especially in modern poetry; but in the hands of a great poet the subject-matter and the feeling direct the irregularities of verse. Gray, however, followed the real Pindaric form. Each section is more or less irregular in itself, but follows the form of the corresponding section, I. being similar to II. and III. throughout. The divisions, 1, 2, 3, correspond to the strophe, antistrophe, and epode of the Greek poem. The Progress of Poesy is not so well-known a poem as The Bard, but the matter is really better adapted to the restrictions of the Pindaric form than the curses and prophecies of the Welsh bard are. The public failed to understand the matter of the Odes, and in the first reprint Gray, somewhat ironically, added notes. following are selections from his notes on The Progress of Poesy:

The

1. "Awake, my glory; awake, lute and harp."-David's Psalms. Pindar styles his own poetry, with its musical accompaniments, Æolian song, Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute. 13-24. Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar. 24-41. Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. 4253. To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day, by its cheerful presence, to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night. 5465. Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. (See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh fragments, the Lapland and American songs.) 66–82. Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. 99. Ezekiel i. 20, 26, 28. 105. Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rimes. III. We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason [Gray's friend] has of late days touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his Choruses.

ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUDE

Left unfinished and unprinted by Gray, and first published by his friend Mason in his Memoirs of Gray, in 1775. Mason says that Gray's note-book shows that it was written in 1754-1755.

ON HIMSELF

Written in 1761, but left unpublished, and found in one of Gray's pocket-books. 6. Charles Townshend. At this time Secretary of War; later Chancellor of the Exchequer, under Pitt. Squire. Dr. Samuel Squire, Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge. Afterward Bishop of St. David's.

WILLIAM SOMERVILLE

(1675-1742)

Somerville is another of the group of minor poets who stand halfway between the existing classical school and the new nature poets. In accordance with the dominant taste, they choose informational or moral' subjects, but yield to their own impulses so far as to treat them in a naturalistic and semi-romantic way. They, as much as the greater poets, Thomson and Gray, indicate the change that is already in the air. Somerville lived the life of a country squire, much devoted to sports, and nearly all his work reflects his tastes. His chief productions are The Chase, in 1735, and a similar poem, Field Sports, in 1742. The Chase contains four books, extending to two thousand lines in all. It is an informational piece of verse, giving instructions concerning the keeping of kennels, diseases of hounds, directions for hare-hunting, and so on. But it is interspersed also with good pieces of description, and has generally a fine outdoor atmosphere. Its blank verse is fairly smooth, also. These two poems have been favourites among sportsmen, and some good editions of The Chase have been published.

This text is from Chalmers's English Poets. (London, 1810.)

ROBERT BLAIR

(1699-1746)

The Grave is almost the only poem of Blair's extant; what is known of the quality of the man is deduced almost entirely from it. He was a Scotch minister, who, even after his poem had achieved success in London, could not be induced to leave the retirement of his parish.

His Grave is the first distinguished example of the group of elegiac poems, which are one of the early evidences of the Gothic' spirit as an element of romanticism. It begins the series that reaches its highest point in Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard. The poem contains a little less than eight hundred lines. Some sections have too much of the 'classic' flavour; sententiousness subordinates feeling in places, and sometimes a word that suggests pedantry or convention comes in awkwardly. But these flaws may be forgotten in a real sublimity of feeling and grandeur of gloom. Blair differs from the writers of Queen Anne's period in handling his subject, generally, in an emotional rather than a merely intellectual way. The whole manner is sympathetic. His verse is well adapted to his themes, also - unusually so for eighteenth-century blank verse. That he does not have it completely in hand, however, is shown by his use of the eleven-syllabled line, as in ll. 65, 66, where the extra syllable startles the reader. The poem was published in Edinburgh in 1743.

This text is from the London edition of 1443, with some slight alterations of punctuation and capitalization.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE

(1714-1763)

Shenstone's chief interest to the reader of eighteenth-century literature is that he is one of the straws that indicate the rising wind of naturalism. The naturalism in his work appears in an artificial form, but it is nevertheless one phase of the growing interest in the outdoors. It is a very well-conventionalized outdoors in Shenstone's case. His verse, and the chief occupation of his life, fit well together. He took to himself no more serious occupation than landscape gardening, conducted after the fashion of the time, and made his place, Leasowes, a famous spot. The same sort of taste he showed in this runs through his verse. Saintsbury calls him “our principal master of what may perhaps be called the artificial-natural style in poetry." Nearly all his poetry was at one time popular, but it is now long since his Elegies, or any of his Moral Pieces, except the School-mistress, have had many readers. The Pastoral Ballad will always be liked for its charm of expression. In verse Shenstone inclines toward stanzaic forms and other variations from the heroic couplet.

This text is from Chalmers's English Poets. (London, 1810.)

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS

This poem (1742) is a semi-humorous imitation of The Fairie Queene. In the "Advertisement" to it, Shenston esays, "What particulars in Spenser were imagined most proper for the author's imitation on this occasion, are his language, his simplicity, his manner of description, and a peculiar tenderness of sentiment remarkable throughout his works." 15. grieven. The -en plural ending arose in the Middle English period, and the use of it continued into the sixteenth century. It was much used by Spenser as an archaism. 18. shent. Put to shame. O. E. scendan. 20. dome. House. Lat. domus. 41. perdie. Verily. Fr. par Dieu. 51. tway. Two. O. E. twâ; M. E. twey, twei, etc., with the w sounded. 72. been. In M. E. been (ben, bin) was used as the present plural form; are was not completely established in use until the sixteenth century. Been was sometimes, incorrectly, used in the singular also, as here. 73-74. ne ... ne. Neither ... nor.-O. E. and M. E. 78. mought. Might. Still to be found in many English and American dialects. 79. eld. old age. 97. baum. Balm. 98. gil. Ground ivy. 100. euphrasy. Eyebright. "It is astringent, and was formerly in repute as a remedy for diseases of the eyes.” — Cent. Dict, 103. The English plaintain is called ribwort, or rib-grass. It is used for healing or soothing purposes. 109. rosemarine. Rosemary. Ros marinus, sea-dew. Rosemary was much used at weddings and on other festive occasions. At such times it was often gilded. See Brand's Popular Antiquities, under "Marriage Customs and Ceremonies." 119. Thomas Sternhold (?-1549) made a very popular metrical version of some of the Psalms. It was in use until long after his time. 133. nould. Ne would, would not. Such a combination was frequent in O. E. The ilk, the same, such.

135. thilk.

HOPE

A Pastoral Ballad (1743) consists of four lyrics, Absence, Hope, Solicitude, Disappointment. They are all put in the mouth of the shepherd Corydon, and set forth his love for his mistress, Phillis.

EDWARD YOUNG

(1683-1765)

One illustration of the estimation in which Young's work was held in its own time, is the fact that he received £3000 for his Universal Passion. This was in 1728, when the money value of literature was not yet fully recognized, and it was still possible for a writer without a patron to starve. Young, however, had patrons also (one of them is said to have given the greater part of the £3000), and lived chiefly on them, or by means of them, nearly all of the first half of his life. He seems to have been pretty thoroughly convinced that the world owed him a living, and did not take orders until he was forty-seven. Even after he had taken orders, had a church living and a pension, he still spent much of his thought on schemes to secure influence for advancement, or in fretting that he was not advanced. He was one of the last of the fulsome panegyrists. He did not see why he was not made a bishop. There did not seem to be any valid reason, as the times went, for in ability he was well qualified for such eminence. But he never attained it. There must have been some consolation for him in the popularity of his works, and in the quality of that popularity. For many generations the library of almost every moral household contained a copy of Night Thoughts.

His

Night Thoughts (1742-1744) is really a remarkable poem. It approaches sublimity often in its statement of truth, or expression of feeling. It attempts to handle the deepest and the highest things, and often does so with much power. It shows great fertility of thought, in lines of morality. It even has dramatic analysis of feeling. Its verse is often fine both nervous and forceful. But after all that is said of his work, Young remains a didactic writer. blank verse smacks of the heroic couplet; his emotional periods have a precipitate of sententiousness. He overworks rhetorical devices for dramatic effect; the reader's ears are dinned with exclamatory and interrogative sentences. The writer is declamatory at unnecessary points. The sleepless speaker in the poem has lost several friends and is burdened with the weight of many griefs; Young himself had lost, within a few years of the writing of this, his wife and certain near friends. There is a parallel in the circumstances, but