Thy form benign, oh Goddess wear, What other's are to feel, and know myself a man. Gorgon. See page 53. Nor circled with thy vengeful band. -The vengeful band to which the poet alludes is the band of the Furies, for an account of them see Lempriere: The author here alludes to a pas sage in one of the tragedies of Euripides, in which the Furies were in troduced upon the stage in such horrid masks as to alarm the audience. Despair, &c.-To the other ministers of Adversity, he adds, Despair, Disease, and Poverty, which he calls ghastly because poverty prevents the poor from being sufficiently fed, and want of food makes the countenance thin, pale, and ghastly or ghostly. Thy form benign, Oh! Goddess wear. After the poet has conjured-that is besought earnestly, the Goddess Adversity not to come in her terrific form, he begs that she may be benign, benignant-that is favorableBring along with you philosophy and patience, and teach me how to forgive, to scan-that is, to perceive and measure my own faults-to feel for others, and to know that, as a man, I am subject to numerous infirmities and sufferings. THE BARD. Gray. IT has been observed, that the Hymn to Adversity by Gray, is not easily to be understood;-the ode nów before us is still more difficult; the sentences are so interwoven, and the connexion of its parts are sometimes so remote, that even grown persons (to use a familiar expression) are puzzled by its intricacy.-If my young readers can by the assistance of the following interpretation, be enabled to understand this poem, they may be trusted to discover by themselves the meaning of almost speare, any modern poet;-Spenser, Shakeand Milton, are to us ancient poets; and many parts of these must be still too difficult for children, without the assistance of their more experienced friends. The subject of this poem is not such as immediately to interest childaen-it relates to an event which happened a great while ago; and which has not produced extraordinary consequences since it happened. When Edward the First conquered the Welch, it is said, that to allay the enthusiasm for liberty which the Welch Bards, or minstrels, inspired by their oratory, poetry, and music, he ordered them to be put to death.— This story depends upon nothing more than tradition. It is a tradition, how ever, that has furnished a subject for a very fine ode, which, although it is obscure, has obtained a high rank in English poetry, a rank which it has preserved, notwithstanding the criticisms of Doctor Johnson in his life of Gray.-An author like Johnson, who is himself a poet, should be cautious how he takes to pieces the structure of any work of imagination, which has gained the approbation of the public. His own poetry, is subject to a similar process, and he must be a poet of the very highest powers whose works can bear to be thus scrutinised. I shall not trouble my young reader with criticisms, but I shall proceed with the poem, requesting indulgence in the arduous task which I have undertaken. It would not be difficult to explain this ode to persons used to the - |