written wailings, and not a little out of temper with them, that they have not kept their word. Of the firft Lord Littleton, there are many fimple men of feeling who have fcarcely brought themselves to believe, even on the authority of the Register, that, after the death of his Lucy, he married a fecond wife. Enough of this.

To the incongruities already specified, may be added another in this Elegy, invested as it is with its prefent title; and that other yet more flagrant. Gray had originally laid his Meditation, at a time with which the idea of the operation of writing was incompatible. The "parting day;" the "glimmering landfcape fading on the fight," the "plowman returning home, and leaving the world to darknefs;" are images confiftent with the fuppofition of a thinking mufer, but irreconcileable with the procefs of writing, or even fcrawling. Yet by a friend of Gray, a ferious, and not unintelligent perfon, who has put together verfes himself, and to whom I communicated this obfervation, have I been called upon to take notice, that the Author has described himfelf, in the Elegy, as carrying on his mufing by moon-light.

**

I. II. III.

Of this Elegy the three firft quatrains pre fent what may be termed the preparation. To the serious exercife that is to take place, it is neceffary, that the fenfes be firft properly got under; or at least that fuch work be cut out for them, as may prevent them from embroiling the train of penfive thought. With pro priety then has the Author made them the objects of his first care. With propriety too, are bearing and fight felected; as the most reftive, and unfriendly to meditation, and, of course, requiring management the most. Gray has pushed this matter a point farther. Not contented with their neutrality, he has proceeded to court their afliftance; and held out to them fuch "guerdons fair," as might win them not only not to obftruct meditation, but to act as auxiliaries in promoting it.

When these guerdons are brought forward in review; for the ear we have " the found of the curfew;"" the lowing of the herds, returning

to

to their ftalls;' "the tinkling (I fuppofe) of wether-bells;" "the droning of the beetle;' and the fcreeching of the owl;" founds not improper when taken fingly, but deftructive when taken in the total, to that folemn filnefs which is spoken of. We are tempted to think of Hogarth's" enraged Musician," whofe rapture is destroyed by an agglomeration of founds, each of which, taken feparately, might have been with patience endured.

For the eye we are presented with "the flow winding off of the cattle; "the plodding pace of the returning plowman;"" the fading of the landscape;" and the moon, discovering by her light a tower mantled with ivy." Of thefe images, criticism is content to admit the propriety, whilft fhe denies their originality; and referves to herself the right of ftricture on the plan, according to which they are affembled, and the manner in which they are drawn.

If the images above recited are traced to the poets from whom they are taken, we shall not always perceive them to have found their way into the Elegy written in a Country Churchyard, in an improved state. Of the curfew, as heard by a man of meditation, we have the following circumftantiation in Milton's Penferofo ;

Oft,

Oft, on a plat of rifing ground,
I hear the far-off curfew found;
Over fome wide-water'd fhore
Swinging flow with fullen roar.

To this characteriftical figuring Gray has thought proper to fubftitute the conceit of Dante; according to which the curfew is made to foll requiems to the day newly deceased: a fancy more subtle than folid, and to which the judgment, if reconciled at all, is reconciled by effort.

Of Evening the approach is defcribed in the Elegy, as a profe-mufer would have defcribed it: "The glimmering landscape fades on the fight;" let us hear Thomson:

A faint erroneous ray,

Glanc'd from th' imperfect surfaces of things,
Flings half an image on the ftraining eye;

While wavering woods and villages and ftreams
And rocks

are all one fwimming scene,

Uncertain if beheld +.

Or, more comprefs'd in the thought, and in

vested with the sweetness of rhime;

But chief, when evening fhades decay,
And the faint landscape fwims away,
Thine is the doubtful foft decline,
And that beft hour of mufing thine .

+ Summer.

I

Ode to Solitude.

And

And Collins:

Be mine the hut that views.

-Hamlets brown, and dim-difcover'd fpires,
And hears their fimple bell, and marks, o'er all,
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil *.

The idea of making founds of a certain kind give a relief (to fpeak in the language of artifts) to filence, is not new.

lins in 1746:

Thus wrote Col

Now air is hufh'd, fave where the weak-ey'd bat, With short shrill fhriek, flits by on leathern wing; Or, where the beetle winds

His small, but fullen horn +.

The beetle of Collins and Gray is the "grey fly" of Milton, that in the penfive man's, ear "winds his fultry horn." Collins has changed the epithet into fullen, by a happy mifremembrance.

In Parnell, in place of "ivy mantling a tower," we have " yew bathing a charnelhouse with dew." The ivy and the tower might ftand any where as well as in a churchyard; but the charnel-house is characteristic, and the yew is funereal. Of Parnell's image, however, candor muft acknowledge the ftrength to be fo great as to render it almoft offenfive.