On the Spring

Notes by William J. Rolfe, Select Poems of Thomas Gray (1876; Project Gutenberg #30357).

1. Stanza 1, line 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. Stanza 1, line 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."
3. Stanza 1, line 1 A good example of alliteration.
4. Stanza 1, line 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."
5. Stanza 1, line 2 Cf. Lady M. W. Montagu, Town Eclogues: "Where the tall jar erects its stately pride, With antic shapes in China's azure dyed."
6. Stanza 1, line 2 That crown the watery glade. Cf. Pope, Windsor Forest, 128: "And lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade."
7. Stanza 1, line 2 And give to rapture. The first reading of the MS. was "give to transport."
8. Stanza 1, line 2 Cf. Shakes. K. John, iv. 2: "and vast confusion waits."
9. Stanza 1, line 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."
10. Stanza 1, line 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."
11. Stanza 1, line 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.
12. Stanza 1, line 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."
13. Stanza 1, line 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.
14. Stanza 1, line 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.
15. Stanza 1, line 4 Gray quotes K. John, v. 1: "Mocking the air with colours idly spread."
16. Stanza 1, line 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."
17. Stanza 1, line 5 And ye. Ye "towers;" that is, of Windsor Castle. Cf. Thomson, Summer, 1412: "And now to where Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow."
18. Stanza 1, line 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."
19. Stanza 1, line 6 The lake. In the mock-heroic vein that runs through the whole poem.
20. Stanza 1, line 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."
21. Stanza 1, line 7 Nightly. Nocturnal, as often in poetry. Cf. Il Pens. 84, etc.
22. Stanza 1, line 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.
23. Stanza 1, line 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.]
24. Stanza 1, line 9 Cf. Shenstone, Inscr.: "Verdant vales and fountains bright;" also Virgil, Geo. i. 96: "Flava Ceres;" and Homer, Il. v. 499: [Greek: xanthê Dêmêtêr].
25. Stanza 1, line 9 The crested pride. Gray quotes Dryden, Indian Queen: "The crested adder's pride."
26. Stanza 1, line 10 His silver-winding way. Cf. Thomson, Summer, 1425: "The matchless vale of Thames, Fair-winding up," etc.
27. Stanza 1, line 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."
28. Stanza 2, line 1 Jet. This word comes, through the French, from Gagai, a town in Lycia, where the mineral was first obtained.
29. Stanza 2, line 1 The first MS. reading was, "With torrent rapture see it pour."
30. Stanza 2, line 1 "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."
31. Stanza 2, line 2 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.
32. Stanza 2, line 2 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."
33. Stanza 2, line 2 Cf. Dryden, Virgil's Geo. i.: "And rocks the bellowing voice of boiling seas resound;" Pope, Iliad: "Rocks rebellow to the roar."
34. Stanza 2, line 3 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.
35. Stanza 2, line 3 "Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar" (Gray).
36. Stanza 2, line 3 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.
37. Stanza 2, line 4 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."]
38. Stanza 2, line 4 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."
39. Stanza 2, line 4 Solemn-breathing airs. Cf. Comus, 555: "a soft and solemn-breathing sound."
40. Stanza 2, line 4 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."
41. Stanza 2, line 5 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!"
42. Stanza 2, line 5 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."
43. Stanza 2, line 5 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.
44. Stanza 2, line 5 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.
45. Stanza 2, line 6 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."
46. Stanza 2, line 7 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."
47. Stanza 2, line 7 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.
48. Stanza 2, line 7 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.
49. Stanza 2, line 9 Gray quotes Dryden, Fable on Pythag. Syst.: "And bees their honey redolent of spring."
50. Stanza 2, line 9 His thirsty lance. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 5, 15: "his thristy [thirsty] blade."
51. Stanza 2, line 9 "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).
52. Stanza 2, line 10 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."
53. Stanza 2, line 10 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."
54. Stanza 3, line 1 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."'"
55. Stanza 3, line 1 The feather'd king. Cf. Shakes. Phoenix and Turtle: "Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king."
56. Stanza 3, line 2 The panting herds. Cf. Pope, Past. ii. 87: "To closer shades the panting flocks remove."
57. Stanza 3, line 3 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."
58. Stanza 3, line 3 Margent green. Cf. Comus, 232: "By slow Mæander's margent green."
59. Stanza 3, line 3 Dark clouds. The first reading of MS. was "black clouds."
60. Stanza 3, line 3 Desert caves. Cf. Lycidas, 39: "The woods and desert caves."
61. Stanza 3, line 4 The busy murmur. Cf. Milton, P. R. iv. 248: "bees' industrious murmur."
62. Stanza 3, line 4 In the 1st ed. "What cat's a foe to fish?" and in the next line, "with eyes intent."
63. Stanza 3, line 4 Cf. Pope, Essay on Man, iii. 233: "To Virtue, in the paths of Pleasure, trod."
64. Stanza 3, line 4 The terror. This is the reading of the first ed. and also of that of 1768. Most of the modern eds. have "terrors."
65. Stanza 3, line 5 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.
66. Stanza 3, line 5 "Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body" (Gray).
67. Stanza 3, line 6 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."
68. Stanza 3, line 6 Thy glassy wave. Cf. Comus, 861: "Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave."
69. Stanza 3, line 6 Temper'd. Modulated, "set." Cf. Lycidas, 33: "Tempered to the oaten flute;" Fletcher, Purple Island: "Tempering their sweetest notes unto thy lay," etc.
70. Stanza 3, line 6 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).
71. Stanza 3, line 7 The liquid noon. Gray quotes Virgil, Geo. iv. 59: "Nare per aestatem liquidam."
72. Stanza 3, line 7 The captive linnet. The adjective is redundant and "proleptic," as the bird must be "enthralled" before it can be called "captive."
73. Stanza 3, line 7 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.
74. Stanza 3, line 8 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.
75. Stanza 3, line 8 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."
76. Stanza 3, line 9 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.
77. Stanza 3, line 9 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.
78. Stanza 3, line 10 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."
79. Stanza 3, line 10 Cf. Pope, Dunciad, iv. 592: "The senator at cricket urge the ball."
80. Stanza 3, line 10 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."
81. Stanza 3, line 10 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."
82. Stanza 4, line 1 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."
83. Stanza 4, line 1 Eight times. Alluding to the proverbial "nine lives" of the cat.
84. Stanza 4, line 1 Cf. Thomson, Spring, 835: "In friskful glee Their frolics play." 32, 33. Cf. Virgil, Æn. v. 580 foll.
85. Stanza 4, line 3 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."
86. Stanza 4, line 4 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?"
87. Stanza 4, line 4 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.
88. Stanza 4, line 5 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."
89. Stanza 4, line 5 Arvon's shore. "The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite the isle of Anglesey" (Gray). Caernarvon, or Caer yn Arvon, means the camp in Arvon.
90. Stanza 4, line 6 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."
91. Stanza 4, line 7 Cf. Cowley, Ode to Hobbes, iv. 7: "Till unknown regions it descries."
92. Stanza 4, line 7 Cf. Dryden, Flower and Leaf, 191: "For wheresoe'er she turn'd her face, they bow'd."
93. Stanza 4, line 8 "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).
94. Stanza 4, line 9 Cf. Virgil, Æn. i. 405: "Incessu patuit dea." The gods were represented as gliding or sailing along without moving their feet.
95. Stanza 4, line 10 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."
96. Stanza 4, line 10 Dear as the light. Cf. Virgil, Æn. iv. 31: "O luce magis dilecta sorori."
97. Stanza 5, line 1 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."
98. Stanza 5, line 1 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."
99. Stanza 5, line 2 The 1st ed. has "Not all that strikes," etc.
100. Stanza 5, line 2 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, th …
101. Stanza 5, line 2 "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.
102. Stanza 5, line 2 Wakefield quotes Pope: "And greatly falling with a fallen state;" and Dryden: "And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate."
103. Stanza 5, line 4 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."
104. Stanza 5, line 4 Grisly. See on Eton Coll. 82. Cf. Lycidas, 52: "the steep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie."
105. Stanza 5, line 5 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."
106. Stanza 5, line 6 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."
107. Stanza 5, line 7 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."
108. Stanza 5, line 7 Lively cheer. Cf. Spenser, Shep. Kal. Apr.: "In either cheeke depeincten lively chere;" Milton, Ps. lxxxiv. 27: "With joy and gladsome cheer."
109. Stanza 5, line 8 "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."
110. Stanza 5, line 9 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."
111. Stanza 5, line 9 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.
112. Stanza 5, line 10 Birds of boding cry. Cf. Green's Grotto: "news the boding night-birds tell."
113. Stanza 6, line 1 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.]
114. Stanza 6, line 1 Cf. Dryden, Sebastian, i. 1: "I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more."
115. Stanza 7, line 1 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.
116. Stanza 7, line 3 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."
117. Stanza 7, line 4 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.
118. Stanza 7, line 4 "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."
119. Stanza 7, line 5 Twilight gloom. Wakefield quotes Milton, Hymn on Nativ. 188: "The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn."
120. Stanza 7, line 5 Cf. Hume's description: "The screams with which the agonizing king filled the castle."
121. Stanza 7, line 6 Wakefield says, "It almost chills one to read this verse." The MS. variations are "buried native's" and "chill abode."
122. Stanza 7, line 6 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.
123. Stanza 8, line 2 Murtherous. The obsolete spelling of murderous, still used in Gray's time.
124. Stanza 8, line 3 Repeat [their chiefs, etc.]. Sing of them again and again.
125. Stanza 8, line 3 "Triumphs of Edward the Third in France" (Gray).
126. Stanza 8, line 4 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."
127. Stanza 8, line 4 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."
128. Stanza 8, line 4 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."
129. Stanza 8, line 5 Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs. Cf. P. L. ix. 1115: "Such of late Columbus found the American, so girt With feather'd cincture."
130. Stanza 8, line 6 For victor the MS. has "conqueror;" also in next line "the" for his; and in 65, "what ... what" for no ... no.
131. Stanza 9, line 1 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."
132. Stanza 9, line 1 "Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress" (Gray).
133. Stanza 9, line 2 Freedom's holy flame. Cf. Akenside, Pleas. of Imag. i. 468: "Love's holy flame." [Illustration: THE VALE OF TEMPE.]
134. Stanza 9, line 3 Mitford quotes Spenser, F. Q.: "But gnawing Jealousy out of their sight, Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bite."
135. Stanza 9, line 3 "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.).
136. Stanza 9, line 4 Isles, etc. Cf. Byron: "The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung," etc.
137. Stanza 9, line 4 "Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father" (Gray).
138. Stanza 9, line 5 Wakefield quotes Milton, Sonnet to Mr. Lawes: "With praise enough for Envy to look wan."
139. Stanza 9, line 5 Ilissus. This river, rising on the northern slope of Hymettus, flows through the east side of Athens.
140. Stanza 9, line 6 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."
141. Stanza 9, line 6 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].
142. Stanza 9, line 6 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."
143. Stanza 10, line 1 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.
144. Stanza 10, line 2 "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.
145. Stanza 10, line 3 The azure realm. Cf. Virgil, Ciris, 483: "Caeruleo pollens conjunx Neptunia regno."
146. Stanza 10, line 4 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."
147. Stanza 10, line 6 Hallowed fountain. Cf. Virgil, Ecl. i. 53: "fontes sacros."
148. Stanza 10, line 6 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.
149. Stanza 11, line 1 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."
150. Stanza 11, line 1 The MS. has "Murmur'd a celestial sound."
151. Stanza 11, line 1 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."
152. Stanza 11, line 2 "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).
153. Stanza 11, line 4 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."
154. Stanza 11, line 4 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."
155. Stanza 11, line 5 Vice that revels in her chains. In his Ode for Music, 6, Gray has "Servitude that hugs her chain."
156. Stanza 11, line 6 The vale of years. Cf. Othello, iii. 3: "Declin'd Into the vale of years."
157. Stanza 11, line 6 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."
158. Stanza 12, line 1 Grisly. Not to be confounded with grizzly. See Wb.
159. Stanza 12, line 1 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.]
160. Stanza 12, line 2 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.
161. Stanza 12, line 2 "Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster" (Gray). Cf. P. L. vi. 209: "Arms on armour clashing brayed."
162. Stanza 12, line 3 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."
163. Stanza 12, line 3 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."
164. Stanza 12, line 4 Lucid Avon. Cf. Seneca, Thyest. 129: "gelido flumine lucidus Alpheos."
165. Stanza 12, line 5 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."
166. Stanza 12, line 5 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."
167. Stanza 12, line 6 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."
168. Stanza 12, line 6 "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."
169. Stanza 13, line 1 Murther. See on murthorous, p. 105.
170. Stanza 13, line 2 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.]
171. Stanza 13, line 3 Slow-consuming Age. Cf. Shenstone, Love and Honour: "His slow-consuming fires."
172. Stanza 13, line 3 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."
173. Stanza 13, line 4 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."
174. Stanza 13, line 4 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."
175. Stanza 13, line 6 Of horror. A MS. variation is "Of terror."
176. Stanza 13, line 6 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.
177. Stanza 14, line 1 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."
178. Stanza 14, line 2 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?"
179. Stanza 14, line 2 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."
180. Stanza 14, line 4 Happiness too swiftly flies. Perhaps a reminiscence of Virgil, Geo. iii. 66: "Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit."
181. Stanza 14, line 5 Thought would destroy their paradise. Wakefield quotes Sophocles, Ajax, 554: [Greek: En tôi phronein gar mêden hêdistos bios] ("Absence of thought is prime felicity").
182. Stanza 14, line 5 The flaming bounds, etc. Gray quotes Lucretius, i. 74: "Flammantia moenia mundi." Cf. also Horace, Epist. i. 14, 9: "amat spatiis obstantia rumpere claustra."
183. Stanza 14, line 5 See on 48 above.
184. Stanza 14, line 6 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 …
185. Stanza 14, line 6 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."
186. Stanza 14, line 6 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.]
187. Stanza 14, line 8 Blasted with excess of light. Cf. P. L. iii. 380: "Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear."
188. Stanza 14, line 8 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."
189. Stanza 14, line 9 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.]
190. Stanza 14, line 10 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."]
191. Stanza 15, line 2 "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."
192. Stanza 15, line 3 Gray quotes Job xxxix. 19: "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?"
193. Stanza 15, line 4 Cf. Dryden, State of Innocence, iv. 1: "Their glory shoots upon my aching sight."
194. Stanza 15, line 5 Bright-eyed. The MS. has "full-plumed."
195. Stanza 15, line 6 "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."
196. Stanza 15, line 7 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."
197. Stanza 15, line 7 "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).
198. Stanza 15, line 8 "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).
199. Stanza 15, line 9 Their starry fronts. Cf. Milton, Ode on the Passion, 18: "His starry front;" Statius, Theb. 613: "Heu! ubi siderei vultus."
200. Stanza 15, line 10 Wakes thee now. Cf. Elegy, 48: "Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre."
201. Stanza 16, line 2 "[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."
202. Stanza 16, line 2 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."
203. Stanza 16, line 2 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?"
204. Stanza 16, line 4 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."
205. Stanza 16, line 4 "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."
206. Stanza 16, line 7 With orient hues. Cf. Milton, P. L. i. 546: "with orient colours waving."
207. Stanza 16, line 8 "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.
208. Stanza 16, line 9 The MS. has "Yet never can he fear a vulgar fate."
209. Stanza 16, line 10 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 t …
210. Stanza 16, line 10 Cf. Congreve, Ode to Lord Godolphin: "And soars with rapture while she sings."
211. Stanza 17, line 1 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."
212. Stanza 17, line 3 Gray quotes Spenser, F. Q. Proeme, 9: "Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song."
213. Stanza 17, line 5 "Shakespeare" (Gray). Cf. Il Penseroso, 102: "the buskin'd stage;" that is, the tragic stage.
214. Stanza 17, line 6 Pleasing pain. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 9, 10: "sweet pleasing payne;" and Dryden, Virg. Ecl. iii. 171: "Pleasing pains of love."
215. Stanza 17, line 8 "Milton" (Gray).
216. Stanza 17, line 10 "The succession of poets after Milton's time" (Gray).
217. Stanza 18, line 2 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?"
218. Stanza 18, line 4 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."
219. Stanza 18, line 8 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.
220. Stanza 18, line 10 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 outrage …