"One morn Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he: "The next, with dirges due in sad array, Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne :- THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.3 Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,4 Her Henry's holy shade; 1 "Between this line and the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought (and in my opinion very justly) that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines, however, are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation.”—Mason. "There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are showers of violets found; ? This epitaph has been commented on, and translated into different languages, by various men of eminence, most of them divines. Did it never occur to any of these, that there was an impropriety in making the "bosom” of Almighty God an abode for human frailty to repose in Unless, therefore, the author meant by the word "bosom" only remembrance, there is certainly a great inconsistency in the expression. 3 “Gray has, in his ode on Eton College, whether we consider the sweetness of the versification or its delicious train of plaintive tenderness, rivalled every lyric effort of ancient or of modern date."-Drake's Literary Hours, ii. 84. 4 These spires and towers are addressed by the poet without any use or intention; for nothing is afterwards asserted of them, and they are introduced only to be dismissed in silence, and without further notice. The Towers of London, in the second epode of the "Bard," are not apostrophilzed with so little meaning. 6 King Henry the Sixth, founder of the College. So in the Bard, 11. 3: "And spare the meek usurper's holy head," Shakspeare, in Richard the Third, twice applies the same epithet; and in the Installation Ode our author's expression, murdered saint, is applicable enough (notwithstanding Henry was never actually canonized) to the monarch who, as has been well said, would have adorned a cloister, though he disgraced a crown. And ye, that from the stately brow Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among1 His silver-winding way. Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!3 I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing; Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen5 The captive linnet which enthral? To chase the rolling circle's speed, 1 "That is, the turf of whose lawn, the shade of whose grove, the flowers of whose mead. So in Shak speare:-The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword; that is, 'The courtier's eye, the soldier's sword, the scholar's tongue.' This singularity often occurs in Mr. Pope."-Wakefield. 2 Mr. Wakefield has a complaint against this compound epithet. The silver-shedding tears of Shak speare, Two Gent. of Ver. Act. iii. sc. 1, and the silver-quivering rills of Pope, might perhaps have recon ciled him to it, if he had recollected them. Both these expressions, as well as one from Dart's "West minster Abbey," "Where Thames in silver-currents winds his way," are cited in this place by Mr. Mitford. 3 Mr. Wakefield here quotes from the "Odyssey," O. 397. And it may be remarked, that the an elents were by no means unacquainted with that species of pathos which is derived from the melancholy delight of early remembrance. The feeling which induces us to dress up the past in a fancied superiority of enjoyment, is natural and universal; nor can the indulgence of it be pernicious, 80 ong as it does not interfere with the necessary energies of the present hour. 4 "And bees their honey redolent of spring." Dryden's Pythag. System. As Gray refers this expression to Dryden, it is probable that he was not acquainted with any ear Ber authority. Dr. Johnson is highly offended at it, as passing beyond the utmost limits of our lan guage, and of common apprehension. The critic, perhaps, never in his life partook of the feeling here described, or possibly he would not have objected to the expression. 5 The ill-natured criticism of Dr. Johnson on this line cannot be refuted better than it has been by Mr. Mitford. "His supplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop, or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames had no better means of knowing than himself."-Are we by this rule of criticism 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: Abswer, said she, great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the Invocation of the daughter of tny native aing. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitation, from waicn tnou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint." While some, on earnest business bent, 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry: Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,' And lively cheer, of vigor born; Alas! regardless of their doom, No sense have they of ills to come, Yet see how all around them wait2 The ministers of human fate, And black Misfortune's baleful train! These shall the fury Passions tear,3 And Shame that skulks behind; That inly gnaws the secret heart; Ambition this shall tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy. 1 "This is at once poetical and just: and yet there seems to be an impropriety in the next verse:Less pleasing when possest: for though the object of hope may truly be said to be less pleasing in possession than in the fancy; yet Hope in person cannot possibly be possessed."-Wakefield. 2 "This representation of the ministers of Fate, and the two succeeding stanzas, which exhibit the variety of human passions, with their several attributes, blends moral instruction with all the anlmation and sublimity of poetry."--Wakefield. a "I do not know that any poet, ancient or modern, has given so complete a picture of the pannone in so short a compass."-Wakefield. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, That mocks the tear it forced to flow; Lo! in the vale of years beneath! Lo! Poverty, to fill the band, To each his sufferings: all are men, The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, And happiness too swiftly flies? SONG. Thyrsis, when we parted, swore And the bud that decks the thorn? 1 A most happy idea; and the whole stanza is exquisitely beautiful, and will not be disgraced by appearing in the same view with a passage in "Paradise Lost," where description is carried to its highest pitch of excellence: "Immediately a place Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisome, dark; A lazar-house it seem'd; wherein were laid of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms Tended the sick, busied from couch to couch; Book xi. ver. 477. Idle notes! untimely green! Cease, my doubts, my fears to move- The chief prose compositions of Gray are his letters, which are among the best in the language, full of just remarks, beautiful criticisms, and descriptions of natural scenery, "which a painter might study, and which a poet alone could have conceived;" and occasionally exhibit a genial humor which mark the author of the "Ode to a Favorite Cat." In 1798, before the letters of Cowper were published, Dr. Beattie thus writes to a friend: "I am acquainted with many parts of your excursion through the north of England, and very glad that you had my old friend Mr. Gray's 'Letters' with you, which are indeed so well written, that I have no scruple to pronounce them the best letters that have been printed in our language. Lady Montagu's are not without merit, but are too artificial and affected to be confided in as true, and Lord Chesterfield's have much greater faults; indeed, some of the greatest that letters can have: but Gray's letters are always sensible, and of classical conciseness and perspicuity. They very much resemble what his conversa. tion was." HOW HE SPENDS HIS TIME IN THE COUNTRY. To MR. WALPOLE. I was hindered in my last, and so could not give you all the trouble I would have done. The description of a road, which your coach-wheels have so often honored, it would be needless to give you; suffice it, I arrived safe at my uncle's, who is a great hunter in imagination; his dogs take up every chair in the house, so I am forced to stand at this present writing; and though the gout forbids his galloping after them in the field, yet he continues still to regale his ears and nose with their comfortable noise and stink. He holds me mightily cheap, I perceive, for walking when I should ride, and reading when I should hunt. My comfort amidst all this is, that I have, at the distance of half a mile, through a green lane, a forest, (the vulgar call it a common,) all my own, at least as good as so, for I spy no human thing in it but myself. It is a little chaos of mountains and precipices; mountains, it is true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, nor are the declivities quite so amazing as Dover Cliff; but just such hills as people who love their necks as well as I do, may venture to climb; and crags that give the eye as much pleasure as if they were more dangerous. Both vale and hill are covered with most venerable beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are always dreaming out their old stories to the winds, And, as they bow their hoary tops, relate, In murmuring sounds, the dark decrees of fate; |