urien were bards of whose songs nothing has been +preserved. Taliessin (see 121 below) dedicated many poems to the +latter, and wrote an elegy on his death: he was slain by treachery in +the 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 Mitford +suggests, it may refer to "the famous Myrddin ab Morvyn, called +Merlyn the Wild, a disciple of Taliessin, the form of the name being +changed for the sake of euphony." + +34. _Plinlimmon_. One of the loftiest of the Welsh mountains, being +2463 feet in height. It is really a group of mountains, three of +which tower high above the others, and on each of these is a +_carnedd_, or pile of stones. The highest of the three is further +divided into two peaks, and on these, as well as on another prominent +part 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 they +were intended as landmarks or military signals, and that from them +the mountain was called _Pump-lumon_ or _Pum-lumon_, "the five +beacons"--a name somehow corrupted into _Plinlimmon_. Five rivers +take 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 the +isle of Anglesey" (Gray). _Caernarvon_, or _Caer yn Arvon_, means the +camp in Arvon. + +38. "Camden and others observe that eagles used annually to build +their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some +think) were named by the Welsh _Craigian-eryri_, or the crags of the +eagles. At this day (I am told) the highest point of Snowdon is +called _the Eagle's Nest_. That bird is certainly no stranger to this +island, as the Scots, and the people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, +etc., can testify; it even has built its nest in the peak of +Derbyshire [see Willoughby's Ornithology, published by Ray]" (Gray). + +40. _Dear as the light_. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ iv. 31: "O luce magis +dilecta 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 Fatal +Sisters_, translated from the Norse) describes the _Valkyriur_, "the +choosers of the slain," or warlike Fates of the Gothic mythology, as +weaving 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, on +a height commanding a fine view of the Severn and the surrounding +country, and is in a state of perfect preservation. It is said to +have been founded by Roger de Berkeley soon after the Norman +Conquest. About the year 1150 it was granted by Henry II. to Robert +Fitzhardinge, Governor of Bristol, who strengthened and enlarged it. +On the right of the great staircase leading to the keep, and +approached by a gallery, is the room in which it is supposed that +Edward II. was murdered, Sept. 21, 1327. The king, during his +captivity here, composed a dolorous poem, of which the following is +an 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 the +murder of Edward II., and the shrieks of an agonizing king, I verily +believe to be genuine. It is a dismal chamber, almost at the top of +the house, quite detached, and to be approached only by a kind of +foot-bridge, and from that descends a large flight of steps, that +terminates on strong gates; exactly a situation for a _corps de +garde_." + +56. Cf. Hume's description: "The screams with which the agonizing +king filled the castle." + +57. _She-wolf of France_. "Isabel of France, Edward the Second's +adulterous queen" (Gray). Cf. Shakes. 3 _Hen. VI._ i. 4: "She-wolf of +France, 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;" and +Oldham, _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 robbed +in 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 the +posthumous 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 and +other contemporary writers" (Gray). + +For this line and the remainder of the stanza, the MS. has the +following: + + "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 pollens +conjunx 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 Gray +on _Education and Government_, 48: "And where the deluge burst with +sweepy 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.: "The +branches bend beneath their sweepy sway," etc. + +76. _That hush'd in grim repose_, etc. Cf. Dryden, _Sigismonda and +Guiscardo_, 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 the +confederate Lords in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsingham, and +all the older writers) was starved to death. The story of his +assassination by Sir Piers of Exon is of much later date" (Gray). + +79. _Reft of a crown_. Wakefield quotes Mallet's ballad of _William +and 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 horse +to horse;" and Massinger, _Maid of Honour_: "Man to man, and horse to +horse." + +87. "Henry the Sixth, George Duke of Clarence, Edward the Fifth, +Richard Duke of York, etc., believed to be murdered secretly in the +Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgarly +attributed 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, who +struggled 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 of +York 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 Richard +the 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 de +guerre_. Thus Richard III. acquired his well-known epithet, 'the Boar +of 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 after +the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for +her lord is well known.[2] The monuments of his regret and sorrow for +the loss of her[3] are still to be seen at Northampton, Geddington, +Waltham, and other places" (Gray). Cf. Horace, _Od._ i. 3, 8: "animae +dimidium 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 the +places where the funeral procession halted each night on the journey +from Hardby, in Nottinghamshire (near Lincoln), where the queen died, +to Westminster. Of the thirteen (or, as some say, fifteen) crosses +only three now remain--at Northampton, Geddington, and Waltham. The +one at Charing Cross in London has been replaced by a fac-simile of +the 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 of +heaven on Snowdon's height;" in 106, "their golden skirts." + +107. Cf. Dryden, _State of Innocence_, iv. 1: "Their glory shoots +upon my aching sight." + +109. "It was the common belief of the Welsh nation that King Arthur +was still alive in Fairyland, and would return again to reign over +Britain" (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 should +regain their sovereignty over this island; which seemed to be +accomplished in the house of Tudor" (Gray). + +111. _Many a baron bold_. Cf. _L'Allegro_, 119: "throngs of knights +and 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 of +the 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 Paul +Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says: 'And thus she, lion-like +rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and +majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princelie +checkes'" (Gray). The MS. reads "A lion-port, an awe-commanding +face." + +121. "Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth century. +His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high veneration +among his countrymen" (Gray). + +As Hales remarks, there is no authority for connecting him with +Arthur, as Tennyson does in his _Holy Grail_. + +123. Cf. Congreve, _Ode to Lord Godolphin_: "And soars with rapture +while 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'd +stage;" that is, the tragic stage. + +129. _Pleasing pain_. Cf. Spenser, _F. Q._ vi. 9, 10: "sweet pleasing +payne;" 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, as +usual) 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 to +have 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_, we +append his comments on this "Sister Ode:" + +"'The Bard' appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti and +others have remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. +Algarotti thinks it superior to its original; and, if preference +depends only on the imagery and animation of the two poems, his +judgment is right. There is in 'The Bard' more force, more thought, +and more variety. But to copy is less than to invent, and the copy +has been unhappily produced at a wrong time. The fiction of Horace +was to the Romans credible; but its revival disgusts us with apparent +and unconquerable falsehood. _Incredulus odi_. + +"To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk by +fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions, has little +difficulty; for he that forsakes the probable may always find the +marvellous. And it has little use; we are affected only as we +believe; we are improved only as we find something to be imitated or +declined. I do not see that 'The Bard' promotes any truth, moral or +political. + +"His stanzas are too long, especially his epodes; the ode is finished +before the ear has learned its measures, and consequently before it +can receive pleasure from their consonance and recurrence. + +"Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but +technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It is in the +power of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject, that has read the +ballad of 'Johnny Armstrong,' + + 'Is there ever a man in all Scotland--' + +"The initial resemblances, or alliterations, 'ruin, ruthless, helm or +hauberk,' are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at +sublimity. + +"In the second stanza the Bard is well described; but in the third we +have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that +'Cadwallo hush'd the stormy main,' and that 'Modred made huge +Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head,' attention recoils from the +repetition of a tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard +with scorn. + +"The _weaving_ of the _winding-sheet_ he borrowed, as he owns, from +the Northern Bards; but their texture, however, was very properly the +work of female powers, as the act of spinning the thread of life is +another mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weavers +of slaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and incongruous. They +are then called upon to 'Weave the warp, and weave the woof,' perhaps +with no great propriety; for it is by crossing the _woof_ with the +_warp_ that men weave the _web_ or piece; and the first line was +dearly bought by the admission of its wretched correspondent, 'Give +ample room and verge enough.' He has, however, no other line as bad. + +"The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, beyond +its 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 an +action of better example; but suicide is always to be had, without +expense 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 and +Wakefield's editions it is called an "Ode," but the title given by +the author is as above. + +The motto from Æschylus is not in Dodsley, but appears in the first +edition of the poems (1768) in the form given in the text. The best +modern 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 of +Adversity, 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 which +he quoted, and which describes Affliction as sent by Jupiter for the +benefit of man." The latter is the more probable explanation. + +2. Mitford quotes Pope, _Dunciad_, i. 163: "Then he: 'Great tamer of +all 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: "Strange +horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before." + +9-12. Cf. Bacon, _Essays_, v. (ed. 1625): "Certainly, Vertue is like +pretious 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. Bettenham +said: that virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that give +not their sweet smell till they be broken or crushed."] + +[Footnote 2: Cf. Shakespeare, _Julius Cæsar_, ii. 1: "It is the +bright 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 succurrere +disco." + +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 the +leisure to be good." + +22. _The summer friend_. Cf. Geo. Herbert, _Temple_: "like summer +friends, flies of estates and sunshine;" Quarles, _Sion's Elegies_, +xix.: "Ah, summer friendship with the summer ends;" Massinger, _Maid +of Honour_: "O summer friendship." See also Shakespeare, _T. of A._ +iii. 6: + +"_2d Lord_. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your +lordship. + +"_Timon_ [_aside_]. Nor more willingly leaves winter; such +summer-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 of +Melancholy, _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 leaden +eyes;" Dryden, _Cymon and Iphigenia_, 57: "And stupid eyes that ever +lov'd the ground;" Shakespeare, _Pericles_, i. 2: "The sad companion, +dull-eyed Melancholy;" and _L. L. L._ iv. 3: "In leaden +contemplation." 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: "The +Muses' friend, unto himself severe." Mitford quotes several other +similar passages. + +32. _The sadly pleasing tear_. Rogers cites Dryden's "sadly pleasing +thought" (Virgil's _Æn._ x.); and Mitford compares Thomson's +"lenient, not unpleasing tear." + +35. _Gorgon terrors_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ ii. 611: "Medusa with +Gorgonian 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 and +irrevocable misfortune is to elevate those souls which it does not +deprive of all virtue;" and Sir Philip Sidney remarks: "A noble +heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest +estate." + + + + +[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 Quarterly +Review_ (London) for January, 1876, which contains an interesting +paper on "Wordsworth and Gray." After quoting Wordsworth's remark +that "Gray was at the head of those poets who, by their reasonings, +have attempted to widen the space of separation between prose and +metrical composition, and was, more than any other man, curiously +elaborate in the construction of his own poetic diction," the +reviewer remarks: + +"The indictment, then, brought by Wordsworth against Gray is twofold. +Gray, it seems, had in the first place a false conception of the +nature of poetry; and, secondly, a false standard of poetical +diction. To begin with the first count, Gray, we are told, sought to +widen the space of separation betwixt prose and metrical composition. +What this charge amounts to we shall see hereafter. Meantime, did +Wordsworth think that between prose and poetry there was any line of +demarcation at all? In the Preface [to the "Lyrical Ballads"] from +which we have quoted we read: + +"'There neither is nor can be any essential difference between the +language of prose and metrical composition. We are fond of tracing +the resemblance between Poetry and Painting, and accordingly we call +them sisters; but where shall we find bonds of connection +sufficiently strong to typify the connection betwixt prose and +metrical composition?' + +"Now this question admits of a very definite answer. Take the Iliad +of Homer and a proposition of Euclid. Is it conceivable that the +latter could have been expressed at all in metre, or the former +expressed half so well in prose? If not, what is the reason? Is it +not plain that the poem contains a predominant element of imagination +and feeling which is absolutely excluded from the proposition? And in +the same way it may be shown that whenever a man expresses himself +properly in metre, the subject-matter of his composition belongs to +imagination or feeling; whenever he writes in prose his subject +belongs to or (if the prose be fiction) intimately resembles matter +of fact. We may decide then with certainty that the sphere of poetry +lies in Imagination, and that the larger the amount of _just_ liberty +the Imagination enjoys, the better will be the poetry it produces. +But then a further question arises, and this is the key of the whole +position, How far does this liberty extend? Is Imagination absolute, +supreme, and uncontrolled in its own sphere, or is it under the +guidance and government of reason? That its dominion is not universal +is obvious, but of its influence we are all conscious, and there is +no exaggeration in the eloquent words of Pascal: + +"'This mighty power, the perpetual antagonist of reason, which +delights to show its ascendency by bringing her under its control and +dominion, has created a second nature in man. It has its joys and its +sorrows; its health, its sickness; its wealth, its poverty; it +compels reason, in spite of herself, to believe, to doubt, to deny; +it suspends the exercise of the senses, and imparts to them again an +artificial acuteness; it has its follies and its wisdom; and the most +perverse thing of all is that it fills its votaries with a +complacency more full and complete even than that which reason can +supply.' + +"If such be the force of Imagination in active life, how absolute +must be its dominion in poetry! And absolute it is, if we are to +believe Wordsworth, who defines poetry to be 'the spontaneous +overflow of powerful emotion.' This definition coincides well with +modern notions on the nature of the art. But how different is the +view if we turn from theory to practice! It would surely be a serious +mistake to describe the noblest poems, like the 'Æneid' or 'Paradise +Lost,' as the product of mere spontaneous emotion. And even in lyric +verse, to which it may be said Wordsworth is specially alluding, we +find the greatest poets, like Pindar and Simonides, composing their +odes for set occasions like the public games, in honour of persons +with whom they were but little acquainted, and (most significant fact +of all) in the expectation of receiving liberal rewards. We need not +say that such considerations detract nothing from the genius of these +great poets; but they prove very conclusively that poetry is not what +Wordsworth's definition asserts, and what in these days it is too +often assumed to be, the mere gush of unconscious inspiration. The +definition of Wordsworth may perhaps suit short lyrics, such as he +was himself in the habit of composing, but it would be fatal to the +claims of poetry to rank among the higher arts, for it would exclude +that quality which, in poetry as in all art, is truly sovereign, +Invention. The poet, no less than the mechanical inventor, excels by +the exercise of reason, by his knowledge of the required effect, his +power of adapting means to ends, and his skill in availing himself of +circumstances. Consider for a moment the external difficulties which +restrict the poet's liberty, and require the most vigorous efforts of +reason to subdue them. To begin with, in order to secure the happy +result 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 poet +has failed for want of judgment by trespassing on a subject and style +for which his genius is unfitted! Again, he is confronted by the most +obvious difficulties of language and metre, which limit his freedom +to a degree unknown to the prose-writer. And beyond this, if he +wishes to be read--and a poem without readers is no more than a +musical instrument without a musician--he has to consider the +character of his audience. He must have all the instinct of an +orator, all the intuitive knowledge of the world, as well as all the +practical resource, which are required to gain command over the +hearts of men, and to subdue, by the charms of eloquence, their +passions, their prejudices, and their judgment. To achieve such +results something more is required than 'the spontaneous overflow of +powerful feeling.' + +"How far Wordsworth's own poetry illustrates his principles we shall +consider presently; meantime his definition helps us to understand +what he meant by Gray's fault of widening the space of separation +betwixt prose and metrical composition. Neither in respect of the +quantity nor the quality of his verse could Gray's manner of +composition be described as spontaneous. Compared with Wordsworth's +numerous volumes of poetry, the slender volume that contains the +poetry of Gray looks meagre indeed; yet almost every poem in this +small collection is a considered work of art. To begin with 'The +Bard.' Few readers, we suppose, would rise from this ode without a +sense of its poetical 'effect.' The details may be thought to require +too much attention; the allusions, from the nature of the subject, +are, no doubt, difficult; but a feeling of loftiness, of harmony, of +proportion, remains in the mind at the close of the poem, which is +not likely to pass away. How, then, was this effect produced? First +of all we see that Gray had selected a good subject; his raw +materials, so to speak, were poetical. The imagination, unembarrassed +by common associations, breathes freely in its own region, and is +instinctively elevated as it moves among the great events of the +past, dwelling on the misfortunes of monarchs, the rise of dynasties, +and the splendours of literature. But, in the second place, when he +has chosen his subject, it is the part of the poet to impress the +great ideas derived from it on the feelings and the memory by the +distinctness of the form under which he presents it; and here +poetical invention first begins to work. By the imaginative fiction +of 'The Bard,' Gray is enabled to cast the whole course of English +history into the form of a prophecy, and to excite the patriotic +feelings of the reader, as Virgil roused the pride of his own +countrymen by Anchises' forecast of the grandeur of Rome. Finally, +when the main design of the poem is thus conceived, observe with what +art all the different parts are made to emphasize the beauty of the +general conception; with what dramatic propriety the calamities of +the conquering Plantagenet are prophesied by his vanquished foe; +while on the other hand, the literary glories of the Tudor Elizabeth +awaken the triumph of the patriot and the poet; how martial and +spirited is the opening of the poem! how lofty and enthusiastic its +close! Perhaps there is no English lyric which, animated by equal +fervour, displays so much architectural genius as 'The Bard.' + +"Take, again, the 'Ode on the Prospect of Eton College.' A subject +better adapted far the indulgence of personal feeling, or for those +sentimental confidences between the reader and the poet, in which the +modern muse so much delights, could not be imagined. But what do we +find? The theme is treated in the most general manner. Though +emphasizing the irony of his reflection by the beautiful touch of +memory in the second stanza, the poet speaks throughout as a moralist +or spectator; from first to last he seems to lose all thought of +himself in contemplating the tragedies he foresees for others; the +subject is in fact handled with the most skilful rhetoric, and every +stanza is made to strengthen and elaborate the leading thought. In +the 'Progress of Poesy,' though the general constructive effect is +perhaps inferior to 'The Bard,' we see the same evidence of careful +preconsideration, while the course of the poem is particularly +distinguished by the beauty of the transitions. Of the form of the +'Elegy' it is superfluous to speak; a poem so dignified and yet so +tender, appeals immediately, and will continue to appeal, to the +heart of every Englishman, so long as the care of public liberty and +love 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 was +a man he was also an artist, and he knew that the function of art was +not merely to indulge nature, but to dignify and refine it. + +"Yet, in spite of his love of form, there is nothing frigid or +statuesque in the genius of Gray. A vein of deep melancholy, +evidently constitutional, runs through his poetry, and, considering +how little he produced, the number of personal allusions in his +verses is undoubtedly large. But he is entirely free from that +egotism which we have had frequent occasion to blame as the +prevailing vice of modern poetry. For whereas the modern poet thrusts +his private feelings into prominence, and finds a luxury in the +confession of his sorrows, Gray's references to himself are +introduced on public grounds, or, in other words, with a view to +poetical effect. He, like our own bards, is 'condemned to groan,' but +for 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 Eton +College;' but the second stanza of this poem is a pure expression of +individual 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 the +general reflections that follow by the personal experience of the +speaker. Again, the 'Progress of Poesy' closes with a personal +allusion which, as it is a climax, might, if ill-managed, have +appeared 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 the +self-complacent triumph of genius, expressed by so many poets from +Ennius downwards, is at once justified and chastened by the +reflection in these lines. We see in them that the poet alludes to +himself in the third person, and he repeats this style in the +'Elegy,' where, after the fourth line, the first personal pronoun is +never again used. How just and beautiful is the turn where, after +contemplating 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 have +noticed--his self-suppression and his sense of form and dignity--are +best described by the word 'classical.' What we particularly admire +in the great authors of Greece and Rome is their public spirit. Their +writings are full of patriotism, good-breeding, and common-sense, and +have that happy mixture of art and nature which is only acquired by +men who have learned from liberty how to discipline individual +instincts by social refinement. Their style is masculine, clear, and +moderate; they seem, as it were, never to lose the sense of being +before an audience, and, like orators who know that they are always +exposed to the judgment of their intellectual equals, they aim at +putting intelligible thoughts into the most natural and forcible +words. Precisely the same qualities are observable in all the best +English writers of the eighteenth century. Addison, Pope, and +Goldsmith are perhaps the most shining examples, but the rest are +'classical' in the sense which we have just indicated; and we can +hardly be wrong in ascribing this common rhetorical instinct to the +intimate connection between the men of thought and the men of action, +which existed both in the free states of antiquity, and in England +under the rule of the aristocracy. With the advance of the eighteenth +century the instinct in English literature seems to grow weaker; the +style of our authors becomes more formal and constrained, and +symptoms of that dislike of society encouraged by the philosophy of +Rousseau more frequently betray themselves. As the poetry of Cowper +shows less social instinct than that of Gray, so Gray himself is +inferior in this respect to Pope and Goldsmith. But his style has the +same lofty public spirit that distinguishes his favourite models, and +no worthier form could be imagined to express the ardour excited in +the heart of a patriotic poet by the rising fortunes of his native +country. We feel that it is in every way fitting that the author of +the 'Elegy' should have been the favourite of Wolfe and the +countryman 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. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Select Poems of Thomas Gray, by Thomas Gray + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30357 *** |