fuch fituations there are never wanting encouragers to cocker and spirit up the modest author; who yields at laft to importunity, and the dread of a mutilated and furreptitious publication. It is however but fair to confefs, that on this occafion the folicitations of Gray's friends were not merely complimentary. The recital of certain brilliant stanzas had fecured approbation to the whole. Praife in this inftance preceded publication, as in fome other inftances he found it follow far behind; and Gray felt himself in a fituation fingular among authors; not foliciting public favour, but folicited to accept it.

The Elegy written in a Country Church Yard has become a staple in English poetry. It is even beginning to get into years. Of those that now frequent the haunts of them that make verfes, or that judge of them, the greater part remember not the time when it was not recited with approbation: and when a few laggers, who witneffed its first introduction, and heard now and then a tone of diffent interrupting the notes of admiration, fhall have fretted their hour, and away, the custom of praising it will be entitled to the denomination of a good custom, which, in criticifm as well as law, holds of prefcription; being" that whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

Though

Though the curiofity of the Public had done nothing to push forward this Elegy, Sagacity might easily have forefeen its fuccefs. Meditation upon death is, and ever has been, the occasional business or paftime of mankind; and though, like devotion, it cannot admit of the fublimer flights of poetry, yet, when the mind has fairly clung to the fubject with its fenfibilities awakened, and their expreffions within call, nothing that is thus produced will be totally void of intereft. The views, if not ftrik-` ing from novelty, will be commanding from feriousness and even mediocrity in the fentiment will be a paffport to general correfpond

ence.

The delufion too under which Gray laboured, that his character was a penfive one, and which, though not permanent, was periodical, feems to have lent its aid towards fitting him for compofitions of this kind. The frequent recurrence of any propenfity leads, by fure steps, to the final adjustment of the character; and even when the propensity is ideal, the repetition of the fits will, in the end, inveft Fancy with the habitudes of Nature. Whatever part felf-deception or affectation may have originally had in the matter, Gray became, at length, bona fide, a melancholy man. The features of his mind plied gradually to the cast of the mould his imagination had formed for it. · B 2.

2

Of

Of the language of the feeling he became poffeffed of a competent portion, as well as of its modes, to which, on feveral occafions, he gave expreffion; and on none more remarkably, than in compofing the Elegy under confidera

tion.

If, in establishing the fortune of literary productions, Popularity established alfo their worth, Criticifm would find herfelf rid of one of the most unpleafing, as well as unprofitable, of her tafks. But this is not the cafe. The maxim

"Vox Populi, &c." taken in its full range, is not more destructive to good government, than hurtful to found criticifm. To examine the Elegy written in a Country Church Yard, fo as to reft its merits upon firm ground, its popularity fhould be kept out of view. Of fuch an examination the object is not to discover what has been faid, but what may be faid juftly. Criticism acts not in the character of Recorder, but of Judge. It is not her business to ENGROSS decifions, but to DICTATE them.

Of this Elegy I find little in the "General Defign," either to praife or to blame. It differs in nothing material from the general defign of all Meditations on Death, from Boyle to Hervey inclufive. The fubject has the advantage of being interesting, but the disadvantage of being common. The reader attends to it from motives of duty as well as of interest.

So does also the writer: though he foon finds that piety confers not poetic infpiration, and that fublimity is not the neceffary offspring of a ferious frame. The paucity of the topics precludes circumvagation; and the innovelty of the views repress effufion. The fubject is already as great as it can be made: and of decoration the execution would be difficult, and the experiment attended with danger.

Of the Particular Plan," Criticifm withholds the cenfure, until the fhall have afcertained the conception. Perhaps the author had no particular plan at all. A number of different views of the fubject, all of them ferious, most of them common, and many of them interefting, are collected from different quarters, and thrown together in that inconsecutive train, in which men meditate, when they meditate for themselves. "Ibi hæc incondita folus.” Like Virgil's Corydon (who is deprived of fympathy from the baseness of his object, as the poet is of his praise, from degrading his foliloquy into a paftoral) the Meditator in the Country Church-yard is fuppofed to touch on the different topics as they arife to his mind, not prefcribing the law of fucceffion, but receiving it.

Of poets who had wrought on the subject before him, either incidentally or from purpofe, he feems to have followed no one com

pletely

pletely as a model, but to have gathered occafionally from all. Parnell's Night-Piece feems to have been moft in his eye: though of Parnell the fcheme is, in much, different from that of Gray. From Milton's Penforofo too he has taken feveral hints; and what may appear furprifing, fome even from his Allegro. From Thomson and Collins he has been furnished with many images; and fome thoughts are borrowed from Pope. Materials brought together from fo many different quarters, may be expected to form an heterogeneous whole. Adherence is not solidity: and we look not for a rigorous unity in a cento.

Of the "verfification" I delay the ftrict examination, until my procefs fhall have brought me to the particular paffages that fuggeft it. Only, in general, it may be doubted, whether the quatrain with alternate rhimes, has that connexion with the elegiac ftrain that many poets and fome critics have conceived. Dryden, who was eminent in both characters, is fo clearly of opinion that it is the moft magnificent of English measures, that one is apt to wonder how it should have firft been thought of as a vehicle for a species of poetry, of which the character is gentleness and tenuity. It is the stanza adopted by Hammond. But the credit of Hammond's poetry was not of magnitude fufficient to give a claffical stamp to any kind

of