and poverty. But here too allowance must be made for a little of the old leaven. Hands are, metaphorically, faid to "fway the rod of empire," and literally to bring forth founds from the lyre. "Living lyre" is from Cowley; and of his obligation to the royal poet of Judah, for the application of the idea ❝ awake" to the eliciting of founds from the harp or lyre, he has thought the acknowledgment deferving commemoration, In the whole of the Elegy, Criticism has not been able to find two more happy lines than the following:

Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the foul. Here are really two ideas. Penury, in the character of froft, deprives the current of its heat, and checks its onward motion. I am unwilling to fuppofe the metaphor to be a broken one; and that Gray jumbled into one, the images of horsemanship, and watery motion, as Addison has done in the following couplet:

I bridle in my ftruggling mufe with pain,
That longs to launch into a nobler strain *,

* Letter from Italy.

Of the melancholy truth, that great parts are often kept from expanfion, by the influence of poverty and ignorance, the fourteenth Stanza seems to promise the illuftration, by reference made to analogous depreffions of excellence in the material and vegetable kingdoms. But more is promifed than performed. The examples are made up of fhewy images; but they are not examples in point. Non erat bis locus.

The propofition to be illuftrated was, "that la "tent poffibilities of perfection, which favour"able fituations and circumftances might have

brought out, are fometimes, by circumstances "of an untowardly kind, prevented from being

duly unfolded." Of this pofition illuftrations might eafily have been found, had not Gray confounded it with another, equally true with the former, yet altogether diftinct. That other position is, "that of perfections already " unfolded, there may occur extrinsic caufes to "prevent the beneficial display."

It is of this latter pofition, that Gray has given the illuftration, in the images of "the gem, whose brightnefs is hid by its depth in "the fea ;" and of " the flower, whose beauty "and fragrance are loft, on account of the "desert in which it grows." It is nothing to the illuftration of the former pofition, that the flower blushes unfeen; or that the gem may grow where no hand can reach it. Had the brightness of the gem remained folded up in the cruft; or the flower been froft-nipt in the bud, the images had been in point.

Of the images themselves I have already allowed the merit. They are both, however, to be found in Thomson, from whom Gray seems to have borrowed more than he thought fit to acknowledge. Speaking of the influence of the Sun, and univerfal operation of light; he fays, in the way of addrefs to the operator,

The unfruitful rock itself, impregn'd by thee,
In dark retirement forms the lucid ftone.
The lively diamond drinks thy purest rays;
Collected light compact.

And, defcribing the retirement of a rural
beauty †,

As, in the hollow breaft of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,

glowd

• Summer.

† Autumn.

A myrtle

A myrtle rifes, far from human eye,

And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourish'd, blooming, and, unfeen by all,
The fweet Lavinia.

In the former example, the "diamond" of Thomson becomes the "gem" of Gray; both are formed in retirement; though Gray has changed the place; and tranfplanted the diamond into the fea, for caufes that do not appear, and with a propriety of which Criticism entertains a doubt. Both ftones are of "pureft ray."

Of the latter image, the identity is still more obvious; although it has been disguised by the change of a myrtle into a flower; and, perhaps, by a shifting of the fcene from Italy to Arabia Deferta. Why a flower was thought better than a myrtle; or a defert more proper than a shelter'd wafte, for rearing a tender plant, we are not informed. To fee the sense of juftice return, is pleasant even when the return is láte. Gray, towards the end of his life, dived to the bottom for the gem; and, having brought it up, replanted it in the earth, to be brought forth as occafion might call. To the myrtle he made more fignal amends, for its long transformation into a flower, by making intereft with the Chancellor of the Univerfity of Cambridge to have it created a bishop.

Thy liberal heart, thy judging eye,
The flower unheeded shall descry,
And bid it round Heaven's altar fhed,
The fragrance of its blufhing head;
Shall raife from earth the latent gem,
To glitter on the diadem

Thomfon's myrtle

breathes its balmy fra

grance o'er the wild," Gray's flower" waftes its sweetness on the defert air." "Waftes," in place of " breathes," is an improvement; though, whether one air is more" defert" than another, the authority of Shakespeare himself will not hinder us to doubt.

It is often entertaining to trace imitation. To detect the adopted image, the copied defign, the transferred fentiment, the appropriated phrafe, and even the acquired manner and frame, under all the difguifes that mutilation, combination, and accommodation may have thrown around them, muft require both parts and diligence; but it will bring with it no ordinary gratification. A book, profeffedly on the "Hiftory and progress of imitation in poetry, written by a man of perfpicacity, and an adept in the art of difcerning likeneffes, even when minute; with examples properly felected, and gradations duly marked; would make an important acceffion to the ftore of human literature, and furnifh rational curiofity with an high regale.

Inftallation Ode.

I remem