^^* t>i>nrh CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Professor David Novarr CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 052 482 928 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924052482928 -r>-- %^^- ^/-': 1- ii '- ^v^^. 7/1/ ^/L COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OE WILLIAM COLLINS, THOMAS GRAY, AND OLIVER GOLDSMITH. WITH EDITED ET EPES SARGENT. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. NEW YOEK: J. C. DERBY. MDCOOLIV. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by KPES SAUGENT, III Uie Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Miissachnsettg. RTBDCflTTPBD BY nOUAUT k BOBBINS, Now^gland Tjpr and Storeotyi)o FimiiJry, BOSTON. PREFACE In pursuing the plan of an edition of the Standard British Poets, that should be, at the same time, so elegant as to be generally desirable, and so cheap as to be within the most moderate means, we have collected, in a single volume, the Complete Poetical Works of Collins, Gray, and Gold- smith, with notes, memoirs, and engraved portraits of the authors. The memoirs are believed to be sufficiently full for a work of this kind. Nothing important in the lives, or in relation to the poetical works of the authors, has been designedly omitted. The original notes of all have been given, without omission or abbreviation, and from various sources such others have been added as in the editor's judgment were desirable in the way of explanation or commentary. In settling the text of Collins, we have carefully collated the best editions ; and the biographi<;a,l sketch has been chiefly prepared from the materials collected by Mr. Dyce, with occasional reference to other sources of authentic informa- tion. We have omitted, without much reluctance, the crit- II PREFACE. ical dissertations of Dr. Langhorne, with which the editions of Collins have usually been swelled to the dimensions of a profitable book. At first they were, to some extent, useful in advertising the unacknowledged merits of the poet ; but even then they were condemned as mere devices to enhance the size and price of the volume. For the first-named pur- pose they are no longer necessary, and it is therefore not uncharitable to believe that the extra "shilling" is the only inducement to their republication in late editions. With regard to Gray, we have consulted the publications of Mason and Matthias, and have been much indebted to the editorial labors and researches of Mr. Mitford, as displayed, not only in the five volumes of the Aldine issue of Gray's writings, but more recently in the Eton edition of his poems, supervised by the Rev. Mr. Moultrie. The biographical sketch prefixed to the last-named volume is from the pen of Mr. Mitford, and is enriched with his latest gleanings in a field to which he has devoted himself with well- rewarded diligence. We have transferred to an appendix a few trifling productions attributed to Gray, which do not appear in the volume of the Aldine edition assigned to the poems. They may be found, however, in one of the later volumes, which have never been reprinted in this country. We reprint all the poems of Goldsmith that are contained in any approved edition of his works ; following chiefly the text adopted by Mr. Bolton Corney in the volume so beauti- fully illustrated by the Etching Club. This text we have PKEFACB. Ill compared carefully with that of the excellent edition of Goldsmith's works just published by Mr. Murray under the editorial charge of Mr. Peter Cunningham, and in some instances have adopted the version approved by the latter. In preparing the memoir, we have sometimes consulted Mr. Prior's materials, but have chiefly relied on the more recent work of Mr. Forster, which we cannot but commend as a valuable contribution to literature, as well as a most enter- taining history of the life and adventures of Goldsmith. We should do great injustice to Mr. Murray if we omitted to mention that we have also been indebted to his valuable edition for a poem which must constitute perhaps the most attractive, as it is the most novel feature of the volume now submitted to the public. We allude to the translation by Dr. Goldsmith of the celebrated poein by Vida, entitled The - Game of Chess. This translation is as carefully elabo- rated as the best of his original poems. How it happens that it should so long have escaped the research of Goldsmith's editors, we cannot well comprehend ; but of its authenticity we imagine there can be no doubt. We know that Dr. Percy mentions in one of his letters the existence of a manuscript poem of Goldsmith more considerable than any of his pos- thumous poems which had appeared. This may be the pro- duction alluded to by Dr. Percy, but its history is not given by Mr. Cunningham. At present, we only know on the authority of Mr. Forster, Mr. Corney, and Mr. Cunningham, that it exists in the handwriting of Goldsmith ; and no one IV PKEFACE. can for a moment imagine that he would have transcribed a production of such length if it were not his own. The ingenuity and skill with which the poem is translated prove that it must be from a hand not inferior to Goldsmith's, — and where should we look for such another? We believe, therefore, that we have been successful in the effort to present an edition of the poets embraced in this volume which possesses some advantages, independently of beauty and cheapness, over any other extant ; and which will fairly entitle it to the favor that has been extended to its predecessors in the same series. POETICAL WORKS WILLIAM COLLINS 1* CONTENTS, Page MEMOIR, 9 POEMS, 27 Oriental Eclogues. Eclogue I. Selim ; or, the Shepherd's Moral, 29 Eclogue II. Hassan ; or, the Camel-driver, 32 Eclogue m. Abra ; or, the Georgian Sultana, 35 Eclogue IV. Agib and Secaader ; or, the Fugitives, 38 Odbs. Ode to Pity, 43 Ode to Fear, 45 Ode to Simplicity, « 47 Ode on the Poetical Character, 49 Ode, written in the Beginning of the Year 1746, 52 Ode to Mercy, 53 Ode to Liberty, 54 Ode to a Lady, on the Death of Colonel Ross, in the Action of Pontenoy, 59 Ode to Evening, 61 Ode to Peace, 63 The Manners, 64 The Passions, 67 Ode on the Death of Thomson, 71 Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highland of Scotland, . . .... 73 MiSOELLANBOTJS POBMS. An Epistle, addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, on his Edition of Shakspeare's Works, 83 Dirge in Cymbeline, sung by Quiderus and Arviragus over Fidele, supposed to be dead, 88 Verses written on a Paper which contained a Piece of Bride-cake, given to the Author by a Lady, 89 To Miss Aurelia C r, on her weeping at her Sister's Wedding, .... , . 90 Sonnet, • 91 Song, .... 91 NOTES, . . . , . 93 LIPE OF COLLINS. "William Collins was bom at Chichester, in Sussex, on the 25th of December, 1721. His father was a respectable tradesman, and at that time Mayor of his native city. The maiden name of his mother was Elizabeth Martin. His parents intended to educate him for the church, and, with this design, sent him, in 1733, to Win- chester College, where he was placed under the care of Dr. Burton. Here he remained for seven years. Here, many years afterwards. Sir Egerton Brydges saw his name written on a window-pane in his ovra hand ; and so few are the personal memorials left of the poet, that this fact was thought of sufficient interest to record. Among his school-fellows was Joseph Warton, with whom he formed an intimacy that continued through life. While school-boys, they wrote poems which were published in the columns of the Gentleman's Magazine, where OoUins's first printed production appeared in Jan- uary, 1739. Another trifle of his appeared in the same journal in the October following, which is now inserted among his poems. This was sent by ColUns, under the signature of Delicatulus, to the pub- lisher, Edward Cave, Jr., at St. John's Gate, in a letter, with two other pieces from Winchester, — Sdpfho's Advice, by Monitorius, his friend Warton ; Beauty and Innocence, by Tomkyns, as Auramantulus. At that time Johnson was Mr. Cave's reliable man for editorial aid in the Magazine, and in the following month there is a notice of the contents of the October number, said to be from his pen. It is curi- ous enough, as containing, probably, the first word of encouragement Collins received, and the kindest that was ever spoken of him while 2 10 LIFE OF COLLINS. he was in a situation to be moved by praise or censure. " We pass on," says Johnson, " to three more [poems] of the lyric kind, which might do honor to any collection. There belongs to them a happy facility of versification, and the way to the scope, or the striking part, is natural and well conducted. Whoever ventures to prefer one, must allow the other two worthy of the same hand. The least, [Collins's] which is a favorite of mine, carries a force mixed vrith ten- derness, and an uncommon elevation." Whilst at school Collins wrote the Oriental Eclogues (which were not published till after he went to Oxford) , aod distinguished himself by his proficiency in English composition. To the studies of the school he must have devoted himself with diligence, for, in consid- eration of his merit, he came off from Winchester first on the roU, where Joseph Warton, who afterwards acquired so much distinction as a scholar and man of letters, was second. In 1740 he was entitled to fill the first vacancy at New College, but, none occurring, he was entered a commoner of Queen's, where he remained till he was elected ii demy, or scholar of Magdalen, in July, 1741. During his residence at Magdalen, it happened, one afternoon, at a tea visit, that several of his college friends were assembled at his rooms to enjoy each other's conversation, when entered Hampton, afterwards the translator of Polybius, as remarkable at that time for his brutal disposition as for his good scholarship, and, being determined to quarrel, lifted up his foot, and kicked the tea-table, and aU its contents, to the other side of the room. Collins, though of a warm temper, was so confounded at the unexpected downfall, and so aston- ished at the unmerited insult, that he took no notice of the aggress- or ; but, getting up from his chair calmly, he began picking up the slices of bread and butter, and the fragments of his china, repeating, very mildly, "Invenias etiom disjeoti membra pootse." An academic career, however, had no attraction for Collins. Its discipline was irksome, and its studies failed to excite or interest him. But it was during his residence at Oxford that he published his Eclogues, under the title of Persian Eclogues, and his verses to Sir Thomas Ilanmer on his edition of Shakspeare. To neither of these LIFE OF COLLINS. 11 did he. prefix his name. The latter appeared as the production of "a Gentleman of Oxford," in December, 1743. He took his Bachelor's degree, and then suddenly left the univer- sity ; " for what reason," says Dr. Johnson, " I know not that he told." We learn from other sources that the cause he assigned was his mortification at the loss of a fellowship for which he was a candidate. But a person who had a " particular friendship " for him has supplied the information considerately withheld by his biog- rapher. Mr. John Eagsdale tells us that he had other reasons for quitting the place than he mentioned ; that he was in arrears to his bookseller and tailor, but that his principal motive was a desire to partake of the dissipation and gayety of London. Some other motive than this may have mingled with the inducements that led him to the great metropolis, but none other presented itself to the charitable judgment of Mr. Eagsdale. In London, then, we find him, in 1743 or 1744, as Johnson had gone before him, and as Goldsmith soon followed, a " literary adven- turer, with many projects in his head, and very little money in his pocket." These words of Johnson apply equally well to any one of the illustrious trio, though it is probable that Collins was something better off than his biographer. Like Goldsmith, he, too, had a kind relative, — a sort of uncle Oontarine, — but of the aTmy, and not of the church. This uncle was on the mother's side, — Colonel Martin, who, when his sister's husband became embarrassed in his latter years, not only greatly aided the family, and supported young Collins at the university, but continued the supplies after his removal to London. "When the poet left the university; he called on his uncle's agent, " cousin Payne," gayly dressed, and with a feather in his hat, the very ideal, probably, of a fine, young fellow about tovyn. Whereupon, cousin Payne was astonished ; and not a little astonished Colonel Martin's nephew by telling him that his ap- pearance was by no means that of a young man that had not a guinea he could caU his own. Collins very naturally took of- fence at the liberty, but confined his resentment to the remark, in his private circles, that " he thought Payne a dull fellow." This was no great crime ; but Payne held the purse-strings, and undertook to think that the young man called oftoner for money than uncle Mar- 1'2 LIFE OF COLLINS. tin would approve. He declined to honor the nephew's drafts, and no doubt Collins thought him duller than ever. " This resource being stopped," says Mr. John Ragsdale, in a let- ter to Mr. Hymers, of Queen's College, Oxford, dated July, 1783, " forced him to set about some work, of which his ' History of the Revival of Learning ' was the first, and for which he printed pro- posals (one of which I have) , and took the first subscription money from many of his particular friends : the work was begun, but soon stood stiU. Both Dr. Johnson and Mr. Langhome are mistaken when they say the ' Translation of Aristotle ' was never begun. I know the contrary, for some progress was made in both, but most iii the latter. From the freedom subsisting between us, we took the liberty of saying anything to each other. ' I one day reproached him with idleness ; when, to convince me my censure was unjust, He showed me many sheets of his ' Translation of Aristotle,' which he said he had so fully employed himself about, as to prevent bim call- ing on many of his friends so frequently as he used to do. Soon after this he engaged with Mr. Manby, a bookseller on Ludgate-hill, to furnish him with some Lives for the ' Biographia Britannica,' which Manby was then publishing. He showed me some of the lives in embryo, but I do not recollect that any of them came to perfec- tion. To raise a present subsistence, he set about writing his odes ; and, having a general invitation to my house, he frequently passed whole days there, which he employed in writing them, and as fre- quently burning what he had written, after reading them to me : many of them, which pleased me, I struggled to preserve, but with- out cfiFect, for, pretending he would alter them, he got them from me and thrust them into the fire. He was an acceptable companion everywhere ; and, among the gentlemen who loved him for a genius, I may reckon the Doctors Armstrong, Barrowby and Hill, Messrs. Qiiin, Garrick and Foote, who frequently took his opinion on their pieces before they were seen by the public. He was particularly noticed by the geniuses who frequented the Bedford and Slaughter's Cofiee Houses. From his knowledge of Garrick, he had the liberty of the scenes and green-room, where he made diverting observations on the vanity and false consequence of that class of people ; and his manner of relating them to his particular friends was extremely entertaining. " LIFE OF COLLINS. 13 This account agrees with that of a correspondent of the Gentle- man^s Magazine (January, 1781), who describes Collins as spending his time at "Eanelagh, VauxhaU, and the play-houses" — places which Gray loved to visit when in London. No very gross " dissipa^ tion " was this, as long as uncle Martin's money could be had to pay expenses, but rather a thriftless mode of squandering the hours which it now became necessary for him to coin into shillings and pounds, in whatever form of composition he could find his talents most available. He planned tragedies, but his situation was not favorable to a long- sustained effort. Shorter pieces were more easily produced, and, perhaps, were thought more available for that present subsistence, the need of which is said to have inspired the production of the odes. If this were so, it must have been a need with no relief and but little hope at that period. It was about this time that Dr. Johnson fell into his company. " His appearance," says the Doctor, " was decent and manly ; his knowledge considerable, his views extensive, his con- versation elegant, and his disposition cheerful. By degrees I gained his confidence j and one day was admitted to him when he was immured by a bailiff, that was prowling in the street. On this occa- sion recourse was had to the booksellers, who, on the credit of a translation of Aristotle's Poetics, which he engaged to write with a large commentary, advanced as much money as enabled him to escape into the country. He showed me the guineas safe in his hand." OolHns's first plan for the publication of his Odes was to issue them in a volume, the joint production of himself and his friend Joseph Warton. This contemplated enterprise was probably of the year 1745, or early in 1746, and is thus described in a letter of Warton to his brother : " Deab Tom ; Tou will wonder to see my name in an advertisement next week, so I thought I would apprize you of it. The case was this. Collins met me in Surrey, at Guildford races, when I wrote out for him my odes, and he likewise communicated some of hia to me ; and, being both in very high spirits, we took courage, resolved to join our forces, and to publish them immediately. I flatter myself that I shall lose no honor by this pub- lication, because I believe these odes, as they now stand, are infinitely the best things I ever wrote. You will see a very pretty one of CoUins's, on the Death of Colonel Boss' before Tournay. It is addressed to a Udy ffho 2* 14 LIFE OF COLLINS. was Ross's intimate acquaintance, and who, by the way, is Miss Bett God- dard. Collins is not to publish the odes unless he gets ten guineas for them* I returned from Milford last night, where I left Collins with my mother and sister, and he sets out to-day for London. I must now tell you that I have sent him your imitation of Horace's Blandnsian Fountain, to bo printed amongst ours, and which you shall own or not, Eis you think proper. I would not have done this without your consent, but because I think it- very poetically and correctly done, and will get you honor. You will let mo know what the Oxford critics say. Adieu, dear Tom, " I am your most affectionate brother, "J. Waeton." Collins very likely could not get the ten guineas, without which there was to be no publication, for the joint enterprise seems to have been abandoned. In the beginning of December, 1746, however, a shilling pamphlet was published by Millar, containing the Odes of Collins. Never did a volume of poems excite less attention. It would have been some consolation to the author, no doubt, if they had been well abused ; but nobody would take the tronble to criticize them. Joseph Warton published about the same time, and with more success. His lyrics went to a second edition in the course of a year. Both volumes fell under the eye of Gray, and their merits seem to have struck him forcibly. Before the end of December he had read them both, and called the attention of his friend. Dr. Wharton, to them. " Have you seen," he wrote, "the work of two young authors, a Mr. Warton and Mr. Collins, both writers of Odes? It is odd enough, but each is the half of a considerable man, and one the counterpart of the other. The first has but little invention, very poetical choice of expression, and a good ear ; the second, a jine fancy, modelled upon the antique, a bad ear, great variety of words and images, and no choice at all. They both deserve to last some years, but will not." In 1748, he wrote the Ode on the Death of Thomson, and about the same time the Dirge in Cymbeline. The failure of his poems, how- ever, wounded him deeply ; and he was no doubt glad to escape from the " gayety of London " on a visit to his uncle Martin, who was stationed with the British army in Flanders. While on this tour he wrote several letters to his Oxford friends, but none of thorn have appeared in print, or are now known to exist. Soon after his LIFE OF COLLINS. 15 arrival, his uncle died, and left his property to Collins and his sis- ters. The poet's legacy amounted to about two thousand pounds. And now he was able, at aU events, to cancel his obligations with the booksellers. Forthwith he returned the money he had received for the copyright of the unwritten translation of Aristotle. Now, too, he was able to possess hims^f of the unsold, copies of his Odes, and make a bonfire of them. This anecdote has been frequently alluded to, and sometimes as of doubtful authority ; but we have good evi- dence of its truth, seemingly from the publisher himself. When Rlr. Langhorne, several years after the poet's death, edited a coUectiou of his works, he had alluded in this connection to Col- lins's publisher, Mr. Millar, as having issued the Odes " on the author's account," a mode, well understood by the trade, of absorb- ing all the profits of a salable work, and throvring the expense of a losing one on the vnriter. This Mr. Millar thought a misstatement of sufficient consequence to be corrected ; and the Monthly Review (Griffiths) for April, 1765, contains an explanatory paragraph that is well worth transcribing : " It is certainly a reflection on the discernment and taste of the age in which Mr. Collins's Odes first made their appearance, that they met with no success — no, not so much as to answer the charge of printing the little volume in which they were comprised. This reflection, however, is by our present editor sarcastically extended to Mr. Millar, the bookseller who first printed these Odes, and who is here said to have warily published them on the author's account. This, we are assured, was by no means the case ; for the bookseller actually purchased the copy, at a very handsome price (for those times), and, at his own expense and risk, did all in his power to introduce Mr. OoUins to the notice, of the public. In this instance, therefore, Mr. Millar ought, by no means, to be pointed out as ' a favorer of genius when once it has made its way to fame.' The sequel of this little anecdote is greatly to the honor of our poet's memory. At the time when he sold his Odes to Mr. Millar, his circumstances were too narrow to have allowed him to print at his own expense ; and the copy-money was then, to him, a considerable object. After- wards, when he came to the possession of an easy fortune, by the death of his uncle. Colonel Martin, he recollected that the publisher of his poems was a loser by them. His spirit was too great to submit 16 LIEB OF COLLINS. to this cii'cumstanoe, when he found himself enabled to do justice to his own delicacy ; and therefore he desired his bookseller to balance the account of that unfortunate publication, declaring he himself would make good the deficiency ; the bookseller readily acquiesced in • the proposal, and gave up to Mr. OoUins the remainder of the impres- sion, which the generous, resentful bard immediately consigned to the flames." Collins's better fortunes came too late to be of any essential service. From poverty and neglect he had sought relief in dissipation, and the result had been a nervous disorder, vrith an unconquerable depression of spirits. His vital powers became feeble and exhausted, and he at last fell into a state of intellectual torpor, now and then lit up with a gleam of vigor and intelligence, but verging continually to actual mental alienation. " The approaches of this dreadful malady," says Johnson, " he began to feel soon after his uncle's death ; and, with the usual weakness of men so diseased, eagerly snatched that tem- porary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce. But his health continually declined, and he grew more and nlore burthensome to himself." It was not till after the autumn of 1750 that he fell into this state ; for the only letter of Collins's known to be extant shows that he had produced about that time an Ode on the Music of the Grecian Theatre, which is unfortunately lost. This circumstance 'fenders the letter one of peculiar interest. The honor to which it alludes was the set- ting to music of his Ode on the Passions. "TO DK. WILLIAM HAVES, PROFESSOR OF UUSIC, OXFORD. " Sib : Mr. BlackEtone, of Winchester, some time since informed me of the honor you had done me at Oxford lost summer ; for which I return you my sincere thanks. I have another more perfect copy of the ode ; whiob, had I known your obliging design, I would have communicated to you. Inform me by a line, if you should think one of my better judgment ac- ceptable. In such case I could send you one written on a nobler subject ; and which, though I have been persuaded to bring it forth in London, I think more calculated for an audience in the university. The subject is the Music of the Grecian Theatre ; in which I have, I hope naturally, intro- duced the various characters with which the chorus was concerned, as ffidipus, Medea, Electra, Orestes, etc. etc. The composition, too, is proba- bly more correct, as I have chosen the anoient tragedies for my models, and only copied tho most affecting passages in them. LIFE OF COLLINS. 17 " In the mean time, you will greatly oblige me by sending the score of the last. If you can get it written, I will readily answer the expense. If you send it with a copy or two of the ode (as printed at Oxford) to Mr. Clarlie, at Winchester, he will forward it to me here. I am, sir, " With great respect, your obliged humble servant, "William Collins. ** CMcheata'a Sussex, Ntivemher 8, 1760." " P. S. Mr. Clarke past some days here while Mr. Worgan was with me ; from whose friendship, I hope, he will receive some advantage." Among the papers of Mr. Hymers, a, oommunioation was found from Mr. Thomas Warton, which contains a very interesting account of the poet's latter days. " I often saw Collins in London in 1750. This was before his ill- ness. He then told me of his intended History of the Revival of Learning, and proposed a scheme of a review, to be called the Clar- endon Review, and to be printed at the university press, under the conduct and authority of the university. About Easter, the next year, I was in London ; when, being given over, and supposed to be dying, he desired to see me, that he might take his last leave of me ; but he grew better ; and in the summer he sent me a letter on some private business, which I have now by me, dated Chichester, June 9, 1751, written in a fine hand, and without the least symptom of a disordered oi^ debilitated understanding. In 1754, he came to Oxford for change of air and amusement, where he stayed a month ; I saw hiin frequently, but he was so weak and low that he could not bear conversation. Once he walked from his lodgings, opposite Christ Church, to Trinity College, but supported by his servant. The same year, in September, I and my brother visited him at Chichester, where he lived, in the cathedral cloisters, vrith his sister. The first day he was in high spirits at intervals, but exerted himself so much that he could not see us the second. Here he showed us an Ode to Mr. John Home, on his leaving England for Scotland Mr. Home has no copy of it. He also showed us another ode, of two or three four-lined stanzas, called the Bell of Arragon ; on a tradition that, anciently, just before the King of Spain died, the great bell of the cathedral of Sarragossa, in Arragon, tolled spontaneously. It began thus : 18 LIFE OF COLLINS. • The boU of Arragon, they say. Spontaneous speaks the fatal day.' Soon afterwards were these lines : , * Whatever dark, aerial power, Commissioned, haunts the gloomy tower.' The last stanza consisted of a moral transition to his own death and knell, which he called ' some simpler bell.' I have seen all his odes already published in his own handwriting ; they had the marks of repeated correction : he was perpetually changing his epithets. Dr. Warton, my brother, has a few fragments of some other odes, but too loose and imperfect for publication, yet containing traces of high imagery. In the Ode to Pity, the idea of a Temple of Pity, of its situation, construction and groups of paintings, with which its walls were decorated, was borrowed from a poem, now lost, entitled The Temple of Pity, written by my brother, while he and Collins wore school-fellows at Winchester College " In illustration of what Dr. Johnson has related, that during his last malady he was a greater reader of the Bible, I am fayored with the following anecdote from the Reverend Mr. Shenton, Vicar of St. Andrews, at Chichester, by whom Collins was buried : ' Walking in my vicarial garden one Sunday evening, during CoUins's last illness, I heard a female (the servant, I suppose) reading the Bible in his chamber. Mr. Collins had been accustomed to rave much, and make groat meanings ; but while she was reading, or rather attempting to read, he was not only silent but attentive likewise, correcting her mistakes, which indeed were very frequent, through the whole of the twenty-seventh chapter of Genesis.' I have just been informed, from undoubted authority, that Collins had finished a Preliminary Disser- tation to be prefixed to his History of the Bestoration of Learning, and that it was written with great judgment, precision and knowledge of the subject." The ode referred to by Warton was long supposed to be lost. Dr. Johnson alludes to it as a poem which the Wartons thought superior to Collins's other works, "but which no search has yet found." Nearly forty years after it was written it first appeared in print ; a most remarkable proof of the little interest that attached to the memory of the writer. At a meeting of the Eoyal Society of Edin- LIFE OF COLLINS. 19 burgh, on the 19th of April, 1784, the Rev. Dr. Carlyle, minister of Inveresk, read the copy of an unpublished ode written " by the late JSIr. William Collins." The committee appointed to superintend the publication of the Society's Transactions judged this ode " extremely deserving of a place in that collection," and requested Mr. Alexander Fraser Tytler, one of their nimiber, to procure from Dr. Carlyle every degree of information which he could give concerning it. In reply to a communication to this effect. Dr. Carlyle sent his original MS. to Mr. Tytler, with the following statement : " The manuscript is in Mr. Collins's handvnriting, and feU into my hands among the papers of a friend of mine and Mr. John Home's, who died as long ago as the year 1754. Soon after I found the poem, I showed it to Mr. Home, who told me that it had been addre^ed to him by Mr. Collins on his leaving London, in 1749 ; that it was hastUy composed and incorrect; but that he would one day find leisure to look it over with care. Mr. Collins and Mr. Home had been made acquainted by Mr. John Barrow (the cordial youth men- tioned in the first, stanza) , who had been, for some time, at the uni- versity of Edinbiirgh ; had been a volunteer, along with Mr. Home, in the year 1746 ; had been taken prisoner with him at the battle of Falkirk, and had escaped, together with him and five or six other gentlemen, from the castle of Donn. Mr. Barrow resided, in 1749, at "Winchester, where Mr. Collins and Mr. Home were for a week or two together on a visit. Mr. Barrow was paymaster in America in the war that commenced in 1756, and died in that country. I thought no more of the poem till a few years ago, when, on reading Dr. Johnson's Life of Collins, I conjectured it might be the very copy of verses which he mentions, which he says was much prized by some of his friends, and for the loss of which he expresses regret. I - sought for it among my papers ; and perceiving that a stanza and a half were wanting, I made the most diligent search I could for them, but in vain. Whether or not this great chasm was in the poem when it first came into my hands, is more than I can remember at tliis distance of time." As a " curious and valuable " fragment, he thought it could not appear with more advantage than in the collection of the Royal • Society ; in which it was published accordingly, in 1789. As it then appeared, the fifth stanza and one half of the sixth, contained on a 20 LIFE OF COLLINS. lost leaf of the manuscript, were ingeniously sapplied by Mr. Henry Mackenzie, at the request of Mr. Tytler. TChe manuscript was evi- dently the first rough draft, as was apparent from the erasures and substitutions of words, and the new modelling of the twelfth stanza. The following original passages in that stanza, compared with the text as it now appears, show how much it had been improved by the second thoughts of the author : TABIATIONB. Ver. 5. IIoiv have I trembled, irhen, at Tancred's side, Like him I stalked, and all his paBsions felt ; When, charmed by Ismon, through the forest wide Barked in each plant a talking spirit dwelt ! Ver. 13. Hence, sure to charm, his early numbers flow. Though strong, yet sweet Though faithful, sweet ; though strong, of simple kind, Hence, with each theme, he bids the bosom glow. While his warm lays an easy passage find. Poured through each Inmost nerve, and lull the harmonious ear. Ver. 16. Melting it flows, pure, numerous, strong and clear. The publication of the ode drew forth from a correspondent of the Si. James's Chronicle a statement that the copy seen by the Wartons at Chichester, in 1754, was without one interpolation or hiatus, and was evidently prepared for the press. Soon afterwards the ode ap- peared in the form which it still retains in the best editions, and which is claimed to be its complete and authentic text. It waa in- scribed by the anonymous editor to the Wartona, and waa iasued in quarto by a respectable bookseller. Sir Egerton Brydges, on internal evidence, is disposed to denounce this version as a fabrication ; but the general acceptance of it by all the editors of Collins as supplying most successfully the chasm in Dr. Carlyle's copy, would seem to warrant a belief in its genuineness. Collins is described, by a person who knew him well, (the corre- spondent, already cited, of the Gentleman's Magazine,) as being of the middle size, with a bright and clear complexion, and gray eyes, so weak as not always to bear the light of a candle without pain. Langhorne represents him with a tall figure, brown complexion, LIFE OF COLLINS. 21 keener eyes, and a fixed, sedate aspect, which from intense thinking had contracted an habitual frown. In the London Morning Chronicle, some time in the year 1799, there was an advertisement of a portrait of Collins for sale. It was stated to be the only one in existence, and to have belonged to his sister. The only engraved portrait of him is from a drawing formerly in the possession of Mr. William Seward, and is prefixed to Pickering's Aldine edition of the poet, and repre- sents him at the age of fourteen years. Whether or not this pleasing and bright boy's face is from the same portrait which is said to have belonged to his sister, we have no means of ascertaining. So much interest, however, has been excited of late years in tracing every me- morial of Collins, that if any other portrait than this is in existence,^ it will some time be brought to light again. Collins was an accomplished classical scholar, an accurate linguist, and well versed in early English poetry 'and literature. In his His- tory of English Poetry, Mr. T. Warton refers more than once to black-letter treasures in the " dispersed library of the late Mr. Wil- liam Collins," and speaks of the fidelity, judgment and industry, with which he had pursued these studies. He was well acquainted with the best authors of Spain, Italy and Prance. He sometimes handled the pencil, though without much skill. Of music he is said to have been passionately fond. Besides the fragments of poetry said to have been in the possession of Dr. Warton, there were extant, some seventy years ago, other fragments and letters in the possession of his friend Mr. Ragsdale, the fate of which he thus describes : " I had formerly several scraps of his poetry, which were suddenly written on particular occasions. These I lent among our acquaint- ance, who were never civU enough to return them ; and, being then engaged in extensive business, I forgot to ask for them, and they are lost : all I have remaining of his are about twenty lines, which would require a little history to be understood, being written on trifling subjects. I have a few of his letters, the subjects of which are chiefly on business, but I think there are in them some flights which strongly mark his character ; for which reason I preserved them." It is not likely that we shall ever hear again of these remains. It is as little likely that the History of Learning will ever be recovered, for it is said that his sister, in his last days, not only repressed all 3 22 LIFE OF COLLINS. she could of his remaining enthusiasm for poetry, but destroyed aU his papers, in a paroxysm of resentment because he squandered what little money he had, or gave it away to the boys in the cloisters. This anecdote rests on the authority of a son of her second husband. Dr. Durnford, who related it to Mr. Park. For the honor of human nature we must refuse our belief to it. Johnson was attached to Collins, and during his illness was a fre- quent inquirer after his health. Hia correspondence with Joseph Warton contains several allusions to his friend, which are preserved in the following extracts : " March 8, 1764. " But how little can we venture to exult in any intellectual powers or literary attainments, when wo consider the condition of poor Collins ! I knew him a few years ago, full of hopes and full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under the government of those who lately would not have been able to comprehend the least and most narrow of its designs. What do you hear of him 1 are there hopes of his recovery 1 or is he to pass the remainder of his life in misery and degradation '! perhaps with complete consciousness of his calamity." "December 24, 1754. " Poor dear Collins ! Let me know whether you think it would give him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often been near his state, and therefore have it in great commiseration." « AprU 16, 1756. " What becomes of poor dear Collins t I wrote him a letter, which he never answered. I suppose writing is very troublesome to him. That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty ; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the miad are equally liable to change, that -understand- ing may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire." We hear nothing of Collins's life after the visit of the Wartons, except that he passed his last year in a state bordering on insanity, till he was released from his sufferings on the 12th of June, 1759. Ho was buried in the church of St. Andrew, at Chichester, where a monument by Flaxman was long afterwards erected, by subscription, to his memory. In this Collins is represented in a reclining posture, witli his lyre and a neglected poem lying upon the ground, and the LIFE OF COLLINS. 23 Gospel open on a table before him. On the pediment ideal pictures of Love and Pity embracing are placed in relief. This monument was completed in 1795. It was projected not only to do honor to Collins, but to afford an early field for the talents of Plaxmau. The sou of the poet Hayley, then a student of the sculptor, sat for the figure ; and the epitaph was the joint production of two Sussex poets, W. Hayley and J. Sargent. ** Te who the merits of the dead revere, Who hold misfortune's sacred geniiis dear. Regard this tomb, where Collins, hapless name, Solicits kindness with a double claim. Though nature gave him, and though science taught The fire of fancy, and the reach of thought. Severely doomed to penury's extreme. He passed in maddening pain life's feverish dream, While rays of genius only served to show The thickening horror, and exalt his woe. Ye walls that echoed to his frantic, moan. Guard the due records of this grateful stone ; Strangers to him, enamored of his lays. This fond memorial to his talents raise. For this the ashes of a bard require. Who touched the tenderest notes of pity's lyre ; Who joined pure faith to strong poetic powers ; Who, in reviving reason's lucid hours, Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest. And rightly deemed the book of God the best." " The neglected author of the Persian Eclogues," wrote Gold- smith, in 1759, " which, however inaccurate, excel any in our lan- guage, is still alive ; happy, if insensible of our neglect, not rag- ing at our ingratitude." Within four months afterwards, the poet was in his grave. Six years later Dr. Langhome published an edition of his collected poems, with commentaries and a biographical notice. But thirty-eight' years after the -appearance of .his Odes, Cowper first heard of their "author through the memoir in Dr. Johnson's Collection — one of his most remarkable and inexplicable produc- tions. A few years after the death of Collins, Johnson communicated to 24 LIFE OP COLLINS. the Peetioal Calendar a critical notice, which renders ample justice to its subject : " Mr. Collins was a man of extensive literature, and of vigorous faculties. He was acquainted not only with the learned tongues, but with the Italian, French and Spanish languages. He had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction, and subjects of fency ; and, by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently de- lighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acqui- escence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchant- ment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the water-falls of Elysian gardens. " This was, however, the character rather of his inclination than his genius ; the grandeur of wildneas, and the novelty of extrava- gance, were always desired by him, but were not always attained. ¥et, as diligence is never wholly lost, if his efforts sometimes caused harshness and obscurity, they likewise produced in happier moments sublimity and splendor. This idea which he had formed of excel- lence led him to oriental fictions and allegorical imagery ; and, per- haps, while he was intent upon description, he did not sufSciently cultivate sentiment. His poems are the productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnished with knowledge either of books or life, but somewhat obstructed in its progress by deviation in quest of mistaken beauties. " His morals were pure, and his opinions pious ; in a long con- tinuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipation, it cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is almost destroyed ; and long association with fortuitous companions wiU at last relax the strictness of truth, and abate the fervor of sincerity. That this man, wise and virtuous as he was, passed always unentangled through the snares of life, it would be prejudice, and temerity to affirm ; but it may be said that at least he preserved the source of action unpol- luted, that his principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of malignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure or casual temptation. LIFE OF COLLINS. 25 " The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and sadness. He languished some years under that depression of mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds, which he perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavored to disperse by travel, and passed into France ; but found himself constrained to yield to his malady, and returned. He was for some time confined in a house of lunatics, and afterwards returned to the care of his-sister in Chichester, where death, in 1759, came to his relief. " After his return from Prance, the vrriter of this character paid him a visit at Islington, where he was ws^iting for his sister, whom he had directed to meet him ; there was then nothing of disorder dis- cernible in his mind by any but himself; but he had withdravm from study, and travelled with no other book than an English Testanjent, such as children carry to the school ; when his friend took it into his hand, out of curiosity to see what companion a man of letters had chosen, ' I have but one book,' said Collins, ' but that is the best.' " When preparing the life for his edition of the poets, Johnson ex- tracted this account of Collins as having been written when his char- acter was, perhaps, more deeply impressed on his memory, and speaks of him as a man vrith whom he once delighted to converse, and whom he still remembered with tenderness. He then proceeds in the following severe strain of censure : " To what I have formerly said of his writings may be added, that his diction was often harsh, unskilfully labored, and injudiciously selected. He affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival ; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is cer- tainly to write poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may some- times extort praise when it gives little pleasure." But in spite of the neglect of his contemporaries, and the sweep- ing condemnation of Dr. Johnson, Collins has risen in the estimation of critics and the literary world, till his poems are now universally acknowledged, as Southey says, " to be the best of their kind in the language." We have studied them to discover the faults pointed 3* 26 LIFE OF COLLINS. out by Dr. Johnson, and we must acknowledge without the least success. To us they give unmixed delight, and we regard the author with an admiration that grows as we contemplate and dwell upon his works. It has been usual to mention Alexander's Feast as the first ode in the English language, and Gray's Odes as only second to it. And yet the magnificent lyric of Dryden is justly liable to the objection that it sometimes sinks to the level of a drinking-song ; and even the poet's annotations do not render The Bard and The Progress of Poetry intelligible altogether to any other than readers of considerable cul- ture. No such criticism applies to the Ode on the Passions. It sustains the lyric dignity in every line and sentiment, and does not require a note of illustration. For pictorial effects, variety and har- mony of versification, energy and beauty of expression, it is inferior to none of the master-pieces to which we have referred ; and is in one respect, at least, superior to Gray's, — that it does not betray the art with which it is constructed. We cannot but assent most heartily to the remark of Campbell, that the lyrics of Collins will abide comparison with whatever Milton vfrote under the age of thirty ; and wo are willing even to venture the opinion that there is no Eng- lish poet since Milton who so nearly approaches him in that affluent diction, that splendid imagery, and that elevation and solemnity of tone, which are the characteristics of his genius. ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. WRITTEN ORIGINALLY FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE LADIES OF TAURIS, AND NOW TRANSLATED. XJbi primus eqnis Oiiens adflarit aniielis. Vrao. PREFACE. It is with the writings of mankind, in some measnTe, as with their com- plexions or their dress ; each nation hath a peculiarity in all these, to dis- tinguish it from the rest of the world. The gravity of the Spaniard, and the lerity of the Frenchman, are as evident in all their productions as in their persons themselves ; and the style of my countrymen is as naturally strong and nervous, as that of an Arabian or Persian is rich and figurative. There is an elegancy and wildness of thought which recommends all their compositions ; and our geniuses are as much too cold for the entertainment of such sentiments, as our climate is for their fruits and spices. If any of these beauties are to be found in the following Eclogues, I hope my reader will consider them as an argument of their being original. I received them at the hands of a merchant, who had made it his business to enrich himself with the learning, as well as the silks and carpets, of the Persians. The little information I could gather concerning their author was, that his name was Abdallah, and that he was a native of Tauris. It wag in that city that he died of a distemper fatal in those parts, whilst he was engaged in celebrating the victories of his favorite monarch, the great Abbas.* As to the Eclogues themselves, they give a very just view of the miseries and inoonveniences, as well as the felicities, that attend one of the finest countries in the East. The time of writing them was probably in the beginning of Sha Sultan Hosseyn's reign, the successor of Sefi or Solyman the Second. Whatever defects, as, I doubt not, there will be many, fall under the reader's observation, I hope his candor will incline him to make the follow- ing reflection : That the works of Orientals contain many peculiarities,' and that, through defect of language, few European translators can do them justice. * In the Persian tongue, Abbas signifleth " the father of the people." ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. ECLOGUE I. SELIM; OB, THE SHEPHERD'S MORAL. Scene, A valley near Bagdat. Time, The morning. " Ye Persian maids, attend your poet's lays, And hear how shepherds pass their golden days. Not all are blest whom Fortune's hand sustains With wealth in courts, nor all that haunt the plains : Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell ; 'T is virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell." Thus Selim sung, by sacred Truth inspired ; Nor praise, but such as Truth bestowed, desired ; Wise in himself, his meaning songs conveyed Informing morals to the shepherd maid ; Or taught the swains that surest bliss to iSnd, What groves nor streams bestow, a virtuous mind. When sweet and blushing, like a virgin bride, The radiant morn resumed her orient pride ; 30 COLLINS' POEMS. When wanton gales along the valleys play, Breathe on each flower, and bear their sweets away ; By Tigris' wandering waves he sat, and sung This useful lesson for the fair and young. " Ye Persian dames," he said, " to you belong — Well may they please — the morals of my song : No fairer maids, I trust, than you are found, Graced with soft arts, the peopled world around ! The morn that lights you, to your loves supphes Each gentler ray delicious to your eyes : For you those flowers her fragrant hands bestow ; And yours the love that kings delight to know. Yet think not these, all beauteous as they are. The best kind blessings Heaven can grant the fair ! Who trust alone in beauty's feeble ray Boast but the worth Bassora's pearls display : Drawn from the deep we own their surface- bright. But, dark within, they drink no lustrous light : Such are the maids, and such the charms they boast. By sense unaided, or to virtue lost. Self-flattering sex ! your hearts believe in vain That love shall blind, when once he fires, the swain ; Or hope a lover by your faults to win, As spots on ermine beautify the skin : Who seeks secure to rule, be first her care Each softer virtue that adorns the fair ; Each tender passion man delights to find, The loved perfections of a female mind ! " Blest were the days when Wisdom held her reign, And shepherds sought her on the silent plain ! ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. 31 With Truth she -wedded in the secret grove, Immortal Truth, and daughters blessed their love. haste, fair maids ! ye Virtues, come away ! Sweet Peace and Plenty lead you on your way ! The balmy shrub, for you shall love our shore, By lad excelled, or Ai-aby, do more. " Lost to our fields, for so the Fates ordain. The dear deserters shall return agaia. Come thou, whose thoughts as limpid springs are clear, To lead the train, sweet Modesty, appear : Here make thy court amidst our rural scene. And shepherd girls shall own thee for their queen : With thee be Chastity, of all afraid, Distrusting all, a wise suspicious maid, But man the most : — not more the mountain doe Holds the swift falcon for her deadly foe. Cold is her breast, like flowers that drink the dew ; A silken veil conceals her from the view. No wild desires amidst thy train be known ; But Faith, whose heart is fixed on one alone : Desponding Meekness, with her downcast eyes. And .friendly Pity, full of tender sighs; And Love the last : by these your hearts approve ; These are the virtues that must lead to love." Thus sung the s^^ain ; and ancient legends say The maids of Bagdat verified the lay : Dear to the plains, the Virtues came along, The shepherds loved, and Selim blessed his song. 32 COLLINS' rOEMS. ECLOGUE n. HASSAN; OB, THE CAMBL-DRIVKR. SOEHB, The desert. Tims, Midday. In silent horror o'er the boundless waste The driver Hassan with his camels passed : One cruise of water on his back he bore, And his light scrip contained a seanty store ; A fan of painted feathers in his hand. To guard his shaded face from scorching sand. The sultry sun had gained the middle sky. And not a tree and not an herb was nigh ; The beasts with pain their dusty, way pursue ; Shrill roared the winds, and dreary was the view ! With desperate sorrow wild, the afiirighted man Thrice sighed, thrice struck his breast, and thus began : " Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day. When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way ! " Ah ! little thought I of the blasting wind. The thirst or pinching hunger, that I find ! Bethink thee, Hassan, where shall thirst assuage, When fails this cruise, his unrelenting rage ? Soon shall this scrip its precious load resign ; Then what but tears and hunger shall be thine 1 " Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear In all my griefs a more than equal share ! Here, where no springs in murmurs break away, Or moss-crowned fountains mitigate the day, ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. 88 In vain ye hope the green delights to know, Which plains more blest, or verdant vales, bestow : Here rocks alone, and tasteless sands, are found. And faint and sickly winds forever howl around. Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way ! " Curst be the gold and silver which persuade Weak men to follow far-fs^tiguing trade ! The lily peace outshines the silver store, And life is dearer than the golden ore : Yet money tempts us o'er the desert brown, To every distant mart and wealthy town. Full oft we tempt the land, and oft the sea ; And are we only yet repaid by thee 1 Ah ! why was ruin so attractive made? Or why fond man so easily betrayed 1 Why heed we not, whilst mad we haste along, The gentle voice of peace, or pleasure's song '? Or wherefore think the flowery mountain's side. The fountain's murmurs, and the valley's pride, Why think we these less pleasing to behold Than dreary deserts, if they lead to gold 7 Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way ! " cease, my fears ! — all frantic as I go, When thought creates unnumbered scenes of woe, What if the lion in his rage I meet ! — Oft in the dust I view his printed feet : And, fearful ! oft, when day's declining light Yields her pale empire to the mourner night. By hunger rou^d, he scours the groaning plain, Gaunt wolves and sullen tigers in his train : 4 34 COLLINS' POEMS. Before them Death with shrieks directs their way, Fills the wild yell, and leads them to their prey. Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way ! " At that dead hour the silent asp shall creep, If aught of rest I find, upon my sleep : Or some swoln serpent twist his scales around. And wake to anguish with a burning wound. Thrice happy they, the wise contented poor, From lust of wealth and dread of death secure ! They tempt no deserts, and no griefs they find ; Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind. Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way ! " hapless youth ! — for she thy love hath won, The tender Zara will be most undone ! Big swelled my heart, and owned the powerful maid, When fast she dropt her tears, as thus she said : ' Farewell the youth whom sighs could not detain ; Whom Zara's breaking heart implored in vain ! Yet, as thou go'st, may every blast arise Weak and unfelt as these rejected sighs ! Safe o'er the wild, no perils mayst thou see. No griefs endure, nor weep, false youth, like me.' 0, let me safely to the fair return, Say, with a kiss, she must not, shall not mourn ; ! let me teach my heart to lose its fears, Recalled by Wisdom's voice, and Zara's tears." He said, and called on Heaven to bless the day. When back to Schiraz' walls he bent his way. ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. 35 ECLOGUE III. ABEA; OR, THE GEORGIAN SULTANA. Scene, A forest. Time, The evening. In Georgia's land, where Tefflis' towers are seen, In distant view, along the level green, While evening dews enrich the glittering gladej And the tall forests cast a longer shade. What time 't is sweet o'er fields of rice to stray. Or scent the breathing maize at setting day ; Amidst the maids of Zagen's peaceful grove, Emyra sung the pleasing cares of love. Of Abra first began the tender strain, Who led her youth with flocks upon the plain. At morn she came those willing flocks to lead, Where lilies rear them in the watery mead ; From early dawn the livelong hours she told. Till late at silent eve she penned the fold. Deep in the grove, beneath the secret shade, A various wreath of odorous flowers she made : Gay-motleyed pinks and sweet jonquils she chose. The violet blue that on the moss-bank grows ; All sweet to sense, the flaunting rose was there ; The finished chaplet well adorned her hair. Great Abbas chanced that fated morn to stray, By love conducted from the chase away ; 36 COLLINS' POEMS. Among the vocal vales he heard her song, And sought the vales and echoing groves among ; At length he found, and wooed the rural maid ; She knew the monarch, and with fear obeyed. Be every youth like royal Abbas moved, And every Georgian maid like Abra loved ! The royal lover bore her from the plain ; Yet still her crook and bleating .flock remain : Oft, as she went, she backward turned her view, And bade that crook and bleating flock adieu. Fair, happy maid ! to other scenes remove. To richer scenes of golden power and love ! Go leave the simple pipe and shepherd's strain ; With love delight thee, and with Abbas reign ! Be every youth like royal Abbas moved, And every Georgian maid like Abra loved ! Yet, 'midst the blaze of courts, she fixed her love On the cool fountain, or the shady grove ; Still, with the shepherd's innocence, her mind To the sweet vale, and flowery mead, inclined ; TVnd oft as spring renewed the plains with flowers, Breathed his soft gales, and led the fragrant hours, With sure return she sought the sylvan scene. The breezy mountains, and the forests green. Her maids around her moved, a duteous band ! Each bore a crook, all rural, in her hand : Some simple lay, of flocks and herds, they sung ; With joy the mountain and the forest rung. Be every youth like royal Abbas moved, And every Georgian maid like Abra loved ! ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. 87 And oft the royal lover left the care And thorns of state, attendant on the fair ; Oft to the shades and low-roofed cots retired, Or sought the vale where first his heart vras fired : A russet mantle, like a swain, he wore. And thought of crowns, and busy courts, no more. Be every youth like royal Abbas moved. And every Georgian maid like Abra loved ! Blest was the life that royal Abbas led : Sweet was his love, and innocent his bed. What if in wealth the noble maid excel 1 The simple shepherd girl can love as well. Let those who rule on Persia's jewelled throne Be famed for love, and gentlest love alone ; Or wreathe, like Abbas, full of fair renown, The lover's myrtle with the warrior's crown. happy days ! the maids around her say : haste, profuse of blessings, haste away ! Be every youth like royal Abbas moved. And every Georgian maid like Abra loved ! 4*. 88 COLLINS' POEMS. ECLOGUE IV. AGIB AND SECANDER; OB, THE FUGITIVES. Scene, A mountain in Circassia. Time, Midnight. In fair Circassia, where, to love inclined, Each swain was blest, for every maid was kind ; At that still hour, when awful midnight reigns, And none, but wretches, haunt the twilight plains ; What time the moon had hung her lamp on high. And past in radiange through the cloudless sky ; Sad, o'er the dews, two brother shepherds fled, Where wildering fear and desperate sorrow led : Fast as they pressed their flight, behind them lay Wide ravaged plains, and valleys stole away : Along the mountain's bending sides they ran, Till, faint and weak, Secander thus began. stay thee, Agib, for my feet deny, No longer friendly to my life, to fly. Friend of my heart, turn thee and survey ! Trace our sad flight through all its length of way, And first review that long extended plain. And yon wide groves, already past with pain ! Yon ragged cliff, whose dangerous path we tried ! And, last, this lofty mountain's weary- side ! ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. S9 Weak as thou art, yet, hapless, must thou know The toils of flight, or some severer woe ! Still, as I haste, the Tartar shouts behind. And shrieks and sorrows load the saddening wind : In rage of heart, with ruin in his hand. He blasts our harvests, and deforms our land. Yon citron grove, whence first in fear we came, Droops its fair honors to the conquering flame : Far fly the swains, like us, in deep despair, And leave to rufiian bands their fleecy care. SECANDER. Unhappy land, whose blessings tempt the sword, In vain, unheard, thou call'st thy Persian lord ! In vain thou court'st him, helpless, to thine aid. To shield the shepherd, and protect the maid ! Far ofi", in thoughtless indolence resigned. Soft dreams of love and pleasure soothe his mind : 'Midst fair sultanas lost in idle joy, No wars alarm him, and no fears annoy. Yet these green hills, in summer's sultry heat. Have lent the monarch oft a cool retreat. Sweet to the sight is Zabran's flowery plain. And once by maids and shepherds loved in vain ! No more the virgins shall delight to rove By Sargis' banks, or Irwan's shady grove ; On Tarkie's mountain catch the cooling gale. Or breathe the sweets of Aly's flowery vale : Fair scenes ! but, ah ! no more with peace possest, 40 COLLINS' POEMS. With ease alluring, and with plenty blest ! No more the shepherds' -whitening tents appear, Nor the kind products of a bounteous year ; No more the date, -with snowy blossoms crowned ! But ruin spreads her baleful fires around. In vain Circassia boasts her spicy groves, Forever famed for pure and happy loves : In vain she boasts her fairest of the fair. Their eyes' blue languish, and then- golden hair ! Those eyes in tears their fruitless grief must send ; Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hand shall rend. Ye Greorgian swains, that piteous learn from far Circassia' s ruin, and the waste of war ; Some weightier arms than crooks and staves prepare. To shield your harvests, and defend your fair : The Turk and Tartar like designs pursue, Fixed to destroy, and steadfast to undo. Wild as his land, in native deserts bred. By lust incited, or by malice led. The villain Arab, as he prowls for prey. Oft marks with blood and wasting flames the way ; Yet none so cruel as the Tartar foe, To death inured, and nursed in scenes of woe. He said ; when loud along the vale was heard A shriller shriek, and nearer fires appeared : The afirighted shepherds, through the dews of night, Wide o'er the moonlight hills renewed their flight. ODES. ON SEVERAL DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL SUBJECTS. El7}V EvQrjtJiETttjg arayei TTfjoaipoQog sv Moinav Jnf>Qm To2.ua Sb y.ai afi 0, Nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts. With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed : Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing ; Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn. As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum : Now teach me, maid composed. To breathe some softened strain, 6* 62 COLLINS' POEMS. Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly mth its stillness suit ; As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return ! For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant Hours, and Elves Who slept in buds the day. And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge. And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car. Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene ; Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells. Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams. Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain. Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut, That, from the mountain's side. Views wilds, and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires ; And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft ho wont. And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Evo ! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light ; ODES. 68 While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves ; Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Afirights thy shrinking train. And rudely rends thy robes ; So long, regardful of thy quiet rule. Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own. And love thy favorite name ! ODE TO PEACE. THOTJ, who badest thy turtles bear Swift from his grasp thy golden hair, And sought' st thy native skies ; When War, by vultures drawn from far. To Britain beint his iron car. And bade his storms arise ! Tired of his rude tyrannic sway. Our youth shall fix some festive day, His sullen shrines to bum : But thou who hear'st the turning spheres, What sounds may charm thy partial ears. And gain thy blest return ! Peace, thy injured robes up-bind ! rise ! and leave not one behind Of all thy beamy train ! The British Lion, goddess sweet, Lies stretched on earth to kiss thy feet. And own thy holier reign. 61 COLLINS' POEMS. Let others court thy transient smile, But come to grace thy western isle, By warlike Honor led ; And, while around her ports rejoice, While all her sons adore thy choice, With him forever wed ! THE MANNERS. Farewell, for clearer ken designed. The dim-discovered tracts of mind ; Truths which, from action's paths retired. My silent search in vain required ! No more my sail that deep explores ; No more I search those magic shores ; What regions part the world of soul. Or whence thy streams. Opinion, roll : If e'er I round such fairy field. Some power impart the spear and shield, At which the wizard Passions fly ; By which the giant Follies die ! Farewell the porch whose roof is seen Arched with the enlivening olive's green : Where Science, pranked in tissued vest. By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest. Comes, like a bride, so trim arrayed. To wed with Doubt in Plato's shade ! Youth of the quick uncheated sight. Thy walks, Observance, more invite ! ODES. 65 thou who lovest that ampler range, Where life's wide prospects round thee change, And, with her mingling sons allied, Throwest the prattling page aside, To me, in converse sweet, impart To read in man the native heart ; To learn, where Science sure is found, Frotn Nature as she lives around ; And, gaziug oft her mirror true. By turns each shifting image view ! Till meddling Art's ofi&aous lore Reverse the lessons taught before ; Alluring from a safer rule. To dream in her enchanted school : Thou, Heaven, whate'er of great we bgast, Hast blest this social science most. Retiring hence to thoughtful cell. As Fancy breathes her potent spell. Not vain she finds the charmful task. In pageant quaint, in motley mask ; Behold, before her musing eyes. The countless Manners round her rise ; While, ever varying as they pass, To some Contempt applies her glass : With these the white-robed maids combine ; And those the laughing Satyrs join ! But who is he whom now she views, In robe of wild contending hues 7 Thou by the Passions nursed, I greet The comic sock that binds thy feet ! 66 COLLINS' POEMS. Humor, thou whose name is known To Britain's favored isle alone : Me too amidst thy band admit ; There where the young-eyed healthful Wit (Whose jewels in his crisped hair Are placed each other's beams to share ; Whom no delights from thee divide), In laughter loosed, attends thy side. By old Miletus, who so long Has ceased his love-inwoven song ; By all you taught the Tuscan maids. In changed Italia' s modern shades ; By him whose knight's distinguished name Refined a nation's lust of fame ; Whose tales e'en now, with echo sweet, Castilia's Moorish hills repeat ; Or him whom Seine's blue nymphs deplore, In watchet weeds on Gallia's shore ; Who drew the sad Sicilian maid. By virtues in her sire betrayed. Nature boon, from whom proceed Each forceful thought, each prompted deed : If but from thee I hope to feel. On all my heart imprint thy seal ! Let some retreating cynic find Those oft-turned scrolls I leave behind : The Sports and I this hour agree. To rove thy scene-full world with thee ! ODES. 67 THE PASSIONS. AJSr ODE FOB MUSIC. When Music, heavenly maid, was young, WMle yet in early Greece she sung. The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Thronged around her magic cell. Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting. Possessed beyond the Muse's painting : By turns they felt the glowing mind Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined; Till once, 't is said, when all were fired, Filled with fiiry, rapt, inspired. From the supporting myrtles round They snatched her instruments of sound ; And, as they oft had heard apart Sweet lessons of her forceful art, Each (for Madness ruled the hour). Would prove his own expressive power. First Fear his hand, its skill to try. Amid the chords bewildered laid, And back recoiled, he knew not why. Even at the sound himself had made. Next Anger rushed ; his eyes on fire. In lightnings owned his secret stings : In one rude clash he struck the lyre, And swept with hurried hand the struigs. With woful measures wan Despair Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled ; 68 COLLINS' POEMS. A solemn, strange, and mingled air ; 'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild. But thou, Hope, with eyes so fair. What was thy delighted measure 1 Still it whispered promised pleasure. And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! Still would her touch the strain prolong ; And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, She called on Echo still, through all the song ; And, where her sweetest theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair. And longer had she sung ; — but, with a frown, Revenge impatient rose : He threw his blood-stained sword, in thunder, down ; And, with a withering look, The war-denouncing trumpet took, And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe ! • And, ever and anon, he beat Ihe doubling drum, with furious heat ; And though sometimes, each dreary pause between. Dejected Pity, at his side. Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kepf his wild unaltered mien. While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed ; Sad proof of thy distressful state ; Of difiering themes the veering song was mixed ; And now it courted Love, now raving callexl on Hate. ODES. 69 With eyes upraised, as one inspired, Pale Melancholy sate retired ; And, from her wild sequestered seat. In notes by distance made more sweet, Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul : And, dashing soft from rocks around. Bubbling runnels joined the sound ; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay. Round an holy calm diffiising. Love of Peace, and lonely musuig, Li hollow murmurs died away. But, ! how altered was its sprightlier tone. When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue. Her bow across her shoulder flung. Her buskins gemmed with morning dew. Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung. The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known ! The oak-crowned Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen, Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green : Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear ; And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial : He, with viny crown advancing. First to the lively pipe his hand addrest ; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best ; They would have thought who heard the strain They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades. To some unwearied minstrel dancing, 7 70 COLLINS' POEMS. While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic jound : Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unhound ; And he, amidst his frolic play. As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. Music ! sphere-descended maid, Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid ! Why, goddess ! why, to us denied, Lay' St thou thy ancient lyre aside 1 As, in that loved Athenian bower. You learned an all-commanding power, Thy mimic soul, Nymph endeared. Can well recall what then it heard ; Where is thy native simple heart, Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art? Arise, as in that elder time, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime ! Thy wonders, in that godlike age, Fill thy recording Sister's page — 'T is said, and I believe the tale, Thy humblest reed could more prevail. Had more of strength, diviner rage. Than all which charms this laggard age ; Even all at once together found, Cecilia's mingled world of sound — 0, bid our vain endeavors cease ; Revive the just designs of Greece : Return in all thy simple state ! Confirm the tales her sons relate ! ODES. 71 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON. THE SCENE IS SOPPOSED TO LIB ON THE THAMES, NEAR EICHMOND. In yonder grave a Druid lies, Where slowly wiiids the steaUng wave ; The year's best sweets shall duteous rise To deck its poet's sylvan grave. In yon deep bed of whispering reeds His airy harp shall now be laid, That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds. May love through life the soothing shade. Then maids and youths shall linger here, And while its sounds at distance swell, Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell. Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore When Thames in summer wreaths is drest. And oft suspend the dashing oar, To bid his gentle spirit rest ! And oft, as ease and health retire To breezy lawn, or forest deep, The friend shall view yon whitening spire And 'mid the varied landscape weep. But thou, who own'st that earthy bed. Ah ! what will every dirge avail ! Or tears, which Love and Pity shed. That mourn beneath the gliding sail ! 72 COLLINS' POEMS. Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye Shall scorn thy pale shrine gUmmering near ? With him, sweet bard, may Fancy die. And Joy desert the blooming year ! But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide No sedge-crowned sisters now attend. Now waft me from the green hill's side. Whose cold turf hides the buried friend ! And see, the fairy valleys fade ; Dun night has veiled the solemn view ! Yet once again, dear parted shade. Meek Nature's child again adieu ! ■ The genial meads, assigned to bless Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom ; Their hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress, With simple hands, thy rural tomb. Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes : ! vales and wild woods, shall he say, In yonder grave your Druid lies ! ODES. 73 ODE ON THE POPDXAB SUPERSTITIONS OP THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND ; CONSIDERED AS THE SUBJECT OT POETRY ; INSCRIBED TO MR. JOHN HOME. Home, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, 'Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song. Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth Whom, long endeared, thou leavest by Lavant's side ; Together let us wish him lasting truth. And joy untainted with his destined bride. Go ! nor regardless, while these numbers boast My short-lived bliss, forget my social name ; But think, far off, how, on the southern coast, I met thy friendship with an equal flame ! Fresh to that soil thou turn'st, where every vale Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand : To thee thy copious subjects ne'er shall fail ; Thou need'st but take thy pencil to thy hand. And paint what all believe, who own thy genial land. II. There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill ; 'T is Fancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet ; Where still, 't is said, the fairy people meet. Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill ; 7* 74 COLLINS' POEMS. There, each trim lass, that skims the milky store, To the swart tribes their creamy bowls allots ; By night they sip it round the cottage door, While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. There, every herd, by sad experience, knows How, winged with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes, ' Or, stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie. Such airy beings awe the untutored swaia : Nor thou, though learned, his homelier thoughts neglect; Let thy sweet muse the rural faith sustain ; These are the themes of simple, sure efifect. That add new conquests to her boundless reign. And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding strain. III. Even yet preserved, how often may'st thou hear, Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run, Taught by the father, to his listening son. Strange lays, whose power had charmed a Spenser's ear. At every pause, before thy mind possest, Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around. With uncouth lyres, ia many-colored vest. Their matted hair with boughs fantastic cro^vned : Whether thou bidd'st the well-taught hind repeat The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, When every shriekiug maid her bosom beat. And strewed with choicest herbs his scented grave ! Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel. Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms ; When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel. The sturdy clans poured forth their brawny swarms, And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's aims. ODES. 75 IV. 'T is thine to sing, how, framiag hideous spells, In Sky's lone isle, the gifted -wizard seer, Lodged in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear. Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells : How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross, With their own visions oft astonished droop. When, o'er the watery strath, or quaggy moss, They see the gUding ghosts unbodied troop. Or, if in sports, or on the festive green. Their destined glance some fated youth descry. Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigor seen. And rosy health, shall soon lamented die. For them the viewless forms of air obey ; Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair : They know what spirit brews the stormful day. And heartless, oft like moody madness, stare , To see the phantom train their secret work prepare. V. To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray. Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow ! The seer, in Skye, shrieked as the blood did flovy. When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay ! As Boreas threw his young Aurora forth. In the jBrst year of the first Greorge's reign And battles raged in welkin of the North, They mourned in air, fell, fell Eebelhon slain ! And as, of late, they joyed in Preston's fight, Saw, at sad Falkirk, all their hopes near crowned ! They raved ! divining, through their second sight. Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drowned ! 76 COLLINS' POEMS. Illustrious William ! Britain's guardian name ! ' One William saved us from a tyrant's stroke ; He, for a sceptre, gained heroic fame, But thou, more glorious. Slavery's chain hast broke, To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom's yoke ! VI. These, too, thou 'It sing ! for well thy magic muse Can to the topmost heaven of grandeur soar ; Or stoop to wail the swaiu that is no more ! Ah, homely swains ! your homeward steps ne'er lose ; Let not dank Will mislead you to the heath ; Dancing in murky night, o'er fen and lake. He glows, to draw you downward to your death, In his bewitched, low, marshy, willow brake ! What though far off, from iSome dark dell espied. His glimmering mazes cheer the excursive sight. Yet turn, ye wanderers, turn your steps aside, Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light ; For watchful, lurking 'mid the unrustling reed. At those mirk hours the wily monster Ues, And listens oft to hear the passing steed. And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes, . If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch surprise. VII. Ah, luckless swain, o'er all unblest, indeed ! Whom late bewildered in the dank, dark fen. Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then ! To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed : On him, enraged, the fiend, in angry mood. Shall never look with pity's kind concern. ODES. 77 But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood O'er its drowned banks, forbidding all return ! Or, if he meditate his wished escape To some dim hill, that seems uprising near. To his faint eye the grim and grisly shape, In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear. Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise. Poured sudden forth from evejry swelling source ! What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs ? His fear-shook Umbs have lost their youthful force. And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse I VIII. For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait. Or Wander forth to meet him on his way ; For him in vain at to-fall of the day. His babes shall linger at the unclosing gate ! Ah, ne'er shall he return ! Alone, if night Her travelled limbs in broken slumbers steep. With drooping willows dressed, his mournful sprite Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep : Then he, perhaps, with moist and watery hand. Shall fondly seem to press her shuddering cheek. And with his blue swollen face before her stand, And, shivering cold, these piteous accents speak : ' " Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue. At dawn or dusk, industrious as before ; Nor e'er of me one helpless thought renew, While I lie weltering on the osiered shore, Drowned by the Kelpie's wrath, nor e'er shall aid thee more ! " IX. Unbounded is thy range ; with varied skill Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring 78 COLLINS' POEMS. From their rude rocks, extend her ekirting wing Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle, To that hoar pile which still its ruins shows : In whose small vaults a pigmy folk is found. Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows. And culls them, wondering, from the hallowed ground ! Or thither, where, beneath the showery west. The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid ; Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest. No slaves revere them, and no wars invade : Yet frequent now, at midnight's solemn hour. The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold. And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power, In pageant robes, and wreathed with sheeny gold, And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold. But, 0, o'er all, forget not Kilda's race, On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides, Fair Nature's daughter. Virtue, yet abides. Go ! just, as they, their bkimeless manners trace ! Then to my ear transmit some gentle song. Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, Their bounded walks the rugged clifis along. And all their prospect but the wintry main. With sparing temperance, at the needful time. They drain the scented spring ; or, hunger-prest, Along the Atlantic rock undreading climb, And of its eggs despoil the solan's nest. Thus, blest in primal innocence, they live SuiBced, and happy with that frugal fare Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give. ODES. T9 Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare ; Nor ever yernal bee was heard to murmur there ! XI. Nor need'st thou blush that such false themes engage Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possest ; For not alone they touch the village breast, But filledj in elder time, the historic page. There, Shakspeare's self, with every garland crowned. Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen, In musing hour ; his wayward sisters found. And with their terrors dressed the magic scene. From them he sung, when, 'mid his bold design, Before the Scot, afflicted, and aghast ! The shadowy kings of Banquo's fated line Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant passed. Proceed ! nor quit the tales which, simply told. Could once so well my answering bosom pierce ; Proceed, in forceful sounds, and colors bold, The native legends of thy land rehearse ; To such adapt thy lyre, and suit thy powerful verse. XII. In scenes like these, which, daring to depart From sober truth, are still to nature true. And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view. The heroic Muse employed her Tasso's art ! How have I trembled, when, at Tancred's stroke. Its gushing blood the gaping cypress poured ! When each live plant with mortal accents spoke. And the wild blast upheaved the vanished sword ! How have I sat, when piped the pensive wmd. To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung ! 80 COLLINS' POEMS. Prevailing poet ! whose undoubtiag mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung ! Hence, at each sound, imagination glows ! Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here ! Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows ! Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear, And fills the impassioned heart, and wins the harmonious ear! XIII. All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail ! Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away, Are by smooth Annan filled, or pastoral Tay, Or Don's romantic springs, at distance hail ! The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread Your lowly glens, o'erhung with spreading broom ; Or, o'er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led ; Or, o'er your mountains creep, in awfiil gloom ! Then will I dress once more the faded bower, Where Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade ; Or crop, from Teviotdale, each lyric flower. And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy 's laid ! Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore The cordial youth, on Lothian's plains, attend ! Where'er Home dwells, on hill, or lowly moor, To him I lose your kind protection lend, And, touched with love like mine, preserve my absent friend ! MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS AN EPISTLE, addressed to sir thomas hanmbe, on his edition of shakspeare's works. SiK, While, born to bring the Muse's happier days, A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays, While nursed by you she sees her myrtles bloom, Green and unwithered o'er his honored tomb ; Excuse her doubts, if yet she fears to tell What secret transports in her bosom swell : With conscious awe she hears the critic's fame. And blushing hides her wreath at Shakspeare's name. Hard was the lot those injured strains endured, Unowned by Science, and by years obscured : Fair Fancy wept ; and echoing sighs confessed A fixed despair in every tuneful breast. Not with mqre grief the afflicted swains appear. When wintry winds deform the plenteous year ; When lingering frosts the ruined seats invade Where Peace resorted, and the Graces played. Each rising art by just gradation moves, Toil builds on toil, and age on age improves : 84 COLLINS' POEMS. The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage, And graced with noblest pomp her earliest stage. Preserved through time, the speaking scenes impart Each changeful wish of Phaedra's tortured heart ; Or paint the curse that marked the Theban's reign, A bed incestuous, and a father slain. With kind concern our pitying eyes o'elflow. Trace the sad tale, and own another's woe. To Rome removed, with wit secure to please. The comic Sisters kept their native ease : With jealous fear, declining Greece beheld Her own Menander's art almost excelled ; But every Muse essayed to raise in vain Some labored rival of her tragic strain : nissus' laurels, though transferred with toil. Drooped their fair leaves, nor knew the unfriendly soil. As Arts expired, resistless Dulness rose ; Goths, Priests, or Vandals, — all were Learning's foes. Till Julius first recalled each exiled maid. And Cosmo owned them in the Etrurian shade : Then, deeply skilled in Love's engaging theme, The soft Provengal passed to Arno's stream ; With graceful ease the wanton lyre he strung ; Sweet flowed the lays — but Love was all he sung. The gay description could not fail to move. For, led by Nature, all are friends to Love. But Heaven, still various in its works, decreed The perfect boast of time should last succeed. The beauteous union must appear at length. Of Tuscan fancy, and Athenian strength : One greater Muse Eliza's reign adorn. And even a Shakspeare to her fame be born ! MISCELLANEOUS. 85 Yet, ah ! so bright her morning's opening ray, In vain our Britain hoped an equal day ! No second growth- the western isle could bear, At once exhausted with too rich a year. Too nicely Jonsqn knew the critic's part ; Nature in him was almost lost in art. Of softer mould the gentle Fletcher came. The next in order, as the next in name ; With pleased attention, 'midst his scenes we find Each glowing thought that warms the female mind ; Each melting sigh, and every tender tear ; The lover's wishes, and the virgia's fear. His every strain the Smiles and Graces own ; But stronger Shakspeare felt for man alone : Drawn by his pen, our ruder passions stand The unrivalled picture of his early hand. With gradjUal steps and slow, exactor France Saw Art's fair empire o'er her shores advance : By length of toil a bright perfection knew, Correctly bold, and just in all she drew : Till late Corneille, with Lucan's spirit fired, Breathed the free strain, as Rome and he inspired : And classic judgment gained to sweet Racine The temperate strength of Maro's chaster line. But wilder far the British laurel spread, And wreaths less artful crown our poet's head. Yet he alone to every scene could give The historian's truth, and biH the manners live. Waked at his call I view, with glad surprise. Majestic forms of mighty monarchs rise. 8* COLLINS POEMS. There Henry's trumpets spread their loud alarms, And laurelled Conquest waits her herb's arms. Here gentler Edward claims a pitying sigh, Scarce born to honors, and so soon to die ! Yet shall thy throne, unhappy infant, bring No beam of comfort to the guilty king : The time shall come when Glo'ster's heart shall bleed, In life's last hours, with horror of the deed ; When dreary visions shall at last present Thy vengeful image in the midnight tent : Thy hand unseen the secret death shall bear, Blunt the weak sword, and break the oppressive spear ! Where'er we turn, by Fancy charmed, we find Some sweet illusion of the cheated mind. Oft, wild of wing, she calls the soul to rove With humbler nature in the rural grove ; Where swains contented own the quiet scene. And twilight fairies tread the circled green ; Dressed by her hand, the woods and valleys smile, And Spring difiusive decks the enchanted isle. 0, more than all in powerful genius blest. Come, take thine empire o'er the willing breast ! Whate'er the wounds this youthful heart shall feel. Thy songs support me, and thy morals heal ! There every thought the poet's warmth may raise. There native music dwells in all the lays. might some verse with happiest skill persuade Expressive Picture to adopt thine aid ! What wondrous draughts might rise from every page ! What other Raphaels charm a distant age ! MISCELLANEOUS. 87 Metliinks even now I view some free design, Where breathing nature lives in every line : Chaste and subdued the modest lights decay, Steal into shades, and mildly melt away. And see where Anthony, in tears approved. Guards the pale relics of the chief he loved : O'er the cold corse the warrior seems to bend, Deep sunk in grief, and mourns his murdered friend ! Still, as they press, he calls on all around, Lifts the torn robe, and points the bleeding wound. But who is he, whose brows exalted bear A wrath impatient, and a fiercer air 7 Awake to all that injured worth can feel. On his own Rome he turns the avenging steel ; Yet shall not war's insatiate fury fall (So Heaven ordains it) on the destined wall. See the fond mother, 'midst the plaintive t^'ain. Hung on his knees, and prostrate on the plain ! Touched to_ the soul, in vain he strives to hide The son's affection in the Eoman's pride : O'er all the man conflicting passions rise ; Rage grasps the sword, while Pity melts the eyes. Thus, generous Critic, as thy Bard inspires. The sister Arts shall nurse their drooping fires ; Each from his scenes her stores alternate bring, Blend the fair tints, or wake the vocal string : Those Sibyl leaves, the sport of every wind (For poets ever were a careless kind), By thee disposed, no further toil demand, But, just to Nature, own thy forming hand. So spread o'er Greece, the harmonious whole unknown, Even Homer's numbers charmed by parts alone. COLLINS' POEMS. Their own Ulysses scarce had wandered more, By winds and waters cast on every shore : When, raised by Fate, some former Hanmer joined Each beauteous image of the boundless mind ; And bade, like thee, his Athens ever claim A fond alliance with the Poet's name. Oxford, Deo. 3, 1743. DIRGE IN CYMBELINE, SUNG BY GUIDERUS AND ARTIRAGUS OVER FIDELB, SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD. To. fair Fidele's grassy tomb Soft maids and village hinds shall bring Each opening sweet of earliest bloom, And rifle all the breathing spring. No wailing ghost shall dare appear To vex with shrieks this quiet grove ; But shepherd lads assemble here, And melting virgins own their love. No withered witch shall here be seen ; No goblins lead their nightly crew : The female fays shall haunt the green, And dress thy grave with pearly dew ! The redbreast oft, at evening hours. Shall kindly lend his little aid, With hoary moss, and gathered flowers. To deck the ground where thou art laid. MISCELLANEOUS. 89 When howling ■winds, and beating rain, In tempests shake the sylvan cell ; Or 'midst the chase, on every plain, The tender thought on thee shall dwell ; Each lonely scene shall thee restore ; For thee the tear be duly shed ; Beloved till life can charm no more, And mourned till Pity's self be dead. VERSES WRITTEN ON A PAPER WHICH CONTAINED A PIECE OE BRIDE-CAKE, GIVEN TO THE AUTHOR BY A LADY. Ye curious hands, that, hid from vulgar eyes. By search profane shall find this- hallowed cake, With Virtue's awe forbear the sacred prize. Nor dare a theft, for Love and Pity's sake ! This precious relic, formed by magic power. Beneath her shepherd's haunted pillow laid. Was meant by Love to charm the silent hour. The secret present of a matchless maid. The Cyprian queen, at Hymen's fond request, Each nice ingredient chose with happiest art ; Fears, sighs, and wishes of the enamored breast, And pains that please, are mixed in every part. With rosy hand the spicy fruit she brought. From Paphian hills and fair Cythera's isle ; And tempered sweet with these the melting thought. The kiss ambrosial, and the yielding smile. 90 COLLINS' POEMS. Ambiguous looks, that scorn and yet relent, Denials mild, and firm unaltered truth ; Reluctant pride, and amorous faint consent. And meeting ardors, and exulting youth. Sleep, wayward god ! hath sworn, while these remain. With flattering dreams to dry his nightly tear. And cheerful Hope, so oft invoked in vain, With fairy songs shall soothe his pensive ear. If, bound by vows to Friendship's gentle side. And fond of soul, thou hopest an equal grace. If youth or maid thy joys and griefs divide, 0, much entreated, leave this fatal place ! Sweet Peace, who long hath shunned my plaintive day. Consents at length to bring me short delight. Thy careless steps may scare her doves away, And Grief with raven note usurp the night. TO MISS AUEBLIA K, ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTEr's WEDDING. Chase, fair Aurelia, cease to mourn, Lament not Hannah's happy state ; You may be happy in your turn, And seize the treasure you regret. With Love united Hymen stands, And softly whispers to your charms, " Meet but your lover in my bands. You'll find your sister in his arms." MISCELLANEOUS. 91 SONNET. When Phoebe formed a wanton smile, My soul ! it reached not here : Strange, that thy peace, thou trembler, flies Before a rising tear ! From 'midst the drops my love is born That o'er those eyelids rove : Thus issued from a teeming wave The fabled queen of love. SONG. THE SENTIMENTS BORROWED JROM SnAKSPEARE. Young Damon of the vale is dead. Ye lowly hamlets, moan ; A dewy turf lies o'er his head, And at his feet a stone. His shroud, which Death's cold damps destroy. Of snow-white threads was made : All mourned to see so sweet a boy In earth forever laid. Pale pansies o'er his corpse were placed, Which, plucked before their time. Bestrewed the boy, like him to waste And wither in their prime. But will he ne'er return, whose tongue Could tune the rural lay 7 Ah, no ! his bell of peace is rung, His lips are cold as clay. 92 COLLINS' POEMS. They bore him out at twilight hour, The youth who loved so well : Ah, me ! how many a true love shower Of kind remembrance felF! Each maid was woe — but Lucy chief. Her grief o'er all was tried ; Within his grave she dropped in grief. And o'er her loved one died- NOTES TO COLLINS. ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. Page 30, line 16. — Bassora, the gulf of that name, famous for the pearl fishery. Page 33, line 4. " In this line he does not merely seem to describe the sultry desert, but brings it home to the senses." — Campbell. Page 35, line 17. That these flowers are found in very great abundance in some of the provmces of Persia, see the *^ Modern EQstory " of the ingenious Mr. Salmon. — Collins. Ode to Pitt. Page 43, line 7. Pella's bard, Euripides, of whom Aristotle pronounces, on a comparison of him with Sophocles, that he was the greater master of the tender passions, t,v rQayixwrtQog. — Collins. Page 43, line 16. The river Armi runs by the village of Trotton, hi Sussex, where Otway had his bu*th. — Collins. Ode to Pgak. Page 45, line 22. Alluding to the Kvvag atpvxrovg of Sophocles. See the Electra. Page 46, line 3. — The bard — JEschylus. Page 46, line 11. — The incestuous queen — Jocasta. Page 46, line 12. ■ oud' £t' (OQmqst ^o/j, 'Hv fiav aiojTtij' (p-S'ey^a d^ i^aiiprrjg rivog Qmv^BV avTov, oioTs navrctg 6Q^iag Stijaai (po^oi dsiaavrag i^aitpvtjg T^tj^a?, See the (Edip. Colon, of Sophocles. Page 46, line 18. " It may be remarked, that when we are anxious to communicate the highest possible character of subUmity to anything we are describing, we generally contrive, either directly, or by means of some strong and obvious association, to introduce the image of the heavens, or of the clouds ; or, in other words, of sublimity, properly so called. In ColUns' Ode to Fear, the happy use of a single word (thunders) identifies at once the physical with the moral sublime, and concentrates the efl'ect of theur united force." — Dugald Stewart. Ode to Simplicity. Page 48, Une 8. The atjdojv, or nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to have entertained a peculiar fondness. 9 94 NOTES. Odb on the Poetical Ciiabaotbr. Page 49, line 23. OnCj only oney unrivalled fair Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4th. Page 51, line 8. — The tarsal. — The male falcon. Odb wbitten in 1746. Page 52. '* What a quantity of thought is here condensed in the compafiS of twelve lines, like a cluster of rock crystals, sparkling and distinct, yet receiving and reflecting lustre by their combiDation. The stanzas themselves are almost unrivalled in the association of poetry with picture, pathos with-fancy, grandeur with simplicity, and romance with reality. The melody of the verse leaves nothing for the ear to desire, except a continuance of the strain, or rather the repetition of a strain which cannot tire by repetition. The imagery is of the most delicate and exquisite character." — James Montgomery's Lectures. Ode to Mebot. Page 53. Probably written on the occasion of the then recent rebellion, like the shorter ode } the latter being, as Langhorne supposed, consecrated to the memory of those who fell ; the for- mer, designed to awaken compassion for the unfortunate prisoners. Ode to Liberty. Page 53, line 11. Alluding to that beautiful fragment of Alceeus : Ev fivQTov xXadl TO ^i(pog (pog/jOWt Slamq yiQfi63iog ^'./^giOToyetTajv, Ore Tov Ttj^avvov xravtTTjv, laovo^iovg t' ^■&tjvag BnottiOuXTjv. iXTa&' A^^oSl^ ov Ti nov Tt^viyAag, JVtjooig S' iv nax&Qiav ae tpaaiv elraif Iva nsQ TtoSojxtjg Aj^t^Bvg, Tvdiidijv re (paatv jfiof,ii'idEa. Ev fivQTov xkadl to ^itpog (poQifao), SioTiBQ ulq^ioSiog x^ AqiaxoytLTtaVf Ot' ASrjvaiTig iv -d-vaiaig AvSqu TVQavvov InnaQxov ixatviztiv. jIbI Gtpdiv xXcog EaasTai xar^ airur, ilrad'' AquoSiB^ X* AQiaroyBiTiar, On TOV riqavvov xTaVBTov, loovufiovg t' A-&ijvag tTZonjaarov. This fragment, we believe, is an entire poem. It has been thus translated ; Htmn On Harmodius and Aristogiton. My Bword I *11 hang upon the myrtle-bough } Aristogiton and Harmodius brave, All hail ! for since the tyrant fell by you, A man of Athens is no more a slave. Beloved Harmodius ! but thou ai-t not dead ; To thee those blest isles yield a happier seat, NOTES. 95 Where the great soul of swift Achilles fled, And brave Tydidea found a last retreat. My Bword I'll hang upon the myrtle-bough, And once, once more, my country's heroes hail ; Pierced in the public sacrifice by you. The tyrant bled, the base Hipparchus fell. 0, live your fame through each revolving age I Aristogiton and Harmodiua brave ! You sunk in death the ruthless tyrant's rage, 'T was yours your country's suffering rights to save. Page 54, line 19. Let not my shelVs misguided power 31i, i.i7i Tavra Xiywfisg, a Suxqvov iiyays Jtjoi. Callimach. "i^fivog els JijfirjrQa. Page 55, line 15. — " They whom Science loved to name." — The family of the Medici. Page 55, line 19. — The little republic of San Marino. Page 55, line 22. — The "Venetians. Page 55, line 23. — The Doge of Venice. Page 55, hue 28. — Liguria — Genoa. Page 55, line 30. — Helvetia — Switzerland. Page 56, Ime 6. " Thy stork.'" The Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bu-d. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and particularly at the Hague, of the arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole species of them should become ex- tinct they should lose their liberties. — Collins. Page 56, line 8 Queen Elizabeth. Page 56, line 16. This tradition is mentioned by several of our old historians. Some naturalists, too, have endeavored to support the probability of the fact by arguments drawn from the corre- spondent disposition of the two opposite coasts. I do not remember that any poetical use has been hitherto made of it. — Collins. Page 57, h'ne 1. There is a tradition in the Isle of Man, that a mermaid, becoming enamored of a young man of extraordinary beauty, took an opportunity of meeting him one day, as he walked on the shore, and opened her passion to him, but was received with a coldness occasioned by his horror and surprise at her appearance. This, however, was so misconstrued by the sea-lady, that, in revenge for his treatment of her, she punished the whole island, by covering it with a mist ; so that all who attempted to carry on any commerce witb it either never arrived at it, but wandered up and down the sea, or were, on a sudden, wrecked upon its cliffs. — Collins. Ode to a Lady. Page 59. The lady is believed to have been Miss Elizabeth Goddard, who was then staying at the house of Lord Tankerville, near Chichester, and overlooking the village of Harting. Of this lady, who was engaged to Colonel Ross, Collins is said to have been enamored. She was one day older than himself, and he playfully complained that he came into the world a day after the fair. The ode was printed, without the seventh and eighth stanzas, in Dodsley^s Museum for June 7, 1748. T. Warton had seen the original manuscript, with many interlineations and alterations. The fourth stanza stood thus : 96 NOTES. " Eren now, regardless of his doom, Applauding Honor haunts his tomb, TVifch shadowy trophies crowned ; While Freedom's form beside her roves, Majestic, through the twilight groves, And calls her heroes round." Ode to Evening. Page 61. In an article on Dr. Sayer's works, in the London Quarterly Review (vol. xxxv., p. 211), Southey speaks of the unrbymed lyrical measures which had been tried by Milton with unhappy success, and says that bis translation of " Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa " — uncouth in syntax, as well as sound — bears no other resemblance to the Latin measure, which it was designed to imitate, than that it consists of two long and two short lines. He adds, however, that it " presents the only example of a rhymeless stanza which can fairly be said to have become naturalized in our language. Collins saw what could be made of it, and few poems have been more frequently imitated than the ' Ode to Evening,' to which he has so finely and beautifully applied its slow and solemn movement." Another writer, in the same journal (vol. 11., p. 25), cites tiie translation from Horace, alluded to above, as a proof that it is not true that " rhyme is indispensable to the perfec- tion of some kinds of lyric verse in English." He adds that, in his judgment, this rhyme- less ode of Collins' " is not surpassed for musical effect in any language in Europe." We certainly know nothing sweeter or more musical in the whole range of English poetry. The Manners. Page 66, line 9. — Alluding to the Milesian tales, some of the e£u:liest romances. Page 66, Une 13. — Cervantes. Page 66, line 17. Monsieur Le Sage, author of the incomparable Adventures of Gil Bias de Santillane, who died in Paris, in the year 1745. — Collins. The Passions. Page 67. The Ode to the Passions is, by universal consent, the noblest of Collins' productions, because it exhibits a much more extended invention, not of one passion only, but of all the passions combined, acting, according to Uie powers of each, to one end. The execution, also, is the happiest ; — each particular passion is drawn with inimitable force and com- pression. Let us take only Pear and Despair ; — each dashed out in four lines, of which every word is like inspiration. * * * And surely there is not a single figure in Collins' Ode to the Passions which is not perfect, both in conception and language. He has had many imitators, but no one has ever axjproached hi"i in his own department." — Sir Egerton Brydges Ode on the Death of Thomson. Page 71. Thomson died on tiie 27th of August, 1748, and in the following June the ode appeared. No other memorial of the friendship of the poets has been preserved. Page 71, Une 6. The harp of iEolus, of which see a description in the " Castle of Indolence." - Collins, Page 71, line 19. — Richmond church, in which Thomson was buried. Page 72, line 4. " When Thomson died, Collins breathed forth his regrets in an elegiac poem, in which be pronounces a poetical curse upon him who should regard with insensibility the place where the poet's remains were deposited. The poems of the mourner himself have now pasi^cd through innumerable editions, and are universally known -, but if, when Culling NOTES. 97 died, the same kind of imprecatioD had been pronounced by a suTTiving admirer, small i9 tlie number whom it would not have comprehended." — Wordsworth. Page 72, Une 13. Mr. Thomson resided in the neighborhood of Richmond some time before his death. — Collins. Ode on thb Scfebstitions of thb Highlands. Page 73, line 6. The cordial youth was Mr. Barrow, by whom Home was introduced to CoUins. Barrow and Home were volunteers in 1746, and, being taken prisoners at the battle of Palkirk, " escaped by cutting their bed-clothes into ropes, and letting themselves down from the window of the room in which they were confined." In this enterprise Barrow broke his leg. Adam Ferguson informed Mackenzie that Home's interest with Lord Bute procured for Barrow the office of paymaster to the army dm-ing the American war, from which he returned nearly as poor as he went. Page 74, line 27. Skiel — A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, for the shepherds to tend their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine. Page 75, Ime 22. By young Aurora, CoUms is supposed to have meant the first appearance of the north- ern lights, which happened about the year 1715. Page 75, line 28. Second sight is the term that is used for the divination of the Highlanders. Page 76, Une 1. The late Duke of Cumberland, who defeated the Pretender, at the battle of Culloden. — Collins. Page 76, line 10. A fiery meteor, called by various names, such as Will with the Wisp, Jack with the Lantern, &c. It hovers in the air over marshy and fenny places." — Collins. Page 77, line 28. — Kelpie — the water-fiend. Page 78, line 5. One of the Hebrides is called the Isle of Pigmies, where it is reported that several mini- ature bonra of the human species have been dug up in the ruins of a chapel. Page 78, line 7. " The haze and darkness of the atmosphere seem to render it dubious if we can proceed, as we intended, to Staffa to-day ; for mist among these islands is rather unpleasant The haze is fast degenerating into downright rain, and that right heavy j verifying the words of Collins." — Walter Scott. Page 78, Une 15. *' In one of the Hebrides, caUed Ikolmkill, there are near sixty, it is said, of the ancient Scottish, Irish and Norwegian kings, interred } and the people beUeve that frequently during the night-time, these venerable monarchs appear, and, in conformity to their for mer terrestrial employments, meet in council together. This striking superstition Collins has recorded." — Drake^ '■'■Literary Hours^" Tfo. 31. Sir Walter Scott, who visited this spot in the summer of 1814, remarks that the graves of the kings can scarcely be said to exist, although their site is pointed out. He adds : "Macbeth is said to have been the last Eng of Scotland here buried. Sixty preceded him, aU, doubtless, as powerful, in their day, but now unknown. A few weeks' labor of Shakspeare, an obscure player, has done more for the memory of Macbeth than aU the gifts, wealth and monuments, of this cemetery of princes, have been able to secure to the rest of its inhabitants." Page 78, line 27. An aquatic bird, like a goose, on the eggs of which the inhabitants of St. Kilda, another of the Hebrides, chiefly subsist. 9* 98 NOTES. Page 80, lines 10, 11. — Annan — Tay — Don — three rhrers in Scotland. Page 80, line 17. Ben Jonson paid a visit, on foot, in 1619, to the Scotch poet Drummond, at his seat of Qawthornden, within four miles of Edinburgh. Page 80, line 21. Barrow was at the Edinburgh TTniversity, which is in the county of Lothian. An Epistle. Page 83. Sur Thomas Hanmer (born 1676, died 1746) was speaker of the House of Commons dur- ing the last parliament of Queen Anne, " Hanmer, whose eloquence the unbiassed sways," was the panegyric of Gay, in his pleasing congratulation of Pope upon completing his translation of the Hiad. Page 84, line 5 The (Edipus of Sophocles. Page 84, line 19. — Julius II., immediate predecessor of Leo X. Page 85, line 13. — Then: characters are thus distinguished by Mr. Dryden. — Collins. Page 85, line 17. About the time of Shakspeare, the poet Hardy was in great repute in Prance. He wrote, according to Pontenelle, six hundred plays. The Trench poets after him applied themselves, in general, to the correct improvement of the stage, which was almost totally disregarded by those of our own country, Jonson excepted. — Collins. Page 85, line 21. — Lucan — The favorite author of the elder Comeille. Page 86, line 7. " Turno tempus erifc, magno cum optaverit emptum Intactum Pallanta," etc. — Firg. Page 87, line 5. — See the tragedy of Julius Caesar. ^ Pa*ge 87, Une 11. Coriolanus. See Mr. Spence's " Dialogue on the Odyssey." — Collins. To Miss AtTRBLiA h. Page 90. " This is the earliest composition of GoUlns that has reached us. It was printed in the Gentleman''a Magazine, January, 1739, with the signature of ' Amasius.' It is, how- ever, not improbable that he was the author of a poem on the ' Royal Nuptials,' which was published by the same bookseller who afterwards sent forth the Eclogues. Mr. Dyce sought a copy in vain. Collins was then in his fourteenth year." — WHlmott. Sdnmet. Page 91. Collins wrote this Sonnet at Winchester College, and it appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine^ October, 1739, accompanied by the "Sappho's Advice" of J. "Wartoti, and the " Beauty and Innocence " ofTomkyns. Song. Page 91. " When this Song was written, or in what publication it originaJly appeared, I am unable to inform the reader. Mr. Park (who inserts it on an additional leaf) observes to me that he has now forgotten on what authority he gave it as the production of Collins, but that he must have been satisfied of its genuineness at the time he reprinted it." — Dyce. POETICAL WORKS THOMAS GRAY, CONTENTS. Pnge MEMOIR, 3 POEMS, 25 Odes. I. On the Spring, 25 II. On the Death of a Favorite Cat, 27 III. On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 28 Hymn to Adversity, 32 The Progress of Poesy, 34 The Bard, 38 Ode for Music, 43 The Eatal Sisters, 47 The Tegtam's Kivitha, 49 The Triumphs of Owen, 53 The Death of Hoel, 54 Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard Weat, 56 Epitaph on Mrs. Jane Clerke, 56 Epitaph on Sir William Williams, 57 Elegy written in a Country Church-yard, 58 A Long Story, .62 Posthumous Poems and Fragments. Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitudes, 68 Translation of a Passage from Statius, .... 71 Fragment of the Tragedy of Agrippina, ... 74 Hymn to Ignorance, 81 The Alliance of Education and Government, 82 Stanzas to Mr. Bentley, 86 Sketch of His Own Character, 87 Amatory Lines, 8S Song, 88 Tophet, 89 Impromptu, 89 The Candidate : or, the Camhridge Courtship, 90 Impromptu, . . . . .91 II CONTENTS. Pngo Extracts. Propertius, Lib. III. Bleg. V. v. 19, 92 Propertius, Lib. II. Eleg. I. v. 17, ' • • ^ Tasflo Qerus. Lib. Cant. XIV. St. 32, 96 POBUATA. Hymeneal on the Marriage of His Royal Highness the Prince of "Wales, . . 99 Luna Habitabilis, . . 101 Sapphic Ode : to Mr. West, l&l Alcaic Eragmentj 106 Latin Lines addressed to Mr. West, firom Genoa, 106 Elegiac Verses, 107 Carmen Ad C. Favonium Zephyrinum, 107 Fragment of a Latin Poem on the Gaums, 108 A Farewell to Florence, HO Imitation of an Italian Sonnet of SigniorAbbateBuondehnonte, Ill Alcaic Ode, HI Part of an Heroic Epistle from Sophonisba to Masinissa, 112 De Principlis Cogitandi, 11^ liber Quartus, 121 Greek Epigram, 122 Tbanslations and Imitations. Petrarca Part I. Sonetto 170, 123 From the " Anthologia Graeca," 124 APPENDIX. The Characters of Christ-Cross Bow, 127 Epigram on Dr. Keene, 130 Epitaph on Dr. Keene, 130 Extempore Epitaph, 130 Impromptu, 130 NOTES, 13] LIFE OF GRAY. Thomas Gray, the fifth child of Philip Gray, a money-sorivener, in London, was born in Cornhill, the 26th of December, 1716. The maiden name of his mother was Dorothy Antrobus. Of twelve children, he was the only one who survived ; the rest dying in their infancy from suffocation, produced by fulness of blood. The poet would have shared their fate, but for the courage and firmness of the mother in opening a vein with her own hand. This was not her only claim to his affection, for she supported him from the proceeds of her own industry, both at Eton and Cambridge ; the father not only refusing all assistance, but neglecting and abusing his family to an extent not at all consistent with the character of a " respectable citizen," ascribed to him by one of the poet's biographers. His unkindnesa bound the son and mother more closely together, and we can readily believe that after her death he never mentioned her name without a sigh, and deemed it, as he records in her epitaph, a mis- fortune to survive her. At the age of thirteen he was sent to Eton, where one of his maternal uncles was an usher. We learn from Horace Walpole that hi§ relative took prodigious pains with him, which "answered exceed- ingly." He was then a handsome boy with fine hair and good com- plexion ; a pretty good scholar, with love enough for Virgil to read him in his play-hours for entertainment. Here his most intimate friends were Horace Walpole, and a more congenial spirit, Richard West. The latter was a grandson of the celebrated Bishop Burnet. He was a youth of uncommon promise, and was thought to exhibit 4 LIFE OF GRAY. more brilliant talents than Gray ; but the most affectionate relations existed between them, which were disturbed by no jealousies. Wal- pole often asserted that " Gray was neyer a boy," in allusion to Ilia feminine manners, which led his school-fellows to call him Miss Gray. Of his boyish days we know literally nothing, though we are told that his juvenile letters were full of wit and humor. The uncle who superintended his education at Eton was a fellow of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, to which place Gray removed, and was admitted a pensioner in the year 1734 ; when Walpole went to King's College, in the same universily, and West to Christ Church, at Oxford. Neither the studies nor the amusements of Cambridge were much to Gray's taste, for he found no pleasure in hard drink- ing or the mathematics. He became awar^ too, that he had nerves, and was subject to low spirits ; bad signs in a youth, and partly to be ascribed, perhaps, to a fancy of his uncle for teaching him the " virtues of simples," which had led to a habit of self-doctoring even worse than the perpetual recourse to a physician. Gray was at this early period a victim to the gloomy disposition inherited from his father. He found no resources out of his books in a place which waa to him what Oxford was to his friend West, " a strange country, inhabited by things that call themselves doctors and masters of arts ; a country flovring with syllogisms and ale, where Horace and Virgil are equally unknown." His life was monotonous and cheerless. " When you have seen one of my days," he wrote at this time, " you have seen a whole year of my life ; they go round and round, like the blind horse in the mill, only he has the satisfaction of fancying he makes a progress and gets some ground ; my eyes are open enough to see the same dull prospect, and to know that, having made four- and-twenty steps jnore, I shall be just where I was." He wrote, during this period, letters to his friends so fuU of humor and elegance that we may well regret we have not more of them ; clever trans- lations from the classics, and Latin verses of various merit, which continue to be republished, as proof of his accomplished scholarship, and from the desire to preserve everything from his classical pen. It is said to have been his first ambition to excel in Latin poetry ; but it was bitter irony in Dr. Johnson to say, " Perhaps it were rea- sonable to wish that he had prosecuted his design." We are not aware that a poem has ever been written in any other than the mother LIFE OF GKAY. 5 tongue of an author which possesses interest except as a literary curiosity. Gray left Cambridge in September, 1738, and lived at his father's house in London till the month of March following, when Horace Walpole invited him to become the companion of his continental travels. In letters to his family and to West we have an interesting though imperfect account of this tour. They travelled through France, crossed the Alps, visited the principal towns of Italy, and passed the winter in Florence, where they returned, after some short excursions, and remained for eleven months, during which Gray began the composition of his Latin poem, " De Principiis Cogitandi." In April, 1741, Gray set off with Walpole for Keggio, where they had a violent quarrel, and parted company. The fault of this .out- break was not with Gray. Walpole attributed it to the difference of their tastes and pursuits. "I had just broke loose from the restraint of the university, with as much money as I could spend ; and I was willing to indulge myself. Gray was for antiquities, &c. , whilst I was for perpetual balls and plays ; the fault was mine." In a letter to Mr. Bentley, some years afterwards, Walpole says: "I was accustomed to flattery enough when my father was minister : at his fall I lost it all at once : and since that I have lived with Mr. Chute, who is all vehemence ; with Mr. Fox, who is aU disputation ; with Sir C. Williams, who has no time from flattery, himself; and with Gray, who does not hate to find f emit with me." Whatever was the cause of this quarrel, it was more serious than Walpole was will- ing to confess. Isaac Reed states, on the information of a gentleman likely to be well informed, that his offence was clandestinely opening a letter of Gray's, from a suspicion that his companion spoke iU of him in his correspondence. It is difficult to believe this even of a person like Walpole ; but it is certain that Gray regarded the cause of quarrel as one that forbade entire reconciliation. An interview took place between them, four years afterwards, at Strawberry Hill, when Gray emphatically declared that, while he was willing that civility should be restored, it must be understood that their friendship was totally cancelled. A letter which he addressed to Mr. Wharton immediately after the meeting affords further proof that he received the advances with coldness. " I went to see the party (as Mrs. Foi- ble says) , and was something abashed at his confidence : he came to 10 y LIFE OF GRAY. meet me, kissed me on both sides with all the ease of one who receiyea an acquaintance just come out of the country, squatted me into a fauteuil, began to talk of the town, and. this, and that, and t' other, and continued, with little interruption, for three hours, when I took my leave very indifferently pleased, ^ut treated with monstrous good breeding." Two days afterwards they breakfasted together, "when," says the poet, " we had all the idaircissement I ever expected, and I left him far better satisfied than I have been hitherto." "When the quarrel took place, Gray immediately returned to Venice, and retraced his steps to England nearly by the same route through France which he had travelled before. In November, two months after his arrival in London, his father died of gout in the stomach ; and his mother, with means much impaired by her husband's folly, retired with a maiden sister to the house of another sister, Mrs. Rogers, at Stoke, near "Windsor. At the time of going abroad, Gray intended to enter the Temple, and prepare himself for the practice of the law. This pursuit was but little adapted to his tastes and temperament. He now easily persuaded himself that his patrimony was insufficient to bear the charges of a long apprenticeship, and abandoned without reluctance all thoughts of the profession. On his return to England, Gray found Mr. "^est rapidly declining in health, and oppressed by family misfortunes. He was in the habit of communicating aU his compositions to his friend, and now sent him a part of the tragedy of Agrippina. West objected to the length of Agrlppina's speech, which Gray himself thought so long that the tragedy, if ever finished, would be in the nature of Nat. Lee's Bedlam tragedy, which had twenty-five acts and some odd scenes. Mr. Mason tells us, with great ndiveii, that he has obviated this objection by putting part of the speech into the mouth of Aceronia, and breaking it in a few other places. It was originally, he says, too long for the lungs of any actress ; and, he might have added, for the patience of any audience. "West's criticism discouraged Gray, and he laid Agrippina " up to sleep " till next summer. There is no reason to regret that her sleep was never disturbed. Four years afterwards, he tried "Walpole with the same specimens, and was gratified with the compliments he received for them. " I had a mind," he wi'ites, "to send you theromainderof Agrippina, that was lost in a wilderness of papers. Certainly you do her too much honor ; LIFE OF GRAY. T she seemed to me to talk like an old boy, all in figures and mere poetry, instead of nature and the language of real paasion." There is more merit in Gray's criticism of it than in the specimens extant of the tragedy. Walpole seems to have been as frank in his mode of treating the matter as West, for Gray wrote him soon afterwards : " Agrippina can stay very well, she thanks you, and be damned at leisure : I hope you have not mentioned, or showed to anybody, that scene (for, trusting in its badness, I forgot to caution you concerning it) ; but I heard, the other day, that I was writing a play, and was told the name of it, which nobody here could know, I am sure." It is fortunate that the tragedy was thus arrested. Dr. Johnson says that it was certainly no loss to the English stage that Agrifpina was never finished. This is almost the only judgment of the literary Goliath on Gray's writings in which we can concur. It must be confessed, however, that the specimens we have of it give us reason to believe that Agrippina, completed as begun, would have proved of as little interest for the stage or the closet as the Doctor's ovra Irene. Gray now- devoted himself to the study of the ancient authors. He read the Greek historians and poets, and in pursuing his Italian studies cultivated Petrarch. He translated and wrote Latin epistles and Greek epigrams. These he continued to send to his friend West, and to him also, when Gray was on a visit to his family at Stoke, in 1742, he sent his Ode to Spring, which was written there, but which did not reach Hertfordshire till after the death of his beloved friend. The letter enclosing it was returned unopened. West's loss was never supplied. Gray had attached friends in after life, but none for whom he seems to have cherished so warm and confiding a friendship. During this visit to Stoke, the muse of Gray was "in flower." In the autumn of that year he composed the Ode on the Distant Prospect of Eton College, and the Hymn to Adversity ; and ]\Iason ascribes to this period the greater part of the Elegy written in a Country Church-yard. His relatives being desirous that he should fulfil his original intention of pursuing a profession, he had compro- mised the matter by taking a degree of bachelor of civil law, and fixing his residence at Cambridge. Here he pursued his classical studies so assiduously, that in six years he had gone through nearly the whole range of Greek authors, with a digest of their contents, and a run- LIFE OE GRAY. ning commentary, to say nothing of a chronological table which he compiled with a vast expenditure of labor. A number of his critical commonplace books are preserved in the library of Pembroke Col- lege ; and many others exist, shovring very minute erudition, and all written in a very delicate penmanship. On the margins of bis clas- sical books he inserted' various critical notices and many conjectural emendations. In 1747 he thus reports progress : " I have read Pau- sanias and Athenaeus all through, and .fflschylus again. I am now in Pindar and Lysias ; for I take verse and prose together, like bread and cheese." He gave much attention to Strabo and geography. Thucydides he thought the model of history, and the Retreat before Syracuse among the choicest pieces of writing in the world. Of Aristotle he said, that he was the hardest author he ever meddled with ; tliat he had a dry conciseness, which rather resembled a table of contents than a book, and, to crown all, an abundance of fine, uncommon things, which were worth the trouble it cost to get at them. He had the highest admiration of Socrates ; and ranked the Memorabilia of Xenophon among the most valuable works on moral- ity. But his favorite author was Plato. "What he admired in him," he said, in conversation, " was, not his mystic doctrines, wliich he did not pretend to understand, nor his sophistry, but his excellent sense, sublime morality, elegant style, and the perfect dramatic propriety of his dialogues." More than four years thus rolled on, after his flowering season at Stoke, which produced no fruit of his studies, unless the satirical fragment which Mason has entitled a Hymn to Ignorance may be referred to this period. It was probably written soon after his return to Cambridge. By the autumn of 1747 he was ready to venture before the public with the Ode to Eton College, which was published in folio by Dodsley. It wasT;he first English production of Gray that appeared in print ; and we are told, in Joseph Warton's Es- say on Pope, that it attracted little notice. It was also published in Dodsley 's Collection, with the verses which have been dignified with the style of Ode, but which Gray mentions, in a letter to Dr. Whar- ton, as " a Pome on the Uncommon Death of Mr. Walpole's Oat." In the same collection the .Ode to Spring was published with the simple title of Ode. It was two or three years previous to this time that Gray made LIFE OF GEAY. a the acquaintance of Mr. Mason, then a bachelor scholar of St. John's, and subsequently elected to a vacant fellowship at Pembroke through the influence of the poet and Dr. Heberden. Mason was devoted and deferential to Gray during his lifetime, and became his literary eiec- utor and biographer ; but he was artificial and conceited, and repaid Gray's confidence by mutilating his correspondence, and " complet- ing " one of his unfinished poems. The latter, being an open offence, was comparatively venial ; but there can be no apology for the liber- ties taken by Mr. Mason with the poet's letters. Mr. Mitford asserts, and furnishes abundant proof, that " there is scarcely a genuine letter of Gray in the whole of Mason's work." Besides Mason, the intimate friends of Gray in his riper years were Dr. Wharton, Mr. Chute, Mr. Brown (the president of Pembroke Col- lege) , Mr. Stonhewer, and the Rev. Mr. Nicholls. In the August of 1748, Gray " fills up " a letter to Dr. "Wharton with " the beginning of a sort of an essay." " What name to give to it," he adds, " I know not ; but the subject is the alliance of educa- tion and government. I mean to show that they must necessarily concur, to produce great and useful men." He asked his friend's judgment on it, and begged him to show the fragment to no one, except Stonhewer, who had seen it already. It always remained a, fragment. Gibbon calls it an exquisite specimen of a philosophic poem ; and Dr. Johnson admits that it has many excellent lines. Gray was the best judge of his own powers, and probably did not think it worth while to provoke a comparison with Pope in that style of composition where he is still without a rival. The thesis which Gray proposed to himself might, perhaps, be better worked out in prose ; and we would not part with one of his odes for all the philo- sophical essays in rhyme that he could have written in a lifetime. We are inclined to think that Gray gave the true reason for not fin- ishing the poem, when he told his friend, Mr. Nicholls, that " he could not." This he explained by adding that, being used to write only lyrical poems, he accustomed himself and was able to polish every part ; but that the labor of this in a long poem would be intolerable. In June, 1750, from Stoke, where he had written the greater part of the "Elegy," eight years before. Gray sent it in a finished state to Walpole. "I have been here at Stoke a few days, ".he says, 10* 10 LIFE OF SEAY. '' where I shall continue a good part of the summer ; and, having put an end to a thing whose beginning you have seen long ago, I ' immediately send it you. You will, I hope, look upon it in the light of a thing with an end to it ; a merit that most of my writings have wanted, and are like to want." It was handed about in manu- script by Walpole, and was received with great favor. Copies were taken, and one of them at last fell into the hands of" certain gen- tlemen " who were conductors of the Magazine of Magazines. They wrote to the fastidious scholar, informing him that his " ingenious poem ' ' was about to be printed under their auspices, for which they beg his indulgence, and the honor of his correspondence. Gray, was horrified at the idea of such a connection, and entreated Walpole to " make Dodsley print it immediately," " which may be done," he adds in a parenthesis, " in'less than a week's time." He gives special charge that it should be printed without his name, but on the book- seller's best paper and character. " He must correct the press him- self, and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them ; and the title must be, Elegy written in a Country Church-yard. If he would add a line or two, to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better. If you behold the Magazine of Magazines in the light that I do, you will not refuse, to give yourself this trouble on my account, which you have taken of your own accord before now. If Dodsley do not do this immediately, he may as well let it alone." The elegy was received with delight, and soon ran through eleven editions. Gray was surprised at its popularity. " It spread," said Mr. Mason, in his Life of Whitehead, " at first, on account of the affecting and. pensive cast of the subject, just like Hervey's Medita- tions on the Tombs. Soon after its publication, I remember sitting with Mr. Gray in his college apartment ; he expressed to me his sur- prise at the rapidity of its sale. I replied, ' Sunt lacrymaj rcrum, et mentem inortalia tangunt.' He paused a while, and, taking his pen, vrrote the line on a printed copy of it lying on his table. ' This,' said he, ' shall be its future motto.' ' Pity,' cried I, ' that Dr. Young's Night Thoughts have preoccupied it.' ' So,' replied he, ' indeed it is.' " The elegy proved to be no loss popular with scholars thau with the LIFE 01" GRAY. 11 multitude, and became a favorite subject for the exercise of skill and ingenuity in translation. Many Latin versions of it have appeared, among vrhich may be mentioned those of Christopher Anstey and Gilbert Wakefield. It has been translated into Greek by sundry bishops and professors ; and into Hebrev? by G. Venturi, the cele- brated Italian Orientalist. There were many French translations of it forty years ago ; and others besides Chateaubriand have since added to the number. Boulard rendered it in the Portuguese tongue. Half-a-dozen German poets have naturalized it in their own language, and twice as many Italians have turned it into verse or prose. Poly- glott editions have been issued in Italy as well as in England — Van Voorst's in London, and Torri's in Verona and Livorno. It gave birth, also, to a swarm of imitations, one of which was composed by the adventurous Mason, as a daylight companion-piece to the evening scene. It is related that the night before the ' capture of Quebec, as^ the British troops were drifting in darkness and silence down the St. Lawrence, Wolfe repeated this elegy to his companions. On con- cluding its recitation, he exclaimed, " Now, gentlemen, I would prefer being the, author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to-morrow ! " Such was the impression Gray produced when he handled subjects that touched the feelings and passions of men. Even Dr. Johnson was compelled to " concur with the common reader " in regard to the character of the elegy. Nor should we omit to mention that a great statesman of our own country, — Mr. Webster, — when upon his death-bed, called upon his son to read him the elegy of Gray, and derived consolation and pleasure from its familiar stanzas. There has been much diversity of opinion as to the locality described in the elegy. One tradition assigns the precincts of the church of Gran Chester, about two miles from Cambridge ; and the curfew is supposed to have been the great bell of St. Mary's. Jacob Bryant says that when Gray visited Stoke House, on returning, late in the evening, he was obliged to pass by the church-yard, which was almost close to the house, and that he would sometimes deviate into it and spend a few melancholy moments. There it was, he says, that the elegy was certainly conceived, and that many of the stanzas were composed. The Earl of Carlisle, in his lecture on Gray, leans 12 LIFE OF GRAY. decidedly to this opinion. Though the claim of the ohurch-yard of Stoke Pogeis to be the actual scene of the elegy is disputed with a neighboring .village, " I cannot question," he says, " that the one ■which was nearest to his place of residence, answering adequately as it does to all the touches in his description, and which has since received his mother's remains and his own, was the real theatre of inspiration." As a proof of the undiminished interest which still attaches to it, we may mention that at a sale in London, in 1845, of books and man- uscripts which had belonged to the poet, a copy of the elegy in his own hand-writing, upon two small half-sheets of paper, in a muti- lated condition, was sold for one hundred pounds sterling. It was purchased by Mr. Perm, of Stoke Pogeis, though he had Eton Col- lege for a competitor. The same gentleman bought a large portion of the collection, which he offered for sale again at auction in London in August, 1854, when the elegy brought an advance of thirty- one pounds on its previous price. Gray's poetical reputation had attracted the attention of Lady Cobham, who occupied the mansion-house at Stoke Pogeis, in his neighborhood, and led to one of the few friendships which Gray seems to have cultivated with the other sex. Desirous of making his acquaintance, her ladyship one morning despatched two friends who were visiting her to make a call upon the poet. These were Lady Schaub and Miss Harriot Speed, both persons of no little wit and vivacity. Not finding him at home, they entered the house, called for ink and paper, and left an invitation for him from Lady Cobham to dine with her the next day. He accepted the invitation ; and this incident was not only the origin of " The Long Story," but of a very agreeable acquaintance. Prom this time, when he was in the country Gray was continually at Stoke House. Miss Speed afterwards mar- ried Count Very, of Savoy ; and we are indebted to her not merely for this humorous effort, but for Gray's only love-song, which was written at her request. Gray used to say that the Long Story was never intended for the public, and was only suffered to appear in " that pompous edition " of Dodaley's because of Mr. Bentley's designs, which were not intelligible without it. At the suggestion of Walpole, Mr. Bentley, the son of the " slash- ing doctor," employed his pencil in the illustration of Gray's poems. LIFE OF GRAY. 13 which at that time consisted of four little odea, the Elegy, and the Long Story. With his keen sensitiveness to ridicule, Gray was afraid that he might seem to give too much importance to these pieces by publishing them with designs in illustration, and he therefore insisted that- the title of " Poems " should be dropped, and that the book should be styled " Designs by Mr. R. Bentley for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray." On this point he was very solicitous, and one of his most characteristic letters was written to Dodsley in regard to it. He was willing that his plain Christian and surname should appear, without a Mr. before them, though this was bad enough ; but he would not give up the question of the title, which was finally arranged as he desired. In connection with this volume, he narrowly escaped a shock that would have been more serious than the surreptitious appearance of the elegy, or than seeing his plain name without the Mr. He learned that his portrait had been engraved for the frontispiece. He was horror-struck. " Sure you are not out of your wits ! " he wrote to Walpole. " This I know, if you suffer my head to be printed, you will infallibly put me out of mine. I conjure you immediately to put a stop to any such design. Who is at the expense of engraving, I know not ; but if it be Dodsley, I will make up the loss to him. The thing as it was, I know, will make me ridiculous enough ; but, to appear in proper person at the head of my works, consisting of half-a-dozen ballads in thirty pages, would be worse than the pillory. I do assure you, if I had received such a book, with such a frontis- piece, without any warning, I believe it would have given me a palsy." The volume made a quarto of four-and-thirty pages ; thin enough, though the paper was nearly as thick as pasteboard, and printed only on one side. This was probably for the sake of the engravings, but Dr. Johnson says it was that the poems might, in some form or other, make a book. The designs are as grotesque and tasteless as can well be imagined. Cumberland, in his memoirs, speaks the truth for once at least, when he says that the artist had " completely libelled both his poet and his patron " in these etchings ; for grosser libels on the taste of both their worst enemy could hardly have invented. And yfit Gray, with all his fastidiousness, was pleased 14 LIFE OF GRAY. with them, and addressed some complimentary verses to Mr. Bentley on his success. A proof of one of these engravings, which represented a village funeral, wag sent to Gray at Stoke. His aunts saw him taking it from a letter, and; supposing it to be a burying-ticket, asked him if anybody had left him a ring. " Heaven forbid," he said, " they should suspect it to belong to any verses of mine ; they would bum me for a poet." At this time his mother was ill in bed, and, in March, 1753, she died, " after a long and painful struggle for life," at the age of sixty-seven. The poet placed over her remains an inscription which aptly expresses his affection and sorrow : BESIDE HER FRIEND AND SISTER, HERE SLEEP THE REMAINS OF 3@otot!)2 eKvaa;. WIDOW, THE CAREFUL, TENDER MOTHER OP MANY CHILDREN, ONE OF WHOM ALONE HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO SURVIVE HER. In December, 1754, Gray completed his ode on " The Progress of Poetry." It was commenced two or three years before, but was arrested by a remark of Mason , who told him that it was not of a nature to suit the public taste. Whenever Mason afterwards urged him to complete it, he answered, ' ' You have thrown cold water on it. " Indeed, we are informed by Walpole that Mason's cavils "on his two beautiful and sublime odes " almost induced the poet to destroy them. In 1755 the first part of The Bard was communicated to Mr. Stonhewer and Dr. Wharton ; but it remained unfinished for two years, when the accident of hearing a blind Welshman perform on the harp at Cambridge led to its completion. " Odicle " for a long time did not "grow a bit," though it was " fine mild open weather ;" but, under the genial glow which the old harper inspired, it started, flourished, and bloomed, a consummate flower. His friend, Mr. Nicholls, asked him how he felt while composing it. He replied, " Why, I felt myself the bard." In 1756 Gray left Peter-house, where he had resided above twenty years ; and this he says was an " era in a life so barren of events." The apartments adjoining his own were occupied by riotous under- graduates. Gray was very apprehensive of fire ; and we find him LIFE OF GRAY. 15 requesting Dr. Wharton to bespeak for him a rope-ladder, thirty feet long, light and manageable, " easy to unroll, and not likely to entangle ; " and this he kept by him, affited to two iron bars, which he placed there for the purpose, and which are still shown at the window of the chamber he occupied. The story got wind, and some of the collegians were determined to " have him out," and observe the practical working of the machine. They raised the cry of " Fire," one morning, and brought Gray to the window in a " deli- cate white night-cap ; " but, finding it a false alarm, he returned to his couch. Gray was not so much amused at this practical joke as the reverend gentleman seems to have been who records it, and he made complaint to the college authorities. They treated it as a " boyish frolic ; " and the poet, indignant that his remonstrance was disregarded, removed to Pembroke College, where his principal friends resided. Here, some years afterwards, the chambers opposite his own were burned ; and, in describing the occurrence, he says, " I assure you, it is not amusing to be waked between two and three in the morning, and to hear, ' Don't be frightened, sir, but the college is all of a fire.' " In July, 1757, Gray went to London with his two great odes, and sold them to Dodsley for forty guineas ; the poet's receipt for which is no w in the possession of Mr. Samuel Rogers. Walpole was on the alert, however, and " snatched them out of Dodsley's hands," that they might be the first fruits of his press at Strawberry Hill, where an edition was printed of one thousand copies. These were speedily sold ;. but the odes. Dr. Wharton tells us, were not liked by twenty persons in England. Garrick called them the best in our own or any other language. Shenstone and Lyttleton admired, but wished they were clearer. Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, thought that Edward I. would not have understood the song on a single hearing. When this was told to Gray, he said, " If he had recited it twenty times, Edward would not have been a bit wiser ; but that was no rea- son why Mr. Fox should not." Owen Cambridge told Walpole that Lord Chesterfield heard one Stanley read the odes, and thought he was the author. Walpole suggested that his lordship's deafness probably led him in^o the mistake. " Perhaps," rejoined Cam- bridge, " they are Stanley's, and, not oaring to own them, he gave them to Gray." Lord Barringtou believed that the last stanza of KJ LIFE OP GRAY. The Bard related to Charles I. and Oliver Cromwell. " Mr. Bed- clington," the poet wrote to Dr. Wharton, " in a golden shower of panegyric, writes me word that, at York Races, he overheard three people, whom by their dress and manner he takes for lords, say that I was impenetrable and inexplicable, and they wished I had told them in prose what I meant in verse ; and then they bought me (which was what most displeased him) and put me in their pocket. Dr. Warburton is come to town, and likes them extremely. He says the world never passed so just an opinion upon anything as upon them ; for that in other things they have affected to like or dislike, whereas here they own they do not understand, which he looks upon to be very true ; but yet thinks they understand them as well as they do Milton or Shakspeare, whom they are obliged by fashion to admire. Mr. Garrick's compliment you have seen ; I am told it was printed in the Chronicle of last Saturday. The Review I have read, and admire it, particularly that observation that The Bard is taken from Pastor cum traheret. And the advice, to be more original, and in order to be so the way is (he says) to cultivate the native flowers of the soil, and not introduce the exotics of another climate." The critique at which Gray sneers was written by an obscure adventurer in London, performing task-work in the service of R. Grif- fiths, in Paternoster Row, the publisher of The Monthly Review, or Literary Journal, conducted, as we learn from the title-page, " by several hands." One of these hands was Goldsmith, then and for some years afterwards far removed from any circle where he could by chance become acquainted with the friend of Horace "Walpole, the learned scholar of Pembroke Hall. But his works he regarded in no ungenial or ungentle spirit ; and we know of nothing ever written on Gray's poetry more philosophical, more true, or more sincere, than the article to which we refer. Not that Gray could, under any circumstances, have profited by its advice, for you cannot train a sensitive plant to become a pine-tree ; but it points out Gray's real weakness, and shows why he failed to become as popular as he became eminent. It is now nearly one hundred years since, Griffiths handed the handsome shilling quarto from Strawberry Hill, with Dodsley's imprint, and the title, " Odes,by_Mr. Gray," to his literary appren- tice. Goldsmith was prompt in attending to them. The odes LIFE OF OEAY. 17 appeared in August, and the review in the following month. If to be " early " was to be " kind," Goldsmith certainly was not disposed to be unfriendly ; but he was obliged to temper his praise with sug- gestions which were not agreeable to the poet. " As this publication," says Goldsmith, " seems designed for those who have formed their tastes by the models of antiquity, the general- ity of readers cannot be supposed adequate judges of its merit ; nor will the poet, it is presumed, be greatly disappointed if he finds them backward in commending a performance not entirely suited to their apprehensions. We cannot, however, without some regret, behold those talents, so capable of giving pleasure to all, exerted in efforts that, at best, can amuse only the few ; we cannot behold this rising poet seeking fame among the learned, without hinting to him the same advice that Isocrates used to give his scholars. Study the people. This study it is that has conducted the great masters of antiquity up to immortality. Pindar himself, of whom our modern lyrist is an imitator, appears entirely guided by it. He adapted his works exactly to the dispositions of his countrymen. Irregular, enthusi- astic, and quick in transition, he wrote for a people inconstant, of warm imaginations, and exquisite sensibility. He chose the most popular subjects, and all his allusions are to customs well known, in his days, to the meanest person." " It is, by no means, our design," he adds, after showing how ill suited are Pindaric imitations to the English character, "to detract from the merit of our author's present attempt ; we would only inti- mate that an English poet, one whom the Muse has marked for her own, could produce a more luxuriant bloom of flowers by cultivating such as are natives of the soil, than by endeavoring to force the exotics of another climate ; or, to speak without a metaphor, such a genius as Gray might give greater pleasure, and acquire a larger portion of fame, if, instead of being an imitator, he did justice to his talents, and ventured to be more original." Goldsmith awards the pabn of merit to the second of the odes. The Bard, which he thinks likely to give as much pleasure to those who relish this style of com- position as the odes of Drydeu himself. After Goldsmith became famous himself, and looked upon Gray more in the light of a rival, he regarded his poetry with less favor. Mr. Cradock mentions, in his memoirs, that he once said to him, " You are so attached to Hurd, 11 18 LIFE OF GRAY. Gray and Mason, that you think nothing good'can proceed but out of that formal school. Now, I '11 mend Gray's Elegy by leaving out an idle word in every line." About three years after the publication of the odes, the parodies by Colmau the elder and Robert Lloyd appeared, addressed " To Obscurity," and " To Oblivion ;" the latter aimed at Mason, and the first at Gray. They vrere laughed at for a day, and are forgotten, though Southey says they are " among the very best of their kind." The poet vras amused by them, and sent a copy of the quarto pam- phlet to Mason, as containing a " bloody satire against no less persons than you and Zby name." The parodies were attributed to Colman, and Gray says, " What have you done to him? for I never heard his name before. He makes very tolerable fun with me where I under- stand him (which is not everywhere) ; but seems more angry with you. Lest people should not understand the humor of the thing (which indeed to do they must have our lyricisms'at their finger- ends), letters came out in Lloyd's Evening Post, to tell them who and what it was that he meant, and says it is like to produce a great combustion in the literary world. So, if you have any mind to com- bustle about it, well and good ; for me, I am neither so literary por so combustible." At the close of 1757, the laureateship became vacant by the death of Gibber, and it was offered to Gray, vrith the intimation that he would not be called on for the customary odes. Looking upon this profiered honor in the light in which -it was subsequently regarded by Walter Scott, he declined it without hesitation. Even as a sinecure Gray would not accept it. "Though I very well know," he wrote to Mason, " the bland emollient saponaceous qualities both of sack and silver, yet, if any great man would say to me, ' I make you rat- catcher to his majesty, with: a salary of three hundred pounds a year and two butts of the best Malaga ; and, though it has been usual to catch a mouse or two for form's sake, in public, once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall not stand upon these things,' I cannot say that I should jump at it ; nay, if they would drop the very name of the office, and call me Sinecure to the King's Majesty, I should still feel a little awkward, and think everybody I saw smelt a rat about me." After the loss of his mother. Gray spent the greater part of his summer vacations in the country : during which he visited the old LIFE OF GKAY. 19 houses, cathedrals, tombs, and other objects of interest to the anti- quaiy in England and Wales, and made a catalogue of them on the blank pages of Kitchen's English Atlas. He was interested, also, in genealogical researches ; and, in his copy of Dugdale's Origines, he filled in and described in the margin the arms of all the families mentioned. "When the British Museum was opened to the public, in 1759, Gray went to London, and lived for nearly three years in the neighborhood, reading and transcribing historical documents with the diligence of a copying clerk. A folio volume of these transcripts was in Mason's hands, but they seem to have been made to little or no purpose. When tired of this aimless toil, Gray turned to natural history, and made notes in an interleaved Linnaeus, with Latin descriptions of the living things and plants he met with in his tours. He watched the weather and the progress of the seasons, and devoured travels and novels, and commenced a history of English poetry, which was abandoned before it was fairly begun. While in London at this time he lodged in Southampton Row, then command- ing a view of the country ; but in general he took rooms, at half-a- guinea a week, with Roberts the hosier, or Prisby the oilman, in Jermyn-street, receiving his dinners from a neighboring coffee-house. In 1762 the professorship of modern histtiry became vacant, and, through a friend, Gray applied for it, but was refused ; and " so I have made my fortune," he said, "like Sir Francis Wrpnghead." Three years afterwards, he made a journey into Scotland, where he became acquainted with Dr. Beattie, and, at his desire, authorized Foulis, of Glasgow, to publish an edition of his poems at the same time Dodsley was printing them in London. Tn both editions The Long Story was omitted, as the plates from Bontley's designs were worn out, and Gray said that " its only use, which was to explain the plates, was gone." The translations from the Welsh and Nor- wegian were substituted ; and to his odes Gray now consented to add some notes, " partly," he says, " from justice to acknowledge the debt when I had borrowed anything : partly from iU temper, just to tell the gentle reader that Edward the First was not Oliver Crom- well, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor." In 1768 the professorship he had sought in vain six years pre- viously became again vacant, and was bestowed on him, without solic- itation, by the Duke of Grafton. When the duke was, the next year, 20 LIFE OF GRAY. elected to the chancellorship of the university, Gray wrote for his installation the oelehrated Ode to Music, which, to the great disap- pointment of Dr. Bumey, was composed, under the poet's direction, by Dr. Randall, then professor of music at Cambridge. This ceremony over. Gray went on a tour to the lakes of Cumber- land and "Westmoreland, which is described in a series of letters to his friend Dr. Wharton, who was prevented, by sickness, from being the companion of his journey. In the winter of 1769, through the introduction of his intimate friend, Mr. NichoUs, of Blundeston, Gray made the acquaintance of Victor de Bonstetten, a young Swiss, then on his travels, and an affectionate intimacy soon grew up between them. They read the English poets together ; but Bonstetten could never induce him to speak of his own works, or of his past history. On these points he maintained an uniform silence. He became more and more the victim of his inherited maladies. In the autumn of 1770 he made a tour into Wales, the outlines of which he sketched, in the May followiag, in a letter to Dr. Wharton. In this letter he complains of an incurable cough, and of spirits habitually depressed. He now became gloomy and miserable, sometimes without cause, and sometimes from anxiety with regard to the undischarged duties of his professorship. The hours grew longer and heavier to him, and he said that it was more than Herculean toil to push them along. He wished to " annihilate them." But the end was not fiir distant. While sitting at dinner in the college hall, he was seized with an attack of gout in the stomach, and, six days afterwards, on the night of the 30th of July, 1771, he died, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was buried, as he requested in his will, by the side of his mother, in the church-yard of Stoke Pogeis. A small stone, lately inserted in the wall of the church, alone marks the spot. Not far from the church-yard is a cenotaph erected by Mr. Penn to his memory. His monument in Westminster Abbey, erected in 1778, bears the folhiw- ing inscription, from the pen of Mr. Mason : NO WORE THE GRECIAN MUSE UNRIVALLED REIGNS ; TO BRITAIN LET THE NATIONS HOMAGE PAV ; SHE FELT A HOMER's FIRE IN MILTON'S STRAINS, A PINDAR*S RAPTURE IN THE LYRE OF (ErajJ. His executors were Mr. Brown, the president of Pembroke College, LIFE OF GRAY. 21 and Mr. Mason. To the latter- he bequeathed all his hooks and manuscripts, to be disposed of at his discretion. Mr. Mason placed such a liberal interpretation on his trust, that in the publication of the poet's letters he altered them to suit his own views of propriety. These books and manuscripts were bequeathed by Mr. Mason to his curate, Mr. Bright, and by him to his two sons. Through this chan- nel they found their way to auction in London, in 1845, where the sale excited very great interest. His books were generally very ordinary copies, and pretty thoroughly used, but they brought large prices. The poet's Milton was one of Tonson's printing, in two volumes duo- decimo, half-bound, interleaved, and in a very dingy state. It sold for thirty-three pounds. His " Linnsei Systema Naturae," interleaved, with numerous MS. notes, and beautiful .pen-and-ink drawings of birds and insects, brought forty guineas. The most interesting of the manuscripts were purchased by Mr. Penn, of Stoke Pogeis, who, nine years afterwards, exposed them again for sale to the highest bidder. At this re-sale, to which we have already referred, a copy of the Strawberry Hill edition of the odes was sold for twenty-seven pounds and ten shillings. In this copy, Gray had mafked in The Bard the musical time and the directions for the accompaniment. Gray's correspondence with Mason brought at the same sale thirty-one pounds, and a single letter to E. Stonhewer eleven pounds. The manuscript of The Long Story brought twenty-five pounds, and the poet's note-books of his tours twenty-six pounds and ten shillings. Mr. Penn's selection of the MSS. brought four hundred and eighteen pounds and seven shillings. Neither Mr. Mason nor Lord Orford has given us any account of GraJ's person. He is described by the reverend Mr. Cole, in manu- scripts extant in the British Museum, as a man of small person, well put together, and, in his latter days, tending to plumpness. Jacob Bryant says that he was rather below the middle size, and that he had a pleasing countenance, in which there was no extraordinary expression, and therefore no indication of his internal power. Of his face there is no entirely authentic and satisfactory likeness ; but a painting by Richardson, representing him at the age of fifteen years, is the most agreeable picture, and is esteemed the most valuable, from the reputation of the artist. In his person and dress Gray was very nice and exact, even to a 11* 22 LIFE OF GRAY. degree that was considered finical and effeminate. After his return from his travels, he commonly carried a muff, to the no small amuse- ment of the Cambridge students. It is told that he once took it into his head to let his whiskers grow, to counteract the idea of his being less masculine than became the author of The Bard. A wag of the same college bribed one of the scouts to cultivate his whiskers, like- wise ; and, as he was a large, black-looking fellow, he soon left Gray quite in the back-ground, in this regard. This practical ridicule, with a rough joke, perhaps, from other quarters, soon put Gray out of the conceit of his whiskers, and he sacrificed them at the expense of the manly reputation he was seeking to establish. From the best information, we are inclined to believe that he was as much of a dandy, in his way, as Beau Brummel himself. It is said that a stanza in Beattie's Minstrel was revised in consequence of the unde- signed resemblance which it bore to the poet : " Fret not thyself, thou man of modern song, Nor violate the plaster of thy hair. Nor to that dainty, coat do aught of wrong," &e. Such was his dislike of appearing old, that nothing could induce him to wear spectacles ; but, when his sight became impaired, he sometimes carried an eye-glass. His hand- writing was very delicate and elegant, the work of a crow-quill. In his rooms he was as neat and particular as in his person. His chamber-windows were always ornamented with mignonette, and other fragrant herbs and flowers, in elegant China vases. In his manners he was polished, though shy and reserved ; and, in his common intercourse with the world (particularly where he did not take a fancy to his company) , fastidious and affected. If he went to a coffee-house, he would tell the waiter, in a lack-a-daisical tone, to hand him " that silly paper book," meaning the Gentleman^s Magazine, or, sometimes, the Monthly Review. He was never on horseback. ,A11 his life he was remarkably sober and temperate. Horace Walpole said that he was the worst company in the world ; and represents him as dining one day with Lady Ailesbury, when he never opened his lips but once, and then only to say, " Yes, my lady, I believe so." Dr. Beattie mentions that in general company he was much more silent than one could have wished ; and Dr. John- LIFE OF GEAY. 28 son did not hesitate to say that he was a " dull fellow, a very dull fellow." And yet, at times, Gray was not only instructing and fluent in conversation, but pointed and witty. Mr. Oradock, on reliable information, restores to Gray a bon mot that has been attributed to Johnson. A member of the college, particularly obnoxious to the poet, was standing by the fire " in Hall," and observed to him, " Mr. Gray, I have just rode from Newmarket, and was never so cut in my life ; the north-west wind was full in my face." Whereupon Gray, turning to a friend, remarked, " I think in that face the north-west wind would have the worst of it." So, when asked what he thought of Garrick's Jubilee Ode, then just published, he replied, "I am easily pleased." He had more wit than humor. The " sportive effu- aons" jvhich he extemporised in a post-chaise, for the amusement of his friend Dr. Wharton, are suf&ciently " unexhilarating." Par exemple : " Here lies Dr. Keene, tlie good Bishop of Chester, Who eat a fat goose, and eould not digest her.'' He is said to have been perhaps the most learned man of his age, and certainly the most learned poet since Milton. When his friend Mr. Nioholls expressed astonishment at the extent of his reading, he replied, "Why should you be surprised? for I do nothing else." His acquaintance with the classics was minute and profound. We have seen that he was a laborious student of history, genealogy, antiquities, and natural history. He was versed, indeed, more or less, in every branch of knowledge, except mathematics and theology. His taste in prints and paintings was highly cultivated. He played on the harpsichord and pianoforte, and sometimes sang to his own accompaniments, with taste and feeling. His life was always that of a scholar, and only at intervals that of a, poet ; but for his fame he is indebted to half-a-dozen little poems, and not at all to the notes and fragments of criticism and commentary that he left in almost every department of human learning. Though his works are so inconsiderable in number and extent, in spite of the cavils of his contemporaries and the damnatory judgment of Dr. Johnson, Gray now holds an undisputed position in the firs(; rank of English poets. His few little pieces have furnished the text 24 LIFE OF GEAT. for whole volumes of criticism, commentary and annotation. In harmony and power of versification, in. vigor and magnificence of diction, he is admitted to be without a superior. Where he deals with familiar sentiments, he makes them his ovm by his exquisite felicity of expression. Where he appropriates the happy epithets or thoughts of others, he so identifies them with the particular use to which he applies them, that they can never after be severed or suc- cessfully reclaimed. The compass of his thought is as remarkable as the condensation of his language ; and, as his ideas were all distinct and definite, he exhibits them always in vivid and impressive pic- tures. Perhaps he only failed to become the first poet of his country by the necessity which his nature imposed upon liim of becoming the most consummate artist. ^ ODES, I. ON THE SPRING. Lo ! where the rosy-bosomed Hours, Fair Venus' train, appear. Disclose the long-expecting flowers, . And wake the purple year ! The Attic warbler pours her throat, Responsive to the cuckoo's note. The untaught harmony of spring : While, whispering pleasure as they fly. Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky Their gathered fragrance fling. Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader, browner shade. Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er-canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think (At ease reclined in rustic state) How vain the ardor of the crowd. How low, how little are the proud. How indigent the great ! 26 gray's poems. Still is the toiling hand of Care ; The panting herds repose : Yet, hark, how through the peopled air The busy murmur glo;ws ! The insect-youth are on the 'vring, Eager to taste the honeyed spring, And float amid the liquid noon ; Some lightly o'er the current skim, Some show their gayly-gilded trim Quick-glancing to the sun. To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of Man : And they that creep, and they that fly. Shall end where they began. Alike the Busy and the Gay But flutter through life's little day, In Fortune's varying colors drest : Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chilled by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest. Methinks I hear, in accents low. The sportive, kind reply : Poor moralist ! and what art thou 7 A solitary fly ! Thy joys no glittering female meets, No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets. No painted plumage to display : On hasty wings thy youth is flown ; Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone — We frolic while 't is May. ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE CAT. 27 II. ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE OAT, DKOWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD PISHES. 'T WAS on a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flo-wers, that blow ; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive SeUma, reclined. Grazed on the lake below. Her conscious tail her joy declared ; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies. Her ears of jet and emerald eyes. She saw ; and purred applause. Still had she gazed ; but 'midst the tide Two angel forms were seen to glide. The Genii of the stream : Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue Through richest purple to the view Betrayed a golden gleam. The hapless nymph with wonder saw : A whisker first, and then a claw, With many an ardent wish, She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize. What female heart can gold despise. What Cat 's averse to fish 1 Presumptuous maid ! with looks intent Again she stretched, again she bent. 28 gray's poems. Nor knew the gulf between : (Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled) The slippery verge her feet beguiled, She tumbled headlong in. Eight times emerging from the flood. She mewed to every watery god. Some speedy aid to send. No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred : Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard. A favorite has no friend ! From hence, ye beauties, undeceived. Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved. And be with caution bold. Not all that tempts your wandering eyes And heedless hearts is lawful prize, Nor all that glisters gold. III. ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. Menander. Incert. Fragm. ver. 382, ed. CLer. p. 245. Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, That crown the watery glade, Where grateful Science still adores Her Henry's holy shade ; And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights the expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey. Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way : ON A DISTANT PEOSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. 29 Ah, tappy hills ! ah, pleasing shade ! Ah, fields beloved in vain ! Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain ! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow. As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth. To breathe a second spring. Say, father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race. Disporting on thy margent green. The paths of pleasure trace ; Who foremost now delight to cleave, With pliant arm, thy glassy wave ? The captive linnet which enthrall 1 What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed. Or urge the flying ball 1 While some on earnest business bent Their murmuring labors ply 'Grainst graver hours, that bring constraint To sweeten liberty : Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign. And unknown regions dare descry : Still as they run they look behind. They hear a voice in every wind. And snatch a fearful joy. 12 30 gray's poems. Gay Hope is theirs, by Fancy fed, Less pleasing when possest ; The tear forgot as soon -as shed, The sunshine of the breast : Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, Wild wit, invention ever new, And lively cheer, of vigor born ; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly the approach of morn. Alas ! regardless of their doom, The little victims play ; No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond to-day : Yet see, how all around 'em wait The ministers of human fate, And black Misfortune's baleful train ! Ah, show them where in ambush stand, To seize their prey, the murtherous band ! Ah, tell them they are men ! These shall the fury Passions tear. The vultures of the mind. Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that skulks behind ; Or pining Love shall waste their youth. Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth. That inly gnaws the secret heart ; And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged, comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart. ON A DISTANT PROSPECT ■ OF ETON COLLEGE. 31 Ambition this sball tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try. And hard Unkindness' altered eye, That mocks the tear it forced to flow ; And keen Remorse, with blood defiled. And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe. Lo ! in the vale of years beneath A grisly troop are seen, • The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen : This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every laboring sinew strains. Those in the deeper vitals rage : Lo ! Poverty, to fill the band, That numbs the soul with icy hand. And slow-consuming Age. To each his sufferings : all are men. Condemned alike to groan ; The tender for another's pain. The unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah ! why should they know their fate. Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies ? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more ; — where ignorance is bliss, 'T is folly to be wise. 82 gray's poems. HYMN TO ADVERSITY. — Zhva — Tov tpQovetv Sqotqv? odclj- aavTa, Tw nu&et ^ia9av Qivxa xvQitas f;^^"'. JESCH. AGAM. ver. 181. Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast. Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad affright, afflict the best ! Bound in thy adamantine chain. The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, designed, To thee he gave the heavenly birth, And bade to form her infant mind. Stern, rugged nurse ! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore : What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know. And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood. Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe ; By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. HYMN TO ADVERSITY. 33 Wisdom in sable garb arrayed, Immersed in rapturous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid. With leaden eye that loves the ground. Still on thy solemn steps attend : Warm Charity, the general friend, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. ! gently on thy suppliant's head. Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand ! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad. Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thundering voice, and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry. Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: Thy form benign, goddess, wear. Thy milder influence impart. Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound, my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive. Exact my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. 12* 34 gkay's poems. THE PROGRESS OP POESY. A PINDARIC ODE. 2 geay's poems. Yet a while my call obey : Prophetess, awake, and say, What virgins these, in speechless woe. That bend to earth their solemn brow, That their flaxen tresses tear. And snowy veils that float in air ? Tell me whence their sorrows rose : Then I leave thee to repose. PROPHETESS. Ha ! no traveller art thou, King of men, I know thee now ; Mightiest of a mighty line ODm. No boding maid of skill divine Art thou, nor prophetess of good ; But mother of the giant brood ! PROPHETESS. Hie thee hence, and boast at home. That never shall inquirer come To break my iron-sleep again ; Till Lok has burst his ten-fold chain ; Never, till substantial Night Has reassumed her ancient right ; Till wrapt in flames, in ruin hurled. Sinks the fabric of the world. THE TRIUMPHS OF OWEN. 53 THE TRIUMPHS OF OWEN. A FRAGMENT. FROM THE WELSH. Owen's praise demands my song, Owen swift, and Owen strong ; Fairest flower of Roderic's stem, Gwyneth's shield, and Britain's gem. He nor heaps his brooded stores, Nor on all profusely pours ; Lord of every regal art, Liberal hand, and open heart. Big with hosts of mighty name, Squadrons three against him came ; This the force of Eirin hiding, Side by side as proudly riding. On her shadow long and gay Lochlia ploughs the watery way : There the Norman sails afar Catch the winds and join the war : Black and huge along they sweep. Burdens of the angry deep. Dauntless on his native sands The dragon-son of Mona stands ; Li glittering arms and glory drest, High he rears his ruby crest. There the thundering strokes begin, There the press, and there the din ; Talymalfra's rocky shore Echoing to the battle's roar. Checked by the torrent-tide of blood. Backward Meinai rolls his flood ; 14 54 gray's poems. While, heaped his master's feet around, Prostrate warriors gnaw the ground. Where his glowing eye-balls turn, Thousand banners round him burn : Where he points his purple spear. Hasty, hasty Rout is there. Marking with indignant eye Fear to stop, and shame to fly. There Confusion, Terror's child. Conflict fierce, and Ruin wild. Agony, that pants for breath, Despair, and honorable death. *-ik ■4^ 4^ ^ TV TT Tt" TT THE DEATH OP HOEL. AN ODE. SELECTED TEOM THE GODODIN. Had I but the torrent's might. With headlong rage and wild afiright Upon Deira's squaxirons hurled, To rush, and sweep them from the world ! Too, too secure in youthful pride. By them my friend, my Hoel, died, Great Clan's son : of Madoc old He asked no heaps of hoarded gold : Alone in nature's wealth arrayed. He asked and had the lovely maid. To Cattraeth's vale in glittering row Twice two hundred warriors go : THE DEATH OF HOEL. 55 Every warrior's manly neck Chains of regal honor deck, Wreathed in many a golden link : From the golden cup they drink Nectar that the- bees produce, Or the. grape's ecstatic juice. Flushed with mirth and hope they burn : But none from Cattraeth's vale return, Save Aeron brave, and Conan strong, (Bursting through the bloody throng,) And I, the meanest of them all, That live to weep and sing their fall. Have ye seen the tusky boar. Or the bull, with sullen roar. On surrounding foes advance 7 So CarMoc bore his lance. Conan's name, my lay, rehearse, Build to him the lofty verse, Sacred tribute of the bard. Verse, the hero's sole reward. As the flame's devouring force ; As the whirlwind in its course ; As the thunder's fiery stroke. Glancing on the shivered dak ; Did the sword of Conan mow The crimson harvest of the foe. 56 gray's poems. SONNET ON THE DEATH OP MR. RICHAKD WEST. In vain to me the smiling mornings shine, And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire : The birds in vain their amorous descant join, Or cheerful fields resume their green attire : These ears, alas ! for other notes repine, A different object do these eyes require : My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine. And in my breast the imperfect joys expire. Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-bom pleasure brings to happier men : The fields to all their wonted tribute bear ; To warm their little loves the birds complain ;' I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear. And weep the more, because I weep in vain. EPITAPH ON MBS. JANE CLEEKE. Lo ! where this silent marble weeps, A friend, a wife, a mother sleeps : A heart, within whose sacred cell The peaceful virtues loved to dwell. Affection warm, and faith sincere, And soft humanity, were there. In agony, in death resigned, She felt the wound she left behind. EPITAPH ON SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMS. 57 Her infaat image here below Sita smiling on a father's woe : Whom what awaits, while yet he strays Along the lonely vale of days 1 A pang, to secret sorrow dear ; A sigh ; an unavailing tear ; Till time shall every grief remove, With life, with memory, and with love. EPITAPH ON SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMS. Here, foremost La the dangerous paths of fame. Young Williams fought for England's fair renown. His mind each Muse, each Grace adorned his frame. Nor Envy dared to view him with a frown. At Aix his voluntary sword he drew, There first in blood his infant honor sealed ; From fortune, pleasure, science, love, he flew. And scorned repose when Britain took the field. With eyes of flame, and cool undaunted breast, Victor he stood on Belleisle's rocky steeps — Ah, gallant youth ! this marble tells the rest, Where melancholy Friendship bends, and weeps. 14* 58 okay's poems. ELEGY WKITTEN IN A COtTNTRT CHtjBCn-TARD. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way. And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, Or drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds : Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower. Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade. Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing mom, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed. The cock's shrill clarion, and the echoing horn. No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn. Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. 59 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke : How jocund did they drive their team afield ! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise. Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn, or animated bust. Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath 1 Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull, cp^d ear of Death 1 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre : But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page. Rich with' the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage. And froze the genial current «f the soul. 60 sray's poems. Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfattomed caves of ocean bear : Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood. Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. The applause of listening senates to command, ■ The threats of pain and ruin to despise. To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land. And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To qufench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride With incense kindled at the Muse's fiame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learned to stray ; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked. Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. BLEftY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHUECH-YARD. 61 Their name, their years, spelf by the unlettered Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply : And many a holy text around she strews. That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb FoEgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day. Nor cast one longuig, lingering look behind ? On some fond breast the parting soul relies. Some pious drops the closing eye requires : Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries. Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead. Dost in these lines their artless tale relate. If chance, by lonely Contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, — Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, " Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn ; " There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch. And pore upon the brook that babbles by. " Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies would he rove : Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn. Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. 62 geay's poems. " One morn I missed him on the customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree ; Another came ; nor yet beside the rill. Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he : " The next, with dirges due in sad array. Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne : - Approach and read, for thou canst read, the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." Elie JSpitap]). Here rests his head upon the lap of earth A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown : Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth, And Melancholy marked him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere. Heaven did a recompense as largely send ; He gave to Misery all he had, a tear. He gained from Heaven ('t was all he wished) a friend. No further seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God. A LONG STORY. In Britain's isle, no matter where, An ancient pile of building stands : The Huntingdons and Hattons there Employed the power of fairy hands A LONG STOEY. 63 To raise the ceiling's fretted height, Each panel in achievements clothing, Rich windows that exclude the light, And passages that lead to nothing. Full oft within the spacious walls. When he had fifty winters o'er him. My grave Lord-Keeper led the hrawls ; The seals and maces danced before him. His bushy beard, and shoe-strings green, His high-crowned hat, and satin doublet, Moved the stout heart of England's queen, Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it. What, in the very first beginning ! Shame of the versifying tribe ! Your history whither are you spinning ? Can you do nothing but describe 1 A house there is (and that 's enough) From whence one fatal morning issues A brace of warriors, not in buff. But rustling in their silks and tissues. The first came cap-a-pee from France, Her conquering destiny fulfilling, Whom meaner beauties eye askance, And vainly ape her art of killing. The other Amazon kind Heaven Had armed with spirit, wit, and satire ; But Cobham had the polish given. And tipped her arrows with good-natuio. 64 gkay's poems. To celebrate her eyes, her air — - Coarse panegyrics would but tease her ; Melissa is her " nom de guerre." Alas, who would not wish to please her ! , With bonnet blue and capuchine, And aprons long, they hid their armor ; And veiled their weapons, bright and keen, In pity to the country farmer. Fame in the shape of Mr. P — ^t, (By this time all the parish know it) Had told that thereabouts there lurked A wicked imp they call a poet : Who prowled the country far and near, Bewitched the children of the peasants, Dried up the cows, and lamed the deer, And sucked the eggs, and killed the pheasants. My lady heard their joint petition. Swore, by her coronet and ermine, She 'd issue out her high commission To rid the manor of such vermin. The heroines undertook the task ; Through lanes unknown, o'er stiles they ventured, Rapped at the door, nor stayed to ask. But bounce into the parlor entered. The trembling family they daunt, They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle, Rummage his mother, pinch his aunt. And up-stairs in a whirlwind rattle : A LONG STORY. 65 Each hole and cupboard they explore, Each creek and cranny of his chamber, Run hurry-skurry round the floor. And o'er the bed and tester clamber ; Into the drawers and china pry, Papers and books, a huge imbroglio ! Under a tea-cup he might He, Or creased, like dog's-ears, in a foUo. On the first marcbing of the troops. The Muses, hopeless of his pardon. Conveyed him underneath their hoops To a small closet in the garden. So Rumor says. , (Who will, beheve.) But that they left the door ajar. Where, safe and laughing in his sleeve, He heard the- distant din of war. Short was his joy. He little knew The power of magic was no fable ; Out of the window, whisk, they flew, But left a spell upon the table. The words too eager to unriddle. The poet felt a strange disorder ; Transparetit bird-Ume formed the middle, And chains invisible the border. So cunning was the apparatus. The powerful pot-hooks did so move him, That, will he, nill he, to the Great-house He went, as if the devil drove him. 15 66 geay's poems. Yet on his way (no sign of grace, For folks in fear are apt to pray) To Phoebus he preferred his case, And begged his aid that dreadful day. The godhead Tvould have backed his quarrel ; But with a blush, on recollection, Owned that his quiver and his laurel 'Gfa,uist four such eyes were no protection. The court was sate, the culprit there ; Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping, The lady Janes and Joans repair, And from the gallery stand peeping : Such as in silence of the night Come (sweep) along some winding entry, (Styack has often seen the sight) Or at the chapel-door stand sentry : In peaked hoods and mantles tarnished. Sour visages enough to scare ye, High dames of honor once, that garnished The drawing-room of fierce Queen Mary ! The peeress comes. The audience stare. And doflf Iheir hats with due submission ; She curtseys, as she takes her chair. To all the people of condition. The bard, with many an artful fib, Had in imagination fenced him, Disproved the arguments of Squib, And all that Groom could urge against him. A LONG STORY. 67 But soon his rhetoric forsook him, When he the solemn hall had seen ; A sudden fit of ague shook him, He stood as mute as poor Macleane. Yet something he was heard to mutter, " How in the park beneath an old tree, (Without design to hurt the butter. Or any malice to the poultry,) " He once or twice had penned a sonnet ; Yet hoped that he might save his bacon : Numbers would give their oaths upon it. He ne'er was for a conjurer taken." The ghostly prudes with bagged face Already had condemned the sinner. My lady rose, and with a grace — She smiled, and bid him come to dinner. "Jesu-Maria! Madam Bridget, Why, what can the Viscountess mean 7 " (Cried the square-hoods in woful fidget) " The times are altered quite and clean ! " Decorum 's turned to mere civility ; Her air and all her manners show it. Commend me fo her affability ! Speak to a commoner and poet ! " [Here five hundred stanzas are lost] And so God save our noble king, And guard us from long-winded lubbers. That to eternity would sing. And keep my Lady from her rubbers. POSTHUMOUS POEMS AND FRAGMENTS. ODE ON THE PLEASURE AKISING FROM VICISSITDDE. Now the golden Morn aloft Waves her dew-bespangled wing, With vermeil cheek and whisper soft 'She wooes the tardy Spring : Till April starts, and calls around The sleepiag fragrance from the ground.; And lightly o'er the living scene Scatters his freshest, tenderest green. New-born flocks, in rustic dance. Frisking ply their feeble feet ; Forgetful of their wintry trance, The birds his presence greet : But chief, the sky-lark warbles high His trembling thrilling ecstasy ; And, lessening from the dazzled sight. Melts into air and liquid light. Rise, my soul ! on wings of fire, Rise the rapturous choir among ; ODE ON THE PLEASURE 01' VICISSITUDE. 69 Hark ! 't is Nature strikes the lyre, And leads the general song : ' Warm let the lyric transport flow, Warm as the ray that bids it glow ; And animates the vernal grove With health, with harmony, and love.' Yesterday the sullen year Saw the snowy whirlwind fly ; Mute was the music of the air, The herd stood drooping by ; Their raptures now that wildly flow, No yesterday nor morrow know ; 'T is Man alone that joy descries With forward and reverted eyes. Smiles on past Misfortune's broAv Soft Eeflection's hand can trace ; And o'er the cheek of Sorrow throw A melancholy grace ; While Hope prolongs our happier hour, Or deepest shades, that dimly lower And blacken round our weary way, Grilds with a gleam of distant day. Still, where rosy Pleasure leads. See a kindred Grief pursue ; Behind the steps that Misery treads, Approaching Comfort view : The hues of bliss more brightly glow. Chastised by sabler tints of woe ; And blende* form,' with artful strife. The strength and harmony of life. 15* 70 gkat's poems. See the wretch, that long has tost Oq the thorny bed of pain, At length repair his vigor lost. And breathe and walk again : The meanest floweret of the vale. The simplest note that swells the gale. The conynon sun, the air, the skies. To him are opening paradise. Humble Quiet builds her cell. Near the source whence pleasure flows ; She eyes the clear crystalline well, And tastes it as it goes. ' While ' far below the ' madding ' crowd ' Rush headlong to the dangerous flood,' Where broad and turbulent it sweeps, ' And ' perish in the boundless deeps. Mark where Indolence and Pride, ' Soothed by Flattery's tinkling sound,' Go, softly rolling, side by side. Their dull but daily round : ' To these, if Hebe's self should bring The, purest cup from Pleasure's spring. Say, can they taste the flavor high Of sober, simple, genuiue Joy 1 ' Mark Ambition's march sublime Up to Power's meridian height ; • While pale-eyed Envy sees hini climb, And sickens at the sight. Phantoms of danger, death, and dread, Float hourly round Ambition's head ; While Spleen, within his rival's breast. Sits brooding on her scorpion nest. TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE FROM STATIXJS. 71 ' Happier he, the peasant, far, From the pangs of passion free, That breathes the keen yet wholesome air Of rugged penury. He, when his morning task is done. Can slumber in the noontide sun ; And hie him home, at evening's close. To sweet repast, and calm repose. ' He, unconscious whence the bliss, Feels, and owns in carols rude. That all the circling joys are his, Of dear Vicissitude. From toil he wins his spirits light. From busy day the peaceful night ; Rich, from the very want of wealth. In Heaven's best treasures, peace and health.' TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE FROM STATIUS. THBB. LIB. TI. Then thus the King : — Adrastus : — Whoe'er the quoit can wield, And furthest send its weight athwart the field, Let him stand forth his brawny arm to boast. Swift at the word, from out the gazing host, Young Pterelas with strength unequal drew, Laboring, the disc, and to small distance threw. The band around admire the mighty mass, A slippery weight, and formed of pqli^ljed brass. 72 gray's poems. The love of honor bade two youths advance, Achaians born, to try the glorious chance ; A third arose, of Acarnania he. Of Pisa one, and three from Ephyre ; Nor more, for now Nesimachus's son, By acclamations roused, came towering on. Another orb upheaved his strong right hand. Then thus : "Ye Argive flower, ye warlike band, Who trust your arms shall raise the Tyrian towers And batter Cadmus' walls with stony shpwers, Receive a worthier load ; yon puny ball Let youngsters toss." He said, and scornful flung the unheeded weight Aloof; the champions, trembling at the sight, Prevent disgrace, the palm despaired resign ; All but two youths the enormous orb decline, — Those conscious shame withheld, and pride of noble line. As bright and huge the spacious circle lay. With double light it beamed against the day ; So glittering shows the Thracian's godhead's shield, With such a gleam affrights Pangsea's field. When blazing 'gainst the sun it shines from far. And, clashed, re-bellows with the din of war. Phlegyas the long-expected play began, Summoned his strength, and called forth all the man. All eyes were bent on his experienced hand, For oft in Pisa's sports his native land Admired that arm, oft on Alpheus' shore The ponderous brass in exercise he bore ; Where flowed the wider stream he took his stand, Nor stopped till it had cut the further strand. TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE FROM STATIUS. 73 • And now in dust the polished ball he rolled, Then grasped its weight, elusive of his hold ; Now fitting to his gripe and nervous arm, Suspends the crowd with expectation warm ; Nor tempts he yet the plain, but hurled upright, Emits the mass, a prelude of his might ; Firmly he plants each knee, and o'er his head, Collecting all his force, the circle sped ; It towers to cut the clouds ; now through the skies Siags in its rapid way, and strengthens as it flies ; Anon, with slackened rage, comes quivering down. Heavy and huge, and cleaves the solid ground. So from the astonished stars, her nightly train, The sun's pale sister, drawn by magic strain, Deserts precipitant her darkened sphere ; In vain the nations with officious fear Their cymbals toss, and sounding brass explore ;~ The .^monian hag enjoys her dreadful hour. And smiles malignant on the laboring power. Third in the labors of the disc came on, With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon ; Artfal and strong he poised the well-lqiown weight, By Phlegyas warned, and fired by Mnestheus' fate. That to avoid, and this to emulate. His vigorous arm he tried before he flung, Braced all his nerves, and every siaew strung ; Then, with a tempest's whirl, and wary eye. Pursued his cast, and hurled the orb on high , The orb on high tenacious of its course, True to the mighty arm that gave it force, Far overleaps all bound, and joys to see Its ancient lord secure of victory. 74 gray's poems. The theatre's green height and woody wall Tremble ere it precipitates its fall ; The ponderous mass sinks in the cleaving ground, While vales, and woods, and echoing hills rebound. As when, from Etna's smoking summit broke, The eyeless Cyclops heaved the craggy rock ; Where Ocean frets beneath the dashing oar, And parting surges round the vessel roar ; 'T was there he aimed the meditated harm, And scarce Ulysses scaped his giant arm. A tiger's pride the victor bore away. With native spots and artful labor gay, A shining border round the margin rolled, And calmed the terrors of his claws in gold! Cambridge, May 8, 1736. FRAGMENT OF THE TRAGEDY OF AGRIPPINA. ACT I. SCEHB I. AGRIPPINA. ACEKONIA. Agkip. 'T is well, begone ! your errand is performed : [Speaks as to Anicetus e7i.tering. The message needs no comment. Tell your master, His mother shall obey him. Say you saw her Yielding due reverence to his high command : Alone, unguarded and without a Hctor, As fits the daughter of Germanicus. Say, she" retired to Antium ; there to tend Her household cares, a woman's best employment. What if you add, how she turned pale and trembled : FRAGMENT OF THE TRAGEDY' OF AGEIPPINA. 75 You think you spied a tear stand in her eye, And would have dropped, but that her pride restrained it ? (Go ! you can paint it well) 't will profit you. And please the stripling. Yet 't would dash his joy To hear the spirit of Britannicus Yet walks on earth : at least there are who know Without a spell to raise, and bid it fire A thousand haughty hearts unused to shake When a boy frowns, "nor to be lured with smiles To taste of hollow kindness, or partake His hospitable board ; they are aware Of the unpledged bowl, they love not aconite. Acer. He 's gone : and much I hope these walls alone And the mute air are privy to your passion. Forgive your servant's fears, who sees the danger Which fierce resentment cannot fail to raise In haughty youth, and irritated power. Agrip. And dost thou talk to me, to me of danger. Of haughty youth and irritated power. To her that gave it being, her that armed This painted Jove, and taught his novice hand To aiin the forked bolt ; while he stood trembling, Scared at the sound, and dazzled with its brightness 1 'T is like thou hast forgot, when yet a stranger To adoration, to the grateful steam Of flattery's incense, and obsequious vows From voluntary realms, a puny boy, Decked with no other lustre than the blood Of Agrippina's race, he lived unknown To fame or fortune ; haply eyed at distance Some edileship, ambitious of the power To judge of weights and measures : scarcely dared 76 gray's poems. On«expectation's strongest wing to soar High as the consulate, that empty shade Of long-forgotten liberty : when I Oped his young eye to bear the blaze of greatness ; Showed him where empire towered, and bade him strike The noble quarry. Gods ! then was the time To shrink from danger ; Fear might then have worn The mask of Prudence ; but a heart like mine, A heart that glows with the pure Julian fire, If bright Ambition from her craggy seat Display the radiant prize, will mount undaunted, Gain the rough heights, and grasp the dangerous honor. Acer. Through various life I have pursued your steps, Have seen your soul and wondered at its daring : Hence rise my fears. Nor am I yet to learn How vast the debt of gratitude which Nero To such a mother owes ; the world, you gave him, Suffices not to pay the obligation. I well remember too (for I was present) When in a secret and dead hour of night, Due sacrifice performed with barbarous rites Of muttered charms, and solemn invocation, You bade the Magi call the dreadful powers. That read futurity, to know the fate Impending o'er your son : their answer was, K the son reign, the mother perishes. Perish (you cried) the mother ! reign the son ! He reigns, the rest is Heaven's ; who oft has bade, Even when its will seemed wrote in lines of blood, The unthought event disclose a whiter meaning. Think too how oft in weak and sickly minds The sweets of kindness lavishly indulged FRAGMENT OF THE TRAGEDY OF AGRIPPINA. 77 Rankle to gall ; and benefits too great To be repaid sit heavy on the soul, As unrequited wrongs. The willing homage Of prostrate Rome, the senate's joint applause, The riches of the earth, the train of pleasures That wait on youth, and arbitrary sway : These were your gift, and with them you bestowed The very power he has to be ungrateful. Agrip. Thus ever grave and undisturbed reflection Pours its cool dictates ia the madding ear Of rage, and thinks to quench the fire it feels not. Say'st thou I must be cautious, must be silent, And tremble at the phantom I have raised 1 Carry to him thy timid counsels. He Perchance may heed 'em : tell him too that one, Who had such liberal power to give, may still With equal power resume that gift, and raise A tempest that shall shake her own creation To its origioal atoms — tell me ! say. This mighty emperor, this dreaded hero, Has he beheld the glittering front of war 1 Knows his soft ear the trumpet's thrilling voice. And outcry of the battle ? Have his limbs Sweat under iron harness 7 Is he not The sijken son of Dalliance, nursed in ease And Pleasure's flowery lap 1 — Rubellius lives. And Sylla has his friends, though schooled by fear To bow the supple knee, and court the times With shows of fair obeisance ; and a call, Like mine, might serve belike to wake pretensions Drowsier than theirs, who boast the genuine blood Of our imperial house. 16 78 gray's poems. Acer. Did I not wish to check this dangerous passion, I might remind my mistress that her nod Can rouse eight hardy legions, wont to stem With stubborn nerves the tide, and face the rigor Of bleak Germania's snows. Four, not less brave, That in Armenia quell the Parthian force Under the warlike Corbulo, by you Marked for their leader : these, by ties confirmed, Of old respect and gratitude, are yours. Surely the Masians too, and those of Egypt, Have not forgot your sire : the eye of Rome, And the Prsetorian camp, have long revered, With customed awe, the daughter, sister, wife. And mother of their Caesars. Agrip. Ha ! by Juno, It bears a noble semblance. On this base My great revenge shall rise ; or say we sound The trump of Liberty ; there will not want. Even in the servile senate, ears to own Her spirit-stirring voice ; Soranus there. And Cassius ; Vetus too, and Thrasea, Minds of the antique cast, rough, stubborn souls. That struggle with the yoke. How shall the spark Unquenchable, that glows within their breasts, Blaze into freedom, when the idle herd (Slaves from the womb, created but to stare And bellow in the Circus) yet will start, And shake 'em at the name of Liberty, Stung by a senseless word, a vain tradition. As there were magic in it? Wrinkled beldams Teach it their grandchildren, as somewhat rare That anciently appeared, but when, extends FRAaMENT OF THE TRAGEDY OF AGRIPPINA. 79 Beyond their chronicle — ! 't is a cause To arm the hand of childhood, and rebrace The slackened sinews of time-wearied age. Yes, we may meet, ungrateful boy, we may ! Again the buried Genius of old Eome Shall from the dust uprear his reverend head, Roused by the shout of millions : there before His high tribunal thou and I appear. Let majesty sit on thy awful brow, And lighten from thy eye : around thee call The gilded swarm that wantons in the sunshine Of thy full favor ; Seneca be there In gorgeous phrase of labored eloquence To dress thy plea, and Burrhus strengthen it With his plain soldier's oath, and honest seeming. Against thee, Liberty and Agrippina : The world, the prize ; and fair befall the victors. But soft ! why do I waste the fruitless hours Li threats unexecuted ? Haste thee, fly These hated walls that seem to mock my shame. And cast me forth in duty to their lord. Acer. 'T is time to go ; the ,sun is high advanced. And, ere mid-day, Nero will come to Baiae. Agrip. My thought aches at him ; not the basilisk More deadly to the sight, than is to me The cool injurious eye of frozen kindness. I will not meet its poison. Let him feel Before he sees me. Acer. Why then stays my sovereign, Where he so soon may — Agrip. Yes, I will begone, But not to Antium — all shall be confessed. 80 sbat's poems. What'er the friyolous tongue of giddy fame Has spread among the crowd ; things, that but whispered Have arched the hearer's brow, and riveted His eyes in fearful ecstasy : no matter What ; so it be strange and dreadful. — Sorceries, Assassinations, poisonings — the deeper My guilt, the blacker his ingratitude. And you, ye manes of Ambition's victims, Enshrined Claudius, with the pitied ghosts Of the Syllani, doomed to early death, (Ye unavailing "horrors, fruitless crimes !) If from the realms of night my voice ye hear. In lieu of penitence, and vain remorse, Accept my vengeance. Though by me ye bled, He was the cause. My love, my fears for him. Dried the soft springs of pity in my heaxt. And froze them up with deadly cruelty. Yet if your injured shades demand my fate. If murder cries for murder, blood for blood. Let me not fall alone ; but crush his pride, And sink the traitor in his mother's ruin. [Exeunt. SCENE n. — Otho and Popp^a. Otho. Thus far we 're safe. Thanks to the rosy queen Gf amorous thefts : and had her wanton son Lent us his wings, we could not have beguiled With more elusive speed the dazzled sight Of wakeful jealousy. Be gay securely ; Dispel, my fair, with smiles, the timorous cloud That hangs on thy clear brow. So Helen looked. So her white neck reclined, so was she borne By the young Trojan to his gilded bark HYMN TO ISNOEANCE. 81 With fond reluctance, yielding modesty, And oft reverted eye, as if she knew not Whether she feared, or wished to be pursued. *iJb ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ tS" tt -It" -It -t?" -It- HYMN TO IGNORANCE. A TRAGMENT. Hail, Horrors, hail ! ye ever gloomy bowers. Ye Gothic fanes, and antiquated towers. Where rushy Camus' slowly winding flood Perpetual draws his humid train of mud : Glad I revisit thy neglected reign, 0, take me to thy peaceful shade again. But chiefly thee, whose influence breathed from high Augments the native darkness of the sky ; Ah, Ignorance ! soft, salutary power ! Prostrate with filial reverence I adore. Thrice hath Hyperion rolled his annual race. Since weeping I forsook thy fond embrace. say, successful dost thou still oppose Thy leaden aegis 'gainst our ancient foes 1 Still stretch, tenacious of thy right divine. The massy sceptre o'er thy slumbering line 7 And dews Lethean through the land dispense To steep in slumbers each benighted sense 1 If any spark of wit's delusive ray Break out, and flash a momentary day. With damp, cold touch forbid it to aspire. And huddle up in fogs the dangerous fire. 16* 82 gray's poems. say she hears me not, but, careless grown, . Lethargic nods upon her ebon throne. Goddess ! awake, arise ! alas, my fears ! Can powers immortal feel the force of years 1 Not thus of old, with ensigns wide unfurled She rode triumphant o'er the vanquished world ; Fierce nations owned her unresisted might. And all was Ignorance, and all was Night. ! sacred age ! ! times forever lost ! (The schoolman's glory, and the churchman's boast.) Forever gone — yet still to fancy new, Her rapid wings the transient scene pursue. And bring the buried ages back to view. High on her car, behold the grandam ride Like old Sesostris with barbaric pride ; * * * a team of harnessed monarchs bend ****** THE ALLIANCE OP EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT. A FRAGMENT. ESSAY I. JIuray') w 'ya&i' ruv yaq aoiSav OvTL Tito Bit; ^i'dav ys rbv titX£?.u-9-ovra (pu/a^er?. Theocritus, Id. I. CS. As sickly plants betray a niggard earth. Whose barren bosom starves her generous birth, Nor genial warmth nor genial juice retains. Their roots to feed, and fill their verdant veins ; And as in climes where Winter holds his reign yhe soil, though fertile, will not teem in vain, THE ALLIANCE OF EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT.^ 83 Forbids her germs to swell, her shades to rise,- Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies : So draw mankind in vain the vital airs, Unformed, unfriended, by those kindly cares That health and vigor to the soul impart, Spread the young thought, and warm the opening heart : So fond Instruction on the growing powers Of nature idly lavishes her stores. If equal Justice with unclouded face Smile not indulgent on the rising race. And scatter with a free, though frugal hand, Light golden showers of plenty o'er the land : But Tyranny has fixed her empire there. To check their tender hopes with chilling fear. And blast the blooming promise of the year. This spacious animated scene survey, From where the ruliag orb, that gives the day. His sable sons with nearer course surrounds To either pole, and life's remotest bounds. How rude soe'er the exterior form we find, Howe'er opinion tinge the varied miad. Alike to all, the kind, impartial Heaven The sparks of truth and happiness has given : With sense to feel, with memory to retain. They follow pleasure, and they fly from pain ; Their judgment mends the plan their fancy draws. The event presages, and explores the cause ; The soft returns of gratitude they know, By fraud elude, by force repel the foe ; While mutual wishes, mutual woes endear The social smile, and sympathetic tear. 84 _ gray's poems. Say, then, through ages by what fate confined To different climes seem different souls assigned ? Here measured laws and philosophic ease Fix and improve the polished arts of peace ; There industry and gain their vigils keep. Command the winds, and tame the unwilling deep : Here force and hardy deeds of blood prevail ; There languid pleasure sighs in every gale. Oft o'er the trembUng nations from afar Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war ; And, where the deluge burst, with sweepy sway Their arms, their kings, their gods, were rolled away : As oft have issued, host impelling host, The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic coast. The prostrate South to the destroyer yields Her boasted titles, and her golden fields : With grim delight the brood of winter view A brighter day, and heavens of azure hue ; Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose. And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows. Proud of the yoke, and pliant to the rod. Why yet does Asia dread a monarch's nod, While European freedom still withstands The encroaching tide that drowns her lessening lands. And sees far off, with an indignant groan, Her native plains and empires once her own 1. Can opener skies and suns of fiercer flame O'erpower the fire that animates our frame ; As lamps, that shed at eve a cheerful ray. Fade and expire beneath the eye of day 1 Need we the influence of the northern star To string our nerves and steel our hearts to war 1 THE ALLIANCE OF EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT. 85 And, where the face of nature laughs around, Must sickenmg virtue fly the tainted ground 1 Unmanly thought ! what seasons can control, What fancied zone can circumscribe the soul, Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs. By Reason's light, on Resolution's wings. Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes O'er Libya's deserts and through Zembla's snows ? She bids each slumbering energy awake. Another touch, another temper take. Suspends the inferior laws that rule our clay : The stubborn elements confess her sway ; Their little wants, their low desires, refine, And raise the mortal to a height divine. Not but the human fabric from the birth Imbibes a flavor of its parent earth : As various tracts enforce a various toil, The manners speak the idiom of their soil. An iron race the mountain-cliiFs maintain. Foes to the gentler genius of the plain : For where unwearied sinews must be found With side-long plough to quell the flinty ground. To turn the torrent's swift-descending flood, To brave the savage rushing from the wood. What wonder if, to patient valor trained. They guard with spirit what by strength they gained ? And while their rocky ramparts round they see. The rough abode of want and liberty, (As lawless force from confidence will grow) Insult the plenty of the vales below 7 What wonder in the sultry climes, that spread Where Nile redundant o'er his summer-bed 86 orat's poems. From his broad bosom life and verdure flings, And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings, If, with adventurous oar and ready sail, The dusky people drive before the gale ; Or on frail floats to neighboring cities ride, That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide. * -y- ^£# ^l^ ^l0 tP tT tt tt [The following couplet, which was intended to have been introduced in the poem on the Alliance of Education and Government, is much too beau- tiful to be lost. — Mason, Tol. iii., p. 114.] When Love could teach a monarch to be wise. And gospel-light first dawned from Bullen's eyes. STANZAS TO MR. BENTLEY. A FRAGMENT. In silent gaze the tuneful choir among, Half pleased, half blushing, let the Muse admire, While Bentley leads her sister-art along. And bids the pencil answer to the lyre. See, in their course, each transitory thought Fixed by his touch a lasting essence take ; Each dream, in Fancy's airy coloring wrought, To local symmetry and life awake ! The tardy rhymes that used to linger on. To censure cold, and negligent of fame, In swifter measures animated run. And catch a lustre from his genuine flame. SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER. 87 Ah ! could they catch his strength, his easy grace, His quick creation, his unerring line. The energy of Pope they might efface. And Dryden's harmony submit to mine. But not to one in this benighted age Is that diviner inspiration given, That burns in Shakspeare's or in Milton's page. The pomp and prodigality of Heaven. As when conspiring in the diamond's blaze. The meaner gems, that singly charm the sight, Together dart their inter min gled rays, And dazzle with a luxury of light. Enough for me, if to some feeling breast My lines a secret sympathy ' impart ; ' And as their pleasing influence ' flows eonfest,' A sigh of soft reflection ' heaves the heart.' * .1£- 4L. ^ ^ Jt. •Jr •T!" TV" •TV" TT SKETCH 01" HIS OWN CHARACTER. WKITTEN IN 1T61, AHD FOUND IN ONE OF HIS POCKET-BOOKS. Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, He had not the method of making a fortune : Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd ; No very great wit, he believed in a God : A post or a pension he did not desire, But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire. 88 AMATORY LINES. With beauty, with pleasure surrounded, to languish — To weep without knowing the cause of my anguish : To start from short slumbers, and wish for the morning — To close my dull eyes when I see it returning ; Sighs sudden and frequent, looks ever dejected — Words that steal from my tongue, by no meaning connected ! Ah ! say, fellow-swains, how these symptoms befell me 1 They smile, but reply not — Sure Delia will tell me ! SONG. Thyrsis, when we parted, swore Ere the spring he would return — , Ah ! what means yon violet flower. And the bud that decks the thorn ? 'T was the lark that upward sprung ! 'T was the nightingale that sung ! Idle notes ! untimely green ! Why this unavailing haste 1 » Western gales and skies serene Speak not always winter past. Cease, my doubts, my fears to move, Spare the honor of my love. TOPHBT. IMPROMPTU. 89 TOPHET. AN EPIGRAM. Thtis Tophet looked ; so grinned the brawling fiend, Whilst frighted prelates bowed, and called him friend. Our mother-church, with half-averted sight. Blushed as she blessed her grisly proselyte ; Hosannas rung through hell's tremendous borders, And Satan's self had thoughts of taking orders. mPEOMPTU, SUGGESTED BT A TIEW, IN 1766, OF THE SEAT AND RUINS OF A DECEASED NOBLEMAN, AT KINGSGATE, KENT. Old, and abandoned by each venal friend. Here Holland formed the pious resolution To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend A broken character and constitution. On this congenial spot he fixed his choice ; Earl Goodwin trembled for his neighboring sand ; Here sea-gulls scream, and cormorants rejoice, And mariners, though shipwrecked, dread to land. Here reign the blustering North and blighting East, No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing ; Yet Nature could not furnish out the feast. Art he invokes new horrors still to bring. 17 90 gray's poems. Here mouldering fanes and battlements arise, Turrets and arches nodding to their fall, Unpeopled monast'ries delude our eyes. And mimic desolation covers all. " Ah ! " said the sighing peer, " had Bute been true, Nor Mungo's, Rigby's, Bradshaw's friendship vain, Far better scenes than these had blest our view, And realized the beauties which we feign : " Purged by the sword, and purified by' fire, Then had we seen proud London's hated walls- Owls would have hooted iu St. Peter's choir. And foxes stunk and littered in St. Paul's." THE CANDIDATE: OR, THE CAMBRIDGE COURTSHIP. When sly Jemmy Twitcher had smugged lip his face, With a lick of court whitewash and pious grimace, A wooing he went, where three sisters of old In harmless society guttle and scold. " Lord ! sister," says Physic to Law, " I declare. Such a sheep-biting look, such a pick-pocket air ! Not I for the Indies : — you know I 'm no prude, — But his nose is a shame, — and his eyes are so lewd ! Then he shambles and straddles so oddly — I fear — No — at our time of life 'twould be silly, my dear." " I don't know," says Law, " but methinks for his look, 'T is just like the picture in Rocbester's book ; THE CANDIDATE. 91 Then his character, Phyzzy, — his morals — his life — When she died I can't tell, but he once had a wife. ■ They say he 's no Christian, loves drinking and And all the town rings of his swearing and roaring ! His lying and filching, and Newgate-bird tricks ; — Not I — for a coronet, chariot and six." Divinity heard, between waking and dozing. Her sisters denying, and Jemmy proposing : From table she rose, and with bumper in hand. She stroked up her belly, and stroked down her band — • " What a pother is here without wenching and roaring ! Why, David loved catches, and Solomon : Did not Israel filch from the Egyptians of old Their jewels of silver and jewels of gold 7 The prophet of Bethel, we read, told a lie : He drinks — so did Noah ; — he swears — so do I : To reject him for such peccadillos, were odd ; Besides, he repents — for he talks about Gr** — [To Jemmy.] ' Never hang down your head, you poor penitent elf. Come buss me — I '11 be Mrs. Twitcher myself.' " *^ ^ ^ ^ TV •n" "1? 'R" IMPROMPTU, WHILE WALKING WITH MR. NICHOLLS, IN THE SPRING, IN THE NEIGHBOKHOOD OE CAMBRIDGE. There pipes the wood-lark, and the song-thrush there Scatters his loose notes in the waste of air. EXTRACTS PEOPERTroS, LIB. m. ELEQ. V. v. 19. IMITATED. Long as of youth the joyous hours remain, Me may Castalia's, sweet recess detain, Fast by the umbrageous vale lulled to repose, Where Aganippe warbles aa it flows : Or roused by sprightly sounds from out the trance, I 'd iu the ring knit hands, and join the Muses' dance. Give me to send the laughing bowl around, My soul in Bacchus' pleasing fetters bound ; Let on this head unfading flowers reside, There bloom the vernal rose's earUest pride ; And when, our flames commissioned to destroy, Age step 'twixt Love and me, and intercept the joy ; When my changed head these locks no more shall know, And all its jetty honors turn to snow ; Then let me rightly spell of Nature's ways ; To Providence, to Him my thoughts I 'd raise. Who taught this vast machine its steadfest laws, That first, eternal, universal Cause ; Search to what regions yonder star retires. That monthly waning hides her paly fires, EXTRACT FROM PROPBRTIUS. 93 And whence, anew revived, with silver light Relumes her crescent orb to cheer the dreary night : How rising winds the face of ocean sweep. Where lie the eternal fountauis of the deep, And whence the cloudy magazines maintain Their wintry war, or pour the autumnal rain ; How flames perhaps, with dire confusion hurled. Shall sink this beauteous fabric of the world ; What colors paint the vivid arch of Jove ; What wondrous force the solid earth can move. When Pindus' self approaching ruin dreads. Shakes all his pines, and bows his hundred heads ; Why does yon orb, so exquisitely bright, Obscure his radiance in a short-lived night ; Whence the Seven Sisters' congregated fires, And what Bootes' lazy wagon tires ; How the rude surge its sandy bounds control ; Who measured out the year, and bade the seasons roll ; If realms beneath those fabled torments know. Pangs without respite, fires that ever glow. Earth's monster brood, stretched on their iron bed. The hissing terrors round Alecto's head, Scarce to nine acres Tityus' bulk confined; The triple dog that scares the shadowy kind. All angry heaven inflicts, or hell can feel. The pendent rock, Ixion's whirling wheel, Famine at feasts, or thirst amid the stream ; Or are our fears the enthusiast's empty dream. And all the scenes, that hurt the grave's repose. But pictured horror and poetic woes. These soft inglorious joys my hours engage ; Be Love my youth's pursuit, and Science crown my age. 1738. Mt 22. 17* 94 gray's poems. PROPERTroS, LIB. H. ELEG. I. t. 17. " Quod mihi Bi tantum, Meecenas, fata dedissent," &c. Yet would the tyrant Love permit me raise My feeble voice, to sound the victor's praise, To paint the hero's toil, the ranks of war. The laurelled triumph, and the sculptured car ; No giant r&,ce, no tumult of the skies. No mountain-structures in my verse should rise, Nor tale of Thebes, nor Ilium there should be. Nor how the Persian trod the indignant sea ; Not Marius' Cimbrian wreaths would I relate, Nor lofty Carthage struggling with her fate. Here should Augustus great in arms appear. And thou, Maecenas, be my second care ; Here Mutina from flames and famine free. And there the ensanguined wave of Sicily, And sceptred Alexandria's captive shore. And sad Philippi, red with Roman gore : Then, while the vaulted skies loud los rend, In golden chains should loaded monarchs bend. And hoary NUe with pensive aspect seem To mourn the glories of his seven-fold stream. While prows, that late in fierce encounter met, Move through the sacred way and vainly threat. Thee too the Muse should consecrate to fame. And with her garlands weave thy ever-faithful name. But nor Callimachus' enervate strain May tell of Jove, and Phlegra's blasted plain, Nor I with unaccustomed vigor trace Back to its source divine the Julian race. EXTRACT FROM PROPBRTIUS. 95 Sailors to tell of winds and seas delight, The shepherd of his flocks, the soldier of the fight ; A milder warfare I in verse display ; Each in his proper art should waste the day : Nor thou my gentle calling disapprove, To die is glorious in the bed of Love. Happy the youth, and not unknown to fame. Whose heart has never felt a second flame. 0, might that envied happiness be mine ! To Cynthia all my wishes I confine ; Or if, alas ! it be my fate to try Another love, the quicker let me die : But she, the mistress of my faithful breast. Has oft the charms of constancy confest. Condemns her fickle sex's fond mistake. And hates the tale of Troy for Helen's sake. Me from myself the soft enchantress stole ; Ah ! let her ever my desires control, Or if I fall the victim of her scorn, From her loved door may my pale corse be borne. The power of herbs can other harms remove. And find a cure for every ill, but Love. The Lemnian's hurt Machaon could repair, Heal the slow chief, and send again to war ; To Chiron Phoenix owed his long-lost sight. And Phoebus' son recalled Androgeon to the light. Here arts are vain, e'en magic here must fail. The powerful mixture and the midnight spell ; The hand that can my captive heart release, And to this bosom give its wonted peace, May the long thirst of Tantalus allay. Or drive the infernal vulture from his prey. 96 For ills unseen what remedy is found? Or who can probe the undiscovered wound 1 The bed avails not, nor the leech's care, Nor changing skies can hurt, nor sultry air. 'T is hard the elusive symptoms to explore : To-day the lover walks, to-morrow is no more ; A train of mourning friends attend his pall. And wonder at the sudden funeral. When then the Fates that breath they gave shall claim, And the short marble but preserve a name, A little verse my all that shall remain ; Thy passing courser's slackened speed restrain ; (Thou envied honor of thy poet's days, Of all our youth the ambition and the praise !) Then to my quiet urn a while draw near, And say, while o'er that place you drop the tear, Love and the fair were of his' youth the pride ; He lived, while she was kind; and when she frowned, he - died. April, 1742. Mt. 26. TASSO GERUS. LIB. OANT. XIV. ST. 32. " Preser commiato, e si M desio gli sprona," &c. Dismissed at length, they break through all delay To tempt the dangers of the doubtful va.j ; And first to Ascalon their steps they bend, Whose walls along the neighboring sea extend, Nor yet in prospect rose the dista.nt shore ; Scarce the hoarse waves from far were heard to roar, EXTRACT FROM PROPERTIUS. 97 When thwart the road a river rolled its flood Tempestuous, and all further course withstood ; The torrent stream his ancient bounds disdains, Swollen with new force, and late-descending rains. Irresolute they stand : when, lo ! appears The wondrous Sage : vigorous he seemed in years, Awful his mien, low as his feet there flows A vestment unadorned, though white as new-fallen snows ; Against the stream the waves secure he trod. His head a chaplet bore, his hand a rod. As on the Rhine, when Boreas' fury reigns. And winter biads the floods in icy chains. Swift shoots the village-maid in rustic play Smooth, without step, adown the shining way. Fearless in long excursion loves to glide. And sports and wantons o'er the frozen tide. So moved the Seer, but on no hardened plain ; The river boiled beneath, and rushed toward the main. Where fixed in wonder stood the warlike pair. His course he turned, and thus relieved their care : " Vast, my friends, and difficult the toil To seek your hero in a distant soil ! No common helps, no common guide ye need. Art it requires, and more than winged speed. What length of sea remains, what various lands. Oceans unknown, inhospitable sands ! For adverse fate the captive chief has hurled Beyond the confines of our narrow world : Great things and full of wonder in your ears I shall unfold ; but first dismiss your fears ; Nor doubt with me to tread the downward road That to the grotto leads, my dark abode." 98 gray's poems. Scarce had he said, before the warriors' eyes When mountain-high the waves disparted rise ; The flood on either hand its billows rears, And in the raidst a spacious arch appears. Their hands he seized, and down the steep he led Beneath the obedient river's inmost bed ; The watery glimmerings of a fainter day Discovered half, and half concealed their way ; As when athwart the dusky woods by night The uncertain crescent gleams a sickly light. Through subterraneous passages they went, Earth's inmost cells, and caves of deep descent ; Of many a flood they viewed the secret source, The birth of rivers rising to their course, Whate'er with copious train its channel fills, Floats into lakes, and bubbles into rills ; The Po was there to see, Danubius' bed, Euphrates' fount, and Nile's mysterious head. Further they pass, where ripening minerals flow. And embryon metals undigested glow. Sulphureous veins and living silver shine, Which soon the parent sun's warm powers refine, In one rich mass unite the precious store. The parts combine and harden into ore ; Here gems break through the night with glittering beam. And paint the margin of the costly stream, All stones of lustre shoot their vivid ray. And mix attempered in a various day ; Here the soft emerald smiles of verdant hue, And rubies fiame, with sapphire's heavenly blue ; The diamond there attracts the wondrous sight. Proud of its thousand dyes and luxury of light. 1738. JEt 22. POEMATA. HYMENEAL ON THE MARRIAGE OP HIS BOTAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. iGNAE^Si nostrum mentes, et inertia corda, Dum curas regum, et sortem miseramur iniquam, Quae solio affixit, Yetuitqjue calescere flammEl Dulci, quse dono divum, gratissima serpit Viscera per, mollesque animis lene implicat aestus ; Nee teneros sensus, Veneris nee prsemia norunt, Eloquiumve oculi, aut facunda silentia linguae : Scilicet ignorant lacrymas, ssevosque dolores, Dura rudimenta, et violentae exordia flammse ; Scilicet ignorant, quae flumine tinxit amaro Tela Venus, caecique armamentaria Divi, Irasque, insidias taciturn et sub pectore vulnus ; Namque sub ingressu, primoque in limine Amoris Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae ; Intus habent dulces Risus, et Gratia sedem, Et roseis resupina toris, roseo ore Voluptas : Regibus hue faciles aditus ; communia spernunt Ostia, jamque expers duris custodibus istis Panditur accessus, penetraliaque intima Templi. 100 Tuque ! Angliacis, Princeps, spes optima regnis, Ne tantum, ne fiuge metum : quid imagine captus Haeres, et mentem pictura pascis inani 1 Umbram miraris : nee longum tempus, et ipsa Ibit ia amplexus, thalamosque ornabit ovantes. nie tamen tabulis inhians longum haurit amorem, Affatu fruitur tacito, auscujtatque tacentem Immemor artificis calami, risumque, ruboremque Aspicit in fucis, pictseque in Virginia ore : Tanta Venus potuit ; tantus tenet error amantes. Nascere, magna Dies, qua sese Augusta Britanno Committat Pelago, patriamque reliaquat amcenam ; Cujus in adventum jam nunc tria regna secundos Attolli in plausus, dulcique accensa furore Incipiunt agitare modes, et carmina dicunt : Ipse animo sedenim juvenis comitatur euntem Explorat ventos, atque auribus aera captat, Atque auras, atque aatra vocat crudelia ; pectus Intentum exultat, surgitque arrecta eupido ; Incusat spes aegra fretum, solitoque videtur Latior efifundi pontus, fluctusque morantes. Nascere, Lux major, qua sese AtrauSTA Britanno Committat juveni totam, propriamque dicabit ; At citius (precor) ! cedas melioribus astris ; Nox finem pompae, fiaemque imponere curis Possit, et in thalamos furtim deducere nuptam ; Sufficiat requiemque viris, et amantibus umbras : Adsit Hymen, et subridens cum matre Cupido Accedant, sternantque toros, ignemque ministrent ; nicet baud pictae incandescit imagine formae Ulterius juvenis, verumque agnoscit amorem. LUNA HABITABILIS. 101 Sculptile sicut ebur, faciemque arsisse venustam Pjgmaliona canunt : ante banc suspiria ducit, Alloquiturque amens, flammamque et vulnera narrat ; Implorata Venus jussit cum vivere signum, FceminKim inspirans animam ; quae gaudia surgunt, Audiit ut primse nascentia murmura linguae, Luctari in vitam, et paulatim volvere ocellos Sedulus, aspexitque nova splendescere flamma ; Corripit amplexu vivam, jamque oscula jungit Acria confeatim, recipitque rapitque ; prioris Immemor ardoris, Nymphseque oblitus eburnose. T. GRAY. PET. COLL. LUNA HABITABILIS. DxiM Nox rorantes, non incomitata per auras TJrget equos, tacitoque inducit sidera lapsu ; Ultima sed nuUi soror inficianda sororum, Hue mihi, Musa ; tibi patet alti janua coeli, Astra vides, nee te numeri, nee nomina fallunt. Hue mihi, Diva, veni ; dulce est per aperta serena Vere frui Uquido, campoque errare silenti ; Vere frui dulce est ; modo tu dignata petentem Sis comes, et mecum gelida spatiere sub umbra. Scilictit bos orbes, coeli baec decora alta putandum est, Noctis opes, nobis tantum lucere ; virumque Ostentari oculis, nostrse laquearia terrse, Ingentes scenaa, vastique aulsea tbeatri 7 ! quis me pennis sethrse super ardua sistet Mirantem, propiusque dabit convexa tueri ; Teque adeo, unde fluens reficit lux moUior arva Pallidiorque dies, tristcs solata toncbras 1 18 102 gray's poems. Sic ego, subridens Dea sic ingressa vicissim : Non pennis opus hie, supera ut simul ilia petamus : Disce, Puer, potius coelo deducere Lunam ; Neu crede ad magicaa te invitum accingier artes, Thessalicosve modos ; ipsam descendere Phoeben Conspicies novus Endymion ; seque ofiferet ultro Visa tibi ante oculos, et nota major imago. Quin tete admoveas (tumuli super aggere spectas), Compositum tubulo ; simul imum invade canalem Sic iatenti acie, coeB. simul alta patescent Atria ; jamque, ausus Lunaria visere regna, Ingrediere solo, et caput inter nubila condes. Ecce autem ! vitri se in vertice sistere Phoeben Cernis, et Oceanum, et crebris Ereta consita terris Panditur ille atram faciem caligine condens Sublustri ; refugitque oculos, fallitque tuentem ; Integram Solis lucem quippe haurit aperto Eluctu avidus radiorum, et longos imbibit ignes : Verum his, quae, maculis variata nitentibus, auro Coerula discemunt, celso sese insula dorso Plurima protrudit, prsetentaque littora saxis ; Liberior datur his quoni^m natura, jninusque Lumen depascunt liquiduin ; sed tela diei Detorquent, retroque decent se vertere flammas. Banc longos videas tractus, terrasque jacentes Ordine candenti, et claros se attoUere montes ; Montes queis Rhodope assurgat, quibus Ossa nivali Vertice : tum scopulis infri pendentibus antra Nigrescunt clivorum umbra, nemorumque tenebris. Non rores illi, aut desunt sua nubila mundo ; Non frigus gelidum, atque herbis gratissimus imber ; Bjs quoque nota ardet picto Thaumantias arcu, Os roseum Aurorse, proprii(iue crepuscula coeli. LUNA HABITABILIS. 103 Et dubitas tantum certis cultoribus orbem Destitui 1 exercent agros, sua moenia condunt Hi quoque, vel Martem invadunt, curantque triumphos Victores : sunt hie etiam sua prsemia laudi ; His metus, atque amor, et mentem mortalia tangunt. Quia, uti nos oculis jam nunc juvat ire per arva, Lucentesque plagas Lunse, pontumque profundum ; Idem illos etiam ardor agit, cum se aureus effert Sub sudum globus, et terrarum ingentior orbis ; Scilicet omne sequor turn lustrant, scilicet omnem Tellurem, gentesque polo sub utroque jacentes ; Et quidam sestivi iadefessus ad setberis ignes Pervigilat, noctem exercens, coelumque fatigat ; Jam Gralli apparent, jam se Germania late ToUit, et albescens pater Apenninus ad auras ; Jam tandem in Borean, en ! parvulus Anglia nsDvus (Quanquam aliis longe fulgentior) extulit oras ; Formosum extemplo lumen, maculamque nitentem Invisunt crebri Proceres, serumque tuendo ; Hserent, certatimque suo cognomine signant : Forsitan et Lunse longinquus in orbe Tyrannus Se domiuum vocat, et nostra se jactat in aula. Terras possim alias propiori sole calentes Narrare, atque alias, jubaris queis parcior usus, Lunarum chorus, et tenuis penuria Phcebi ; Ni, meditans eadem hsec audaci evolvere cantu, Jam pulset citharam soror, et praeludia tentet. Non tamen has proprias laudes, nee facta silebo Jampridem in fatis, patri^que oraeula famse. Tempus erit, sursum totos contendere coetus Quo cernes longo excursu, primosque colonos Migrare in lunam, et notos mutare Penates : 104 gray's poems. Dum stupet obtutu tacito Tetus incola, longeque Insolitas explorat avea, claasemque volantem. Ut quondam ignotum marmor, camposque natantes Tranavit Zephyros visens, nova regna, Columbus ; Litora mirantur circum, mirantur et undse Inclusas acies ferro, turmasque biformes, Monstraque foeta armis, et non imitabile fulmen. Foedera mox icta, et gemini commercia mundi, Agminaque assueto glomerata sub aethere cerno. Anglia, quse pelagi jamdudum torquet habenas, Exercetque frequens ventos, atque imperat undae ; Aeris attoUet fasces, veteresque triumphos Hue etiam feret, et victis dominabitur auris. SAPPHIC ODE: TO MR. WEST. Barbaras sedes aditure mecum Quas Eris semper fovet inquieta, ' Lis ubi late sonat, et togatum .^stuat agmen ; Dulcius quanto, patulis sub ulmi Hospitse ramis temere jacentem Sic libris horas, tenuique inertes Fallere Musa 1 Ssepe enim curis vagor expedite Mente ; dum, blandam meditans Camaenam, Vix malo rori, meminive serse Cedere nocti ; SAPPHIC ODE: TO MR WEST. 105 Et, pedes quo me rapiunt, in omni CoUe Parnassum videor videre Fertilem sylvse, gelidamque in omni Fonte Aganippen. Risit et Ver me, facilesque Nymphse Nare captantem, nee ineleganti, Mane quicquid de violis eundo Surripit aura : Me reclinatum teneram per herbam ; Qua leves cursus aqua cunque ducit, Et moras dulci strepitu lapillo Nectit in omni. Hse novo nostrum fere pectus anno Simplices curse tenuere, ccelum Quamdiu sudum explicuit Favoni Purior hora : Otia et campos nee adhuc relinquo, Nee magis Phoebo Clytie fidelis ; (Ingruant venti licet, et senescat Mollior Kstas;) Namque, sen, laetos bominum labores Prataque et montes recreante curru, Purpura tractus oriens Eoos Vestit, et auro ; Sedulus servo veneratus orbem Prodigum splendoris ; amoeniori Sive dilectam meditatur igne Pingere Calpen ; 18* 106 gray's poems. Usque dum, falgore magis magis jam Languido circum, variata nubes Labitur furtim, viridisque in umbras Scena recessit. ego felix, vice si (nee unquam Surgerem rursus) simili cadentem Parca me lenis sineret quieto Fallere Letho ! Multa flagranti radiisque cincto Integris ah ! quam nihil inviderem, Cum Dei ardentes medius quadrigaa Sentit Olympus. ALCAIC FRAGMENT. LACRYMARUM fons, tenero sacros Ducentium ortus ex animo ; quater Felix ! in imo qui scatentem Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit. LATIN LINES ADDRESSED TO MK. WEST, FROM GENOA. Horrid OS tractus, Boreajque linquens Regna Taurini fera, molHorem Advehor brumam, Genuaeque amantes Litora soles. CARMEN AD 0. FAVONIUM ZEPHYRINUM. 107 ELEGIAC VERSES, OCCASIONED BT THE SIGHT OF THE PLAINS WHERE THE BATTLE OP TKEBIA WAS FOUGHT. Qua Treble glaucas salices intersecat unda, Arvaque Romanis nobilitata malis ; Visus adhuc amnis veteri de clade rubere, Et suspirantes ducere mcestus aquas ; Maurorumque ala, et nigriB increbescere turmac, Et pulsa Ausonidum ripa sonare fuga. CARMEN AD C. FAVONIUM ZEPHYRINUM. Mater rosarum, cui tenerse vigent Aurse Favoni, cui Venus it comes Lasciva, Nympharum choreis Et volucrum celebrata cantu ! Die, non inertem fallere qua diem Amat sub umbra, seu sinit aureum Dormire plectrum, seu retentat Pierio Zepbyriaus antro Furore dulci plenus, et immemor Reptantis inter frigora Tusculi Umbrosa, vel coUes Amici Palladise superantis Albas. Dilecta Fauno, et capripedum chorig Pineta, tester vos, Anio minax QuiBcunque per clivos yolutus Praecipiti tremefecit amne, 108 gray's poems Ulius altum Tibur, et iBsulse Audisse sylvas nomen amabiles, Ulius et gratas Latinis Naisin ingeminasse nipes ; Nam me Latiase Naides uTida Videre ripa, qua niveas levi Tarn saepe lavit rore plumas Dulce canens Venusinus ales ; Mirum ! canenti conticuit nemus, Sacrique fontes, et retinent adhuc (Sic Musa jussit) saxa moUes Docta modos, veteresque lauri. Mirare nee tu me citharae rudem Claudis laborantem numeris : loca Amoena, jucundumque ver iu- compositum docuere carmen ; Haerent sub omni nam folio nigri Phcebea luci (credite) somnia, Argutiusque et lympha et aurae Nescio quid solito loquntur. FRAGMENT OF A LATIN POEM ON THE GAURUS. Nbc procul infeUx se tollit ia sethera Gaurus, Prospiciens vitreum lugenti vertice pontum : Tristior ille diu, et veteri desuetus olivS. Gaurus, pampineaeque eheu ! jam nescius umbrae ; Horrendi tarn saeva premit vicinia montis, Attonitumque urget latus, exuritque ferentem. Nam fama est olim, media dijm rura silebant THE GAURtS. 109 Nocte, Deovicta, et molli perfusa quiete, Infremuisse aequor ponti, auditamque per omnes Late tellurem surdum iimnugire cavernas : Quo sonitu nemora alta tremunt : tremit excita tuto Parthenopsea sinu, flammantisque ora Vesevi. At subito se aperire solum, vastosque recessus Pandere sub pedibus, nigraque voragine fauces ; Turn piceas cinerum glomerare sub sethere nubes Vorticibus rapidis, ardentique imbre procellam. Prsecipites fugere ferse, perque avia longe Sylvarum fugit pastor, juga per deserta. Ah, miser ! increpitans ssepe alta voce per umbram Nequicquam natos, creditque audire sequentes. Atque ille excelso rupis de vertice solus Respectans notaaque domos, et dulcia regna. Nil usquam videt infelix praeter mare tristi Lumine percussum, et pallentes sulphure campos Fumumque, flammasque, rotataque turbine saxa. Quin ubi detonuit fragor, et lux reddita ccelo ; Msestos confluere agricolas, passuque videres Tandem iterum timido deserta requirere tecta : Sperantes, si forte ocuUs, si forte darentur TJxorum cineres, miserorumve ossa parentum (Tenuia, sed tanti saltem solatia luctus) Una coUigere et justa componere in urna. TJxorum nusquam cineres, nusquam ossa parentum (Spem miseram !) assuetosve Lares, aut rura videbunt. Quippe ubi planities campi difiusa jacebat ; Mons novus : ille supercilium, frontemque favilla Incanum ostentans, ambustis cautibus, sequor Subjectum, stragemque suam, mscsta arva, minaci Despicit imperio, soloque in littore regnat. 110 gkat's poems. Hinc infame loci nomen, multosque per annos Tmrtiemor antiquse laudis, nescire labores Vomeris, et nullo tellus revirescere cultu. Non avium colles, non carmine matutino Pastorum resonare ; adeo undique dirus habebat Informes late horror agros saltusque vacantes. Ssepius et longe detorquens navita proram Monstrabat digito littus, ssevseque revolvens Funera narrabat noctis, veteremque ruinam. Montis adhuc facies manet hirta atque aspera saxis : Sed furor extinctus jamdudum, et flamma quievit, Quae nascenti aderat ; seu forte bituminis atri Defluxere olim rivi, atque effceta lacuna Pabula sufficere ardori, viresque recusat ; Sive in visceribua meditans incendia jam nunc (Horrendum) arcanis glomerat genti esse futuree Exitio, sparsos tacitusque recolligit ignes. Raro per clivos baud secius ordine vidi Canescentem oleam : longum post tempus amicti Vite virent tumuli ; patriamque revisere gaudens Bacchus in assuetis tenerum caput exerit arvis Vix tandem, infidoque audet se credere coelo. A FAREWELL TO FLORENCE. * * FiESTJLiE amcena Frigoribus juga, nee nimiiim spirantibus auris ! Alma quibus Tusci Pallas decus Apennini Esse dedit, glauc&que sua canescere sylva ! Non ego vos posthac Ami de valle videbo ALCAIC ODE. Ill Porticibus circum, et candenti cincta corona Villarum longe nitido consurgere dorso, Antiquamve ^dem, et veteres prseferre Cupressus Mirabor, tectisque super pendentia tecta. IMITATION OF AN ITALIAN SONNET OF SIGNIOR ABBATE BUONDELMONTE. Spesso Amor sotto la forma D'amista ride, e s'asconde : Poi si mischia, e si confonde Con lo sdegno, e col rancor. In Pietade ei si trasforma ; Par trastuUo, e par dispetto ; Ma nel suo diyerso aspetto Sempr' egli, e 1' istesso Amor. LusiT amicitise iaterdum velatus amictu, Et bene composita veste fefelUt Amor. Mox irse assumpsit cultus, faciemque minantem, Inque odium versus, versus et in lacrymas : Ludentem ftige, nee lacrymanti, aut crede furenti ; Idem est dissimili semper in ore Deus. ALCAIC ODE, WRITTEN IN THE ALBTM OF THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE, IN DAUPHINTT, AUGUST 1741. Tu, severi Eellgio loci, Quocunque gaudes nomine (non leve Nativa nam certe fluerita Numen habet, veteresque sylvas ; 112 gray's poems. Prsesentiorem et bonspicimus Deum Per invias rupes, fera per juga, Clivosque prseruptos, sonantcs Inter aquas, nemorumque noctem ; Quam si repostus sub trabe citrea Fulgeret auro, et Phidiaca manu ;) Salve vocanti rite, fesso et Da placidam juveni quietem. Quod si invidendis sedibus, et frui Fortuna sacra lege silentii Vetat volentem, me resorbens In medioa violenta fluctus : Saltern remote des, Pater, angulo Horas senectse ducere liberas ; Tutumque vulgari tumultu Surripias, hominumque curis. PART OF AN HEROIC EPISTLE FROM •SOPnONISBA TO MASINISSA. Egregitjm accipio promissi Munus amoris, Inque manu mortem, jam fruitura, fero : Atque utinam citius mandasses, luce vel una Transieram Stygios non inhonesta lacus. ' Victoris nee passa toros, nova nupta, mariti, Nee fiieram fastus, Eoma superba, tuos. Scilicet hsec partem tibi, Masinissa, triumphi Detractam, hsec pompae jura minora suae Imputat, atque uxor quod non tua pressa catenis, Objecta et ssevae plausibus orbis eo : PART OF AN HEROIC EPISTLE. 113 Quin tu pro tantis cepisti prsemia factis, Magnilm Romanse pignus amicitiae ! Scipiadae excuses, oro, si, tardius utar Munere. Non nimium vivere, crede, velim. Parva mora est, breve sed tempus mea fama requirit : Detinet haec animam cura suprema meam. Qua patriae prodesse meae Regina ferebar. Inter Elisaeas gloria prima nurus. No videar flammae nimis indulsisse secundae, Vel nimis hostiles extimuisse manus. Fortunam atque annos liceat revocare priores, Graudiaque heu ! quantis nostra repensa tnalis. Primitiasne tuas meministi atque arma Syphacis Pusa, et per Tyrias ducta trophaea vias 1 (Laudis at antiquae forsan meminisse pigebit, Quodque decus quondam causa ruboris erit.) Tempus ego certe memini, felicia Poenis Quo te non puduit solvere vota deis ; Moerdaque intrantem vidi : longo agmine duxit Turba salutantum, purpureique patres. Foeminea ante omnes longe admiratur euntem, Haeret et aspectu tota caterva tUo. Jam flexi, regale decus, per colla capilU, Jam decet ardenti fuscus in ore color ! Commendat frontis generosa modestia formam, Seque cupit laudi surripuisse suae. Prima genas tenui signat vix flore juventas, Et dextrae soli credimus esse virum. Dum faciles gradiens oculos per singula jactas, (Seu rexit casus lumina, sive Venus) In me (vel certfe visum est) conversa morari Sensi ; virgineus perculit ora pudor. 19 114 gray's poems. Nescio quid vultum moUe spirare tuendo, Credideramque tuos lentius ire pedes. Quserebam, juxta sequalis si dignior esset, Quae poterat visas detinuisse tuos : Nulla fuit circum sequalis quae dignior esset, Asseruitque decus conscia forma suum. Pompse finis erat. Tota vis nocte quievi, Sia premat iuvitae lumina victa sopor, Somnus habet pompas, eademque recursat imago Atque iterum hesterno munere victor ades. Tt TT T^ T^ TT DIDACTIC POEM, UNFINISHED, ENTITLED DE PRINGIPES COGITANDI. LIBER PRIMUS. AD FATONItlM. Unde Animus scire iacipiat ; quibus iachoet orsa Principiis seriem rerum, tenuemque catenam Mnemosyne : Ratio unde rudi sub pectore tardum Augeat imperium ; et primum mortalibus segris Ira, Dolor, Metus, et Curse nascantur inanes, Hinc canere aggredior. Nee dedignare canentem, decus ! Angliacse certe lux altera gentis ! Si quci primus iter monstras, vestigia conor Signare incerta, tremulaque insistere planta. Quia potius due ipse (potes namque omnia) sanctun Ad limen (si ritfe adeo, si pectore puro,) Obscurse reserans Naturae ingentia claustra. Tu caecas rerum causas, fontemque severum DE PRINCIPIIS COGITANDI. 115 Pande, Pater ; tibi enim, tibi, veri magne Saeerdos, Corda patent hominum, atque altse penetralia Mentis. Tuque aures adhibe vacuas, facilesque, Pavoni, (Quod tibi crescit opus) simplex nee despice carmen, - Nee vatem : non ilia leves primordia motus, Quanquam parva, dabunt. Lsetum vel amabile quicquid Usquam oritur, trahit bine ortum ; nee surgit ad auras, Quin ea conspirent simul, eventusque secundent. Hinc variae vitai artes, ac mollior usus, Dulce et amicitise vinclum : Sapientia dia Hinc roseum accendit lumen, Tultuque serene Humanas aperit mentes, nova gaudia monstrans, Deformesque fugat curas, vanosque timores : Scilicet et rerum crescit pulcherrima Virtus. Ilia etiam, quae te (mirum !) noctesque diesque Assidue fovet inapirans, Hnguamque sequentem Temperat in numeros, atque boras mulcet inertes Aurea non alia se jactat origine Musa. Principio, ut magnum foedus Natura creatrix Firmavit, tardis jussitque inolescere membris Sublimes animas ; tenebroso in carcere partem Noluit aetheream longo torpere veterno : Nee per se proprium passa exercere vigorem est, Ne sociae-molis conjunctos sperneret artus, Ponderis oblita, et coelestis conscia flammae. Idcircd innumero ductu tremere undique fibras Nervorum instituit : turn toto corpore miscens Implicuit lat^ ramos, et sensile textum, Implevitque humore suo (sen lympba vocanda, Sive aura est) tenuis cert^, atque levisaima quaedam Vis versatur agens, parvosque infusa canales Perfluit; aSsidue extemis quae concita plagis. 116 gkay's poems. Mobilis, incTissique fidelis nuntia motus, Hinc ind^ accensa contage relabitur usque Ad superas hominis sedes, arcemque cerebri. Namque illic posuit solium, et sua templa sacravit Mens animi : banc circum coeunt, densoque feruntur Agmine notitise, simulacraque tenuia rerum : Ecce autem naturae ingens aperitur imago Immensae, variique patent commercia mundi. Ac uti longinquis descendunt montibus amnes Velivolus Tamisis, flaventisque Indus arense, Euphratesque, Tagusque, et opimo flumine Ganges, Undas quisque feuas volvens, cursuque sonoro In mare prorumpunt : hos magno acclinis in antro Excipit Oceanus, natorumque ordine longo Dona recognoscit venientum, ultroque serenat Cseruleam faciem, et diffuse marmore ridet. Hand aliter species properant se inferre novelise Certatim menti, atque aditus quino agmine complent. Primas tactus agit partes, primusque minutae Laxat iter caBCum turbse, recipitque ruentem. Non idem buic modus est, qui fratribus : amplius ille Imperium affectat senior, penitusque medullis, Visceribusque habitat totis, pellisque recentem Funditur in telam, et late per stamina vivit. Necdum etiam matris puer eluctatus ab alvo Multiplices solvit tunicas, et vincula rupit ; Sopitus molU somno, tepidoque liquore Circumfusus adbuc : tactus tamen aura lacessit Jamdudum levior sensus, animamque reclusit. Idque magis simul, ac solitum blandumque calorem Frigore mutavit coeli, quod verberat acri Impete inassuetos artus : tum saevior adstat. DB PRINCIPIIS COGITANDI. 117 Humanseque comes vite Dolor excipit ; ille Cunctantem frustra et tremulo multa ore querentem Corripit invadens, ferreisque amplectitur ulnis. Turn species primum patefacta est Candida Lucis (Usque vices adeo Natura bonique, malique, Exaequat, justaque manu sua damna rependit) Turn primum, ignotosque bibunt nova lumina soles. Carmine quo,.Dea, te dicam, gratissima cceli Progenies, ortumque tuum ; gemmantia rore TJt.per prata levi lustras, et floribus halans Purpureum Veris gremium, scenamque'virentem Pingis, et umbriferos coUes, et cserula regna 1 Gratia te, Venerisque Lepos, et mille Colorum, Formarumque chorus sequitur, motusque decentes. At caput invisum Stygiis Nox atra tenebris Abdidit, horrendaeque simul Formidinis ora, Pervigilesque sestus Curarum, atque anxius Angor. Undique Isetitia florent mortalia corda, Purus et arridet largis fulgoribus ^ther. Omnia nee tu ideo invalidse se pandere Menti (Quippe nimis teneros posset vis tanta diei Perturbare, et inexpertos confundere visus) Nee capere infantes animos, neu cernere credas Tam variam molem, et mirse spectacula lucis : Nescio qua tamen hsec oeulos dulcedine parvos Splendida percussit novitas, traxitque sequentes ; Nonne videmus enim, latis inserta fenestris Sicubi se Phoebi dispergant aurea tela, Sive lucemarum rutilus coUuxerit ardor, Extemplo hue obverti aciem, quae fixa repertos Haurit inexpletum radios, fruiturque tuendo. 19* 118 gray's poems. Altior huic ver6 sensu, majorque videtur Addita, Judicioque arct^ connexa potestas, Quod simul atque setas volventibus auxerit annis, Hsec simul, assiduo depascens omnia visu, Perspiciet, vis quanta loci, quid polleat ordo, Juncturse quis honos, ut res accendere rebus Lumina conjurant inter se, et mutua fulgent. Nee minor in geminis viget auribus iasita virtus, Nee tantum in curvis quae pervigil excubet antris Hinc atque hinc (ubi Vox tremefecerit ostia pulsu Aeriis invecta rotis) longeque recurset : Scilicet Eloquio haec sonitus, hsec fulrfiiris alas, Et mulcere dedit dictis et toUere corda, Verbaque metiri numeris, versuque ligare Repperit, et auicquid discant Libethrides undse, Calliope quoties, quoties Pater ipse canendi Evolvat liquidum carmen, calamove loquenti Inspiret dulces animas, digitisque figuret. At medias fauces, et linguae humentia templa Gustus habet, qui se insinuet jucunda saporum Luxuries, dona Autumni, Baccbique voluptas. Naribus interea consedit odora hominum vis, Docta leves captare auras, Panchaia quales Vere novo ejjlialat, Floraeve quod oscula fragrant, Roscida, cum Zephyri furtim sub vesperis bora Respondet votis, moUemque aspirat amorem. Tot portas altae capitis circumdedit arci Alma Parens, sensusque vias per membra reclusit ; Haud solas : namque intus agit vivata facultas, Qua sese explorat, contemplatusque repente Ipse suas animus vires, momentaque cernit. Quid yelit, aut possit, capiat, fugiatve, vicissim DB PRINCIPIIS COGITANDI. 119 Percipit imperio gaudens ; neque corpora fallunt Morigera ad celeres actus, ac numina mentis. Qualis Hamadryadum quondam si forte sororum Una, novos peragrans saltus, et devia rura : (Atque illam in viridi suadet procumbere ripa Fontis pura quies, et opaci frigoris umbra) Dum prona in latices speculi de margine pendet, Mirata est subitam venienti occurrere Nympham : Mox eosdem, quos ipsa, artus, eadem ora gerentem Una inferre gradus, un^ succedere sylvae Aspicit alludens ; seseque agnoscit in undis. Sic sensu interno rerum simulacra suarum Mens ciet, et proprios observat conscia Yultus. Nee ver6 simplex ratio, aut jus omnibus unum Constat imaginibus. Sunt quae biaa ostia norunt ; Hse privos servant aditus ; sine legibus illae Passim, qua data porta, ruunt, animoque propinquanti Respice, cui k cunis tristes extinxit ocellos, Sseva et in eternas mersit natura tenebras : Illi ignota dies lucet, vernusque colorum Ofiusus nitor est, et vivse gratia formse. Corporis at filum, et motus, spatiumque, locique Intervalla datur certo dignoscere tactu : Quandoquidem his iter ambiguum est, et janua duplex, Exclusseque oculis species irrumpere tendunt Per digitos. Atqui solis concessa potestas Luminibus blandse est radios immittere lucis. Undique proporrd sociis, quacunque patescit Notitise campus, mistse lasciva feruntur Turba voluptatis comites, formseque dolorum Terribiles visu, et porta glomerantur in omni. Nee vario minus introitu magnum ingruit Illud, 120 gray's poems. Quo facere et fungi, quo res existere circum Quamque sibi proprio cum corpore scimus, et ire Ordine, perpetuoque per aevum flumiae labi. Nunc age quo valeat pacto, qua sensilis arte Affectare viam, atque animi tentare latebras Materies (dictis auras adverte faventes) Exsequar. Imprimis spatii quam multa^per sequor Millia multigenis pandant se corpora seclis, Expende. Hand unum invenies, quod mente licebit Amplecti, nedum proprius deprendere sensti, Molis egens certse, aut solido sine robore, cujus Denique mobilitas linquit, texturave partes, UUa nee orarum circumcsesura coercet. Hsec conjuncta ade6 tota eompage fatetur Mundus, et extremo clamant in limine rerum, (Si rebus datur extremum) primordia. Firmat Haec eadem tactus (tactum quis dicere falsum Audeat ?) haec ocuH nee lucidus arguit orbis. Inde potestatum enasci densissima proles : Nam quodcunque ferit visum, tangive laborat, Quicquid nare bibis, vel concava concipit auris, Quicquid lingua sapit, credas hoc omne, necesseest Ponderibus, textu, discursu, mole, figura Particular prsestare leves, et semina rerum. Nunc oculos igitur pascunt, et luce ministra Fulgere cuncta vides, spargique coloribus orbem, Dum de sole trahunt alias, aUasque superne Detorquent, retroque decent se vertere flammas. Nunc trepido inter se fervent corpuseula pulsu, tJt tremor sethera per magnum, lateque natantes Aurarum fluctus avidi vibrantia claustra Auditus queat allabi, sonitumque propaget. DE PKINCIPIIS COGITANDI. 121 Cominus interdum non ullo interprete per se Nervorum invadunt teneraa quatientia fibras, Sensiferumque urgent ultro per viscera motum. 'fF •ff T^ -TP T^ 'Tf' LIBER QUARTUS. Hactenus baud segnis Naturae arcana retexi Musarum interpres, primusque Britanna per arva Romano liquidum deduxi flumine rivum. , Cum Tu opere in medio, spes tanti et causa laboris, Linquis, et seternam fati te condis in umbram ! Vidi egomet duro graviter concussa dolore Pectora, in alterius non unquam lenta dolorem ; Et languere oculos vidi, et pallescere amantem Vultum, quo nunquam Pietas nisi rara, Pidesque, Altus amor Veri, et purum spirabat Honestum. Visa tamen tardi demum inclementia morbi Cessare est, reducemque iterum roseo ore Salutem Speravi, atque una tecum, dilecte Favoni ! Credulus heu longos, ut quondam, fallere Soles : Heu spes nequicquam dulces, atque ixrita vota ! Heu msestos Soles, sine te quos ducere flendo Per desideria, et questus jam cogor irianes ! At Tu, sancta anima, et nostri non indiga luctus, Stellanti templo, sincerique setheris igne. Undo orta es, fruere ; atque 6 si secura, nee ultra Mortalis, notos olim miserata labores Respectes, tenuesque vacet eognoscere curas ; Humanam si forte alta de sede procellam Contemplere, metus, stimulosque cupidinis acres. 122 gray's poems. Gaudiaque et gemitus, parvoque in corde tuimiltum Irarum ingentem, et saevos sub pectore fluctus ; Respice et has lacrymas, memori quas ictus amore Fundo ; quod possum, juxtk lugere sepulchrum Dum juvat, et mutse vana haec jactare favillae. ******* GREEK EPIGRAM. '^t,6^EV0i nokidtjqov lii.rj^6i,ov dlaoi avaaaai, Movvoi »g evda y^vvbiv t^adibiv xXayyevuvv vkaVfiot^ '^yjaxeti IVv/iipav ay^OTE^av x.EXadu. TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS. PBTRAECA PAET I. SONBTTO 170. " Lasso ch' i' ardo, ed altri non mel crede } " &c. IMITATED. Uror, io ; veros at nemo credidet ignes : Quin credunt omnes ; dura sed ilia negat, Ula negat, soli volumus cui posse probare ; Quin videt, et vises improba dissimulat. Ah, durissima mi, sed et, ah, pulcherrima rerum ! - Nonne animam in misera, Cynthia, fronte vides 7 Omnibus ilia pia est ; et, si non fata vetassent, Tam longas mentem flecteret ad lacrymas. Sed tamen has lacrymas, hunc tu, quem spreveris, ignem, Carminaque auctori non bene culta sue, Turba futurorum non ignorabit amantum : Nos duo, cumque erimus parvus uterque cinis. Jamque faces, eheu ! oeulorum, et frigida lingua, Heb sine luce jacent, immemor ilia loqui ; Infelix musa aeternos spirabit amores, Ardebitque uma multa favilla mea. 124 GRAy'S POEMS. FROM THE "ANTHOLOGIA GRiECA. IN bacchjE fukentis statu am. Crbdite, non viva est Maenaa ; non spirat imago : Artificis rabiem miscuit sere manus. IN ALEXANDRCM, 2EKB EFFICTCM. Quantum audet, Lysippe, manus tua ! surgit ia aere SpirituSj'atque ocuHs bellicus ignis adest : Spectate hos vultus, miserisque ignoscite Persis : Quid mirum, imbelles si leo sparsit oves 1 IN MEPK/Ti IMAGINEM, NOBILE TIMOMACHI OPUS. En libi Medeae varius dolor aestuat ore,' Jamque animum nati, jamque maritus, habent ! Succenset, miseret, medio exardescit amore, Dum furor inque oculo gutta minante tremit. Cernis adhuc dubiam ; quid enim ? licet impia matris Colchidos, at non sit dextera Timomaehi. IN NIOBBS STATUAM. FecerAt e viva lapidem me Jupiter ; at me Praxiteles vivam reddidit e lapide. A NYMPH OFFERING A STATUE OF HERSELF TO VENUS. Te tibi, sancta, fero nudam ; formosius ipsa Cum tibi, quod ferrem, te, Dea, nil habui. FROM THE ANTHOLOaiA GEiECA. 125 IN AMOKEM DOKMIBNTEM. DoCTE puer vigiles mortalibus addere curas, Anne potest in te somnus habere locum ? Laxi juxta arcus, et fax suspensa qniescit, Dormit et in pharetra clausa sagitta sua ; Longe mater abest ; longe Cytbereia turba : Verum ausint alii te prope ferre pedem, Non ego : nam metui valde, mibi, perfide, quiddam Forsan et in somnis ne meditere mali. PROM A FRAGMENT OP PLATO. Itue in Idalios tractus, felicia regna, Fundit ubi densam myrtea sylva comam, Intus Amor teneram visus spirare quietem, Dum roseo roseos imprimit ore toros ; Sublimem procul a ramis pendere pharetram, Et de languidula spicula lapsa manu, Vidimus, et risu moUi diducta labella Murmure quae assiduo pervolitabat apis. IN FONTEM AQU^ CALID^E. Sub platanis puer Idaljus prope fluminis undam Dormiit, in ripa deposuitque facem. Tempus adest, socise, Nympbarum audentior una, Tempus adest, ultra quid dubitamus 7 ait. Ilicet incurrit, pestem ut divumque hominumque Lampada coUectis exanimaret aquis : Demens ! na,m nequiit ssevam restinguere flammam Nympha, sed ipsa igries traxit, et inde ealet. 20 126 gkay's poems. Irrbpsisse suas murem videt Argus in sedes, Atque ait, heus, a me nunquid, amice, velia ? lUe autem ridens, metuas nihil, inquit ; apud te, bone, non epulas, hospitium petimus. Hanc tibi Rufinus mittit, Rodoclea, coronam. Has tibi decerpens texerat ipse rosas ; Est viola, est anem6ne, est suave-rubens hyacinthus, Mistaque Narcisso lutea caltha suo : Sume ; sed aspiciens, ah, fidere desine formse ; Qui pinxit, brevis est, sertaque teque, color. AD AMOBEM. Paulisper vigiles, oro, compesce dolores, Respue nee musae suppHcis aure preces ; Oro brevem lacrymis veniam, requiemque furori : Ah, ego non possum vulnera tanta pati ! Intima flamma, vides,.miseros depascitur artus, Surgit et extremis spiritus in labiis : Quod si tarn tenuem cordi est exsolvere vitam, Stabit in opprobrium sculpta querela tuum. Juro perque faces istas, arcumque sonantem, Spiculaque hoc unum figere docta jecur ; Heu fuge crudelem puerum, ssevasque sagittas ! Huic fuit exitii causa, viator, Amor. APPENDIX, The following extracts from a Poem on the Letters of the Alphabet were transcribed from a manuscript of Gray, and are published in the fifth volume of Mr. MitfoM's edition of his Tforks. As they are not inserted among the Poems, which are contained in the first volume of that edition, we presume that they came into Mr. Mitford's possession after it was printed. They appear in what seems to be an imperfect or mutilated letter. Horace Walpole mentions that Gray would never allow this poem to be his, but the humor and versification were so much in Gray's style that he could not believe it to be written by any other hand. The manuscript says : "To make my peace with the noble youth you mention, I send you a poem that I am sure they will read (as well as they can) — a masterpiece, it is said, being an admirable improvement on that beautiful piece called Pugna Poroorum, which begins — ' Flangite porcelli Porcorum pigra propago }' but that is iu Latin, and not for their reading ; but indeed this is worth a thousand of it, and unfortunately it is not perfect, and it is not mine." THE CHARACTERS OF THE CHRIST-CROSS ROW, BY A CRITIC, TO MRS. ■ •. ***** Great D c?raws near — the ZJuchess sure is come, Open the rfoors of the withdrawing-room ; Her daughters decked most daintily I see, The Dowager grows a perfect double D. E enters next, and with her Eve appears. Not like yoii Dowager deprest with years ; 128 APPENDIX. What Ease and Elegance her person grace, Bright beaming, as the Evening-star, her face; Queen Esther next — how fair even after death, .Then one faint glimpse of Queen Elizabeth ; No more, our Esthers now are naught but Hetties, Elizabeths all dwindled into Betties : In vain you think to find them under E, They 're all diverted into H and B. P follows fast the fair — and in his rear See Folly, Fashion, Foppery, straight appear. All with fantastic clews, fantastic clothes. With Fans and Flounces, Fringe and Furbelows. Here Grub-street Geese presume to joke and jeer. All, all, but Grannam Osborne's Gazetteer. High heaves his hugeness H, methinks we see, Henry the Eighth's most monstrous majesty ; But why on such mock graiideur should we dwell 7 H mounts to Heaven, and H descends to Hell. *^ .jt. 4t. 4t- TV ^ TV* Tt" As H the Hebrew found, so I the Jew, See Isaac, Joseph, Jacob, pass in view ; The walls of old Jerusalem appear. See Israel, and all Judah thronging there. Tt TT TT TT P pokes his head out, yet has not a pain ; Like Punch, he peeps, but soon pops in again ; Pleased with his Pranks, the Pisgys call him Puck, Mortals he loves to prick, and pinch, and pluck ; Now a pert Prig, he perks upon your face. Now peers, pores, ponders with profound grimace, Now a proud Prince, in pompous Purple drest. And now a Player, a Peer, a Pimp, or Priest ; APPENDIX. 129 A Pea, a Pin, in a perpetual round, Now seems a Penny, and now shows a Pound; Like Perch or Pike, in Pond you see him come, He in plantations hangs like Pear or Plum, Pippin or Peach ; then perches on the spray, In form of Parrot, Pye, or Popinjay. P, Proteus-like, all tricks, all shapes can show. The Pleasantest Person in the Christ-Cross row. ***** As K a King, Q represents a Queen, And seems small difference the sounds between ; K, as a man, with hoarser accent speaks, In shriller notes Q like a female squeaks ; Behold K struts, as might a King become, Q draws her train along the Drawing-room, Slow follow all the quality of State, Queer Queensbury only does refuse to wait. * jl. ^ M^ ^ ■It" -Jt" -JT- Tt" Thus great R reigns in town, while, different far. Bests in Retirement little Rural R ; Remote from cities lives in lone Retreat, With Rooks and Rabbit burrows round his seat — S, sails the Swan slow down the Silver stream. ***** So big with Weddings, waddles W, And brings all Womankind before your view ; A Wench, a Wife, a Widow and a W , With Woe behind, and Wantonness before. 20* 130 APPENDIX. Ir would be unjust to Gray to insert the following extempore effusions among his Poems ; but they have been preserved and printed, and, that we may omit nothing in verse from his pen, we insert them in this place : EPIGRAM ON DR. KEENE. The Bishop of Chester, Though wiser than Nestor, And fairer than Esther, If you scratch him will fester. EPITAPH ON DR. KEENE. Here lies Dr. Keene, the good Bishop of Chester, Who eat a fat goose, and could not digest her. EXTEMPORE EPITAPH On Anne, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery, made by Mr. Gray on reading the Epitaph on her mother's tomb in the church at Appleby, composed by the Countess in the same manner. Now clean, now hideous, mellow now, now gruff. She swept, she hissed, she ripened and grew rough, At Brougham, Pendragon, Appleby and Brough. IMPROMPTTT. (From the Wharton Manuscript.) When you rise from your dinner as light as before, 'T is a sign you have eat just enough and no more. NOTES TO GRAY. On the Spring. Page 25. — Mason tells us that, in the original manuscript, Gray had given to this ode the title of Noontide. Page 25, line 14. " a bank O'er-canopied with luscious woodbine." Mids. Night's Dream. Page 26, line 7. " Nare per Eestatem Uquidam." — Georg. iv. 59. — Gray. Page 26,. line 10. " sporting with quick glamce^ Shew to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold." Par. Lost, viii 410. — Gray. Page 26, line 23. — " While injects from the threshold preach." — Green, in the " Grotto." Dodsley^s Misc. v. p. 161. — Gray, On the Death of a Favorite Oat, drowned in a Tub op Gold Fishes. Page 27. — The subject of this poem was a cat of "^alpole's, which Gray said he was about to " immortalize for a week or a fortnight." After the poet's death, Walpole placed the cliina vase on a pedestal, inscribing on it the four first lines of the ode. From Straw- berry Hill it was removed to the seat of Lord Derby, at Knowsley. On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Page 28, Ime 20. — Kmg Henry the Sixth, founder of the College. — Gray. Page 29, line 9. — " And bees their honey redolent of spring." — Dryden'a Pable on the Pythag. System. — Crray, Page 31, Une 9. -r- " Madness laughing in his ireful mood." — Dryden. — Gray. The Progress op Poesy. Page 34. — When the author first pubhahed this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his friends, to subjoin some few explanatory notes j but had too much respect for the understanding of his readers to take that liberty Gray. Page 34, Une 1. " Awake, my glory : awafee, lute and harp.". DSfVid's Psalms. — Graji. " Awake, awake, my lyre, And teU thy sUeqt master's h^imble tale.V Cowley, " Qi^e of Dj^vJ^.';' 132 NOTES. Pindar Btylea his own poetry, with Its musical accompanimente, AloXlg fioXTTi, Aiokidsg j^o§i5aii AloXiSuv jtvoal avXwvj iEolian song, ^olian BtrLngs, the breath of the iBolian flute. The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here described ; its quiet majes- tic progress, enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers ; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swollen and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions. Page 34, Uue 13. — Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar. — Gray. Page 34, line 20. — This is a weak inutation of some beautiful lines in the same Ode. — Gray. Page 35, Ime 1. — Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. — Gray. Page 35, line 18. — 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. — Gray. Page 35, line 31. " Or seen her [morning's] well-appointed star Come marching up the eastern biiia afar." Cowley. — Gray. Page 36, line 1. — Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations : its comiection with liberty, and ^e virtues that naturally aUend on it. " Extra anni solisque vias." — Virg. Mn. vi. 795. "Tutta lontana dal camin del sole." — Peti*. Canz. 2. Gray. Page 36, line 13. — Progress of poetry £rom Qreece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there. Spen- ser imitated the Italian writers ; Milton improved on them ; but this scUool expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose, on the French model, which has subsisted ever since. — Gray. Page 37, line 1. — " Piu lontan del Ciet." — Dante, " II Inferno," c. ix. Page 37, line 12. — Shakspeare. — Gray. " The flowery May, who from her green lap thi'ows The yellow cowslip, and the pale i)rimrose." Milton, Son. on May Morn. — Gray. Page 87, line 13. —r Mfltoij, " Paradise Lost," vi. 771. — Gray. Page 37, line 16. -r " yiammantia mcenja mundi," Lucret. i. 74. — Gray. Page 37, line 17. — "Por the spirit of the living' creature was in the wheels. And above the firmament th&t was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the ap- pearance of a sapphire stone. This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord."— Ezek, 1 : 20, 26, 28. — Gray. NOTES. 133 Page 37, line 20. — 'Oif^aXfioiv fiev afiBQOs' 3i3ov d' tjdsi'av Scoidi^v, Horn. "Od. 0." ver. 64. — Graij. Page 37, line 2i. — " East thou clothed his neck with thunder ? " — Job. This verse and the foregoing ai-e meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes. — Gray. Page 37, line 28. — " Words that weep and tears that speak." — Cowley. — Gray. Page.38, line 1. — "We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kmd 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, indeed, of late days, has touched the true chorda, and with a masterly hand, in some of his- choruses -, above all in the last of Caractacus : " Hark ! heard ye not yon footstep dread ? " &c, — Gray. Gray was strangely insensible to the surpassing merits of Collins, who contests the ' lyric palm not onty with himself, but with Dryden. Page 38, Ime 5. — ^log nQog oQvixa ©sfov, " Olymp." Puidar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamor in vain below, while it pur- sues its flight regardless of their noise. — Gray. Page 38, line 14. " Mocking the air with colors idly spread." " King John," Act v. sc. 1. — Gray, Page 38, line 18. — The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion. - Gray. Page 38, line 24. — Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Craigian-eryri^- it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshh'e, as f^r east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built by King Edward the Fu*at, says, " Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery ; " and Matthew of Westminster (ad ann. 1283), " Apud Abei'conway ad pedes montis Snowdoniae fecit erigi castrum forte." — Gray. Page 39, line 1. — Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Bed, Earl of Gloucester and Here- ford, son-m-law to King Edward. — Chray. Page 39, line 21. — Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. — Gray. They both were Lord Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accoApanied the king in this expedition. — Gray. Page 39, line 7. — The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, repre- senting the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings, both believed to be origmals, — one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans' collec- tion at Paris. — Gray. Pa^e 39, line 8. — " Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind." — Par. tost. — Gray. Pa^e 39, line 23. — The shores of Caernarvonshire opposite the isle of Anglesey. — Gray. Page 39, line 26. — Camden and others observe, that eagles used annually to build their eyrie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh Craigian-eryri, or the crags of the eagles. At this day (I am told) the highest 1S4 NOTES. point of Snowdoa is called the Eagle's nest. That bird ia certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots, and the people of ^Cumberland, Westmoreland, 4;c., can testify : it even has built its nest upon the peak of Derbyshire. (See Willoughby's " Ornithol,," by Ray.) — Gray. Page 40, line 1. " As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart." " Jul. CiBsar," Act ii. sc. 1. — Gray. Page 40, line 8. — See the Norwegian ode (the Fatal Sisters) that follows. — Gray. Page 40, line 15. — Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle. — Gray. Page 40, line 17. — Isabel of Prance, Edward the Second's adulterous queen. — Gray. Page 40, line 24. — Death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress. — Gray. Page 40, line 27. — Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father. — Gray. Page 41, Une 1. — Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign. See Proisaart and other contemporary writers. — Gray. Page 41, line 7. — Richard the Second, as we are told by Archbishop Scroop and the confederate Lords in then: manifesto, by Thomas of Walsingham, and all the older writers, was starved to death. The story of his assassination by Sir Piers of Exton is of much later date. — Gray, Page 41, line 13. — Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster. — Gray. Page 41, line 17. — Henry the Sixth, George Duke of Clarence, Edward the Fifth, Rich- ard Duke of York, &c., believed to be mui-dered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgarly attributed to Julius Caesar. — Gray. Page 41, line 19. — Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic apurit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown. Ibid. Hem-y the Fifth. — Gray. Page 41, line 20. — Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster. had no right of inheritance to the crown. — Gray. Page 41, line 21. — The white and red roses, devices of York and Lancaster. — Gray. Page 41, line 23. — The silver boar was the badge of Richard the Third j whence he was usually known in hia own time by the name of the Boar. — Gray. Page 41, line 29. — Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord is well known. The monuments of hia regret and sorrow for the loss of her are still to be seen at Northampton, Gaddington, Waltham, and other places. — Gray. Page 42, line 10. — Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island ; which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor. — Gray. Page 42, line 17. — Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzia- linski, ambassador of Poland, says, "And tlius she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestlcal deporture, than with the tavtnesse of her princelie checkes." — Gray. NOTES. . 135 Page 42, line 21. — Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high veneration among his country- men. — Gray. Page 43, line 26. — " Pierce wars and faithful loves shall moralize my song." Spen- ser's " Proeme to the P. Q." — Gray. Page 41, line 28. — Shakspearc. — Gray. Page 43, line 1. — Milton. — Gray. Page 43, line 3. — The succession of :i^oet3 after Milton's time. — Gray. Page 43, line 4. — " Why you would alter ' lost in long futurity,' I do not see, unless because you think ' lost ' and ' expire ' are tautologies, or because it looks as if the end of the prophecy were disappointed by it, and that people may think that poetry in Britain was some time or other really to expire, whereas the meaning is only that ifc was lost to his ear from the immense distance. I cannot give up * lost,' for it begins with an I." — Gray to Masorij June, 1757. Ode to Mdsio. Page 43. — This ode was performed in the Senate House of Cambridge, July 1, 1769, at the installation of His Grace Augustus Henry S'itzroy, Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of the University. Page 45, line 2. — Margaret of Anjou, wife of Hem*y VI., foundress of Queen's College. Elizabeth Widville, wife of Edward TV., hence called the paler rose, as being of the house of York. She added to the foundation of Margaret of Aqjou. Page 45, line 4. — Henry the Sixth and Eighth. The former the founder of King's, tlie latter the greatest benefactor to Trinity College. — Gray. Page 45, lino 25. — Countess of Richmond and Derby ; the mother of Henry VII., founder of St. John's and Christ's Colleges. — Gray. Page 46, line 14. — Lord Treasurer Burleigh was Chancellor of the University in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. — Gray. The Fatal Sisteks. Page 47. — It was related to Walter Scott, that a clergyman, while some remains of the Norse were yet spoken in North Ronaldsha, carried this translation of Gray there when first published, and read it to some of the old people as referring to the ancient history of their islands. But as soon as he had proceeded a Uttle way, they exclaimed they knew it very well in the origmal, and had often sang it to himself when he asked them for an old Norse song. They called it The Enchantress. Mason prints the Latin version, from which Gray composed his copies. The following is Gray's note of explanation : " To be found in the Orcades of Thormodus Torfoeus ; Hafnise, 1697, folio } and also in Bartholinus, p. 617, Ub. iii., c. 1, 4to. (The song of the Weird Sisters, translated from the Norwegian, written about 1029. Wharton, MS.) Page 47, line 3. " How quick they wheeled, and, flykig, behind them shot Sharp sleet of arrowy shower." " Par. Reg." iu. 324. — Gray. Page 47, Une 4. "The noise of battle hurtled in the air." " Julius CEeaar," Act ii. sc. 2. — Gray. 136 NOTES. The Vbgtam's Kivitha. Page 49, line 7. — " This ode is much more liWrally traoslated than the preceding. The original title I have restored from Gray'8 MS." — Mitford. The original is to^foe found in Sajinuud*3 Edda, and in Bartholinus. Lord Orford thought the ode e(|ual to any of Gray's. Page 49, line 14. — Hela, in the Edda, is described with a dreadful countenance, and her body half flesh-color and half blue. — Gray. Page 50, line 8. — The original word is ValgalldT ; firom KaZr, mortuus,'and Galldfj ■ incantatio. — Gray. Page 61, line 7. — Women were looked upon by the Gothic nations as having a i)ecu- liar insight into futurity ; and some there were that made profession of magic arts and divination. These travelled round the country, and were received in every house with great respect and honor. Such a woman bore the name of Volva Seidkona or Spakona. The dress of Thorbiorga, one of these prophetesses, is described at large in Eirik's Kauda Sogu (apud Bartholin, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 688.) "She had on a blue vest spangled all over with stones, a necklace of glass beads, and a cap made of the skin of a black lamb lined with white cat-skin. She leaned on a staff adorned with brass, with a round head set with stones ; and was girt with an Hunlandish belt, at which hung her pouch full of magical instruments. Her buskins were of rough calf-skin, bound on with ttiongs studded with knobs of brass, and her gloves of white cat-skin, the fur turned inward," &c. They were also called FioUcyngi^ or FioUcunnug^ that is, Multi-scia j and Fisindakona, that is, Oraculorum Mulier *, Nomir^ that is, Parcee. — Gray. Page 62, line 18. — Lok is the evil being, who continues in chains till the twilight of the gods approaches : when he shall break his bonds, the human race, the stars and sun, shall disappear \ the earth sink in the seas, and flre consume the skies : even Odin him- self and his kindred deities shall perish. For a further explanation of this mythology, see "Introd. d I'Hist. de Dannemarc, par Mens. Mallet," 1755, quarto } or rather a transla- tion of it published in 1770, and entitled " Northern Antiquities j" in winch some mistakes in the original are judiciously corrected. — Gray. The Triomphs of Owen. Page 53, line 4. — Gwyneth — North Waies. — Gray. Page 53, line 14. — Lochlin — Denmark. — Gray. Page 53, line 20. — The red di-agon is the device of Cadwalladar. — Gray. Sonnet on the Death of West. Page 56. — Mr. Wordsworth quotes this sonnet in support of his argument, that the language of good poetry does not for the most part differ from that of good prose. See his preface" to his works. Epitaph on Sir Wm. Williams. Page 57. — Gray wrote this epitaph at the request of Mr. Frederick Montague, to place on a monument which he intended to erect at Belleisle. It was not a labor of love with Gray, as he was but sUghtly acquainted with the subject. Sir W- P. Williams was shot by one of the enemy's sentinels. Walpole calls him a gallant and ambitious young man, who had devoted himself to love and politics. The monument was never erected. Elegy written in a Country Cuurcu-yard. Page 58. —This poem is said to have been inspired by the chm-ch-yard of Stoke, and Jacob Bryant was convinced that much of it was actiially composed there. Other church- NOTES. 13T yards have had their claims asserted, but its images and reflections were doubtless the suggestions of many scenes and places. Id Gray's first MS. of the elegy were the four following stanzas after the verse ending with the " Muse's flame : " The thoughtless world to majesty may bow, Exalt the brave, and idolize success ; But more to innocence their safety owe Than power or genius e'er conspired to bless. And thou, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, Dost in these notes their artless tale relate. By night and lonely contemplation led To wander in the gloomy walks of f^te : Hark ! how the sacred calm that breathes around Bids every fierce, tumultuous passion cease ; In still smaU accents whispering from the ground A grateful earnest of eternal peace. No more with reason and thyself at strife, Give anxious cares and endless wishes room ; But through the cool sequestered vale of life Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom. This was the original close of the poem. After the twenty-fifth stanza, ending with the word " lawn," was the following : Hun have we seen the greenwood-side along, While o'er the heath we hied, our labor done, What time the wood-lark piped her. farewell song, With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun. In the MS. of Gray, a fac-simiie of which is contained in MatthiE^' edition, the following stanza is added to the poem, and marked by asterisks immediately to precede the epitaph. ThK was printed in some of the early editions, but afterwards omitted as too long a paren- thesis for the place : There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; The red-breast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground. Page 68, line 1. " squilia di lontano Che paia '1 giorno pianger, che si muore." Dante, " Purgat." — Gray. Page 61, line 4. " Ch' io veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, Predda una lingua, e due begli occhi chiusi Rimaner doppo noi pien di faviUe." Petr. Son, clxix. — Gray. A LONQ SrOET. Page 62. — Lady Cobham resided in the old mansion at Stoke, and, having read the Elegy in manuscript, wished to know the author. To fulfil her desire, a relation. Miss Speed, and Lady Schanb, paid a visit to Gray, and left a note on the table. Not even a poetical hermit might disregard such an invitation. He returned the " call," and to divert Lady Cobham and her family the " Long Story" was written. Gray omitted this from his collected poems. 21 138 NOTES. Page 62, line 19. — " paventosa speme." — Petr. Son. cxiv. — Gray. Page 62, line 22. — Sii* Edmond Coke's mansion, at Stoke-Pogeis, now the seat of Mr. Penn, was the scene of Gray's Long Story. The antique chimneys have heen allowed to remain as vestiges of the poet's fancy, and a column with a statue of Coke marks the former abode of its illustrious inhabitant. — D^ Israeli. Page 63, line 7. — Sir Christopher Hatton, promoted by Queen Elizabeth for his grace- ful person and fine dancing. — Gray. Page 66, line 15. — Styack — The housekeeper. — Gray. Page 63, line 27. — Squib — Groom of the chamber. — Gray, Page 63, line 28. — Groom — The steward — Gray. Page 67, line 4. — Macleane — A famous highwayman hanged the week before. — Gray. Odb on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Page 68. — Left unfinished by Gray. The additions, by Mason, are distmguished by inverted commas. Page 77, line 9. — In Gray's MS. Agrippina's was one continued speech from this line to the end of 'the scene. Mr. Mason informs us that he has altered it to the state io which it now stands. Hymn to Ignorance. Page 81. — This is supposed to have been written about the year 1742, when Gray returned to Cambridge. It received its title from Mason. Stanzas to Mr. Bbstley. Page 86. — These lines were written in compliment to Bentley, who made the Designs with which the six poems were published, by way of illustration. The words within inverted commas in the last stanza were supplied by Mason, a corner of the MS. copy havuig been torn. Sketch of his own Character. — Page 87. — *' Charles Townshend," — to whom Burke alludes as " another luminary," rising before the orb of Chatham was entirely set. " Squire," Bishop of St. David's, of whom Bishop Warburton said that he had made religion his trade, while Dean Tucker had made trade his religion. Song. Page 88. — Written at the request of Miss Speed, to aa old air of Geminiani : — the thought from the French. This and the Amatory Lines were presented by Miss Speed, then Countess de Viry, to the Rev. Mr. Leman, of Suffolk, while on a visit at her castle in Savoy, where she died m 1783. Tophet. Page 89. — These verses were intended to illustrate a grotesque etching of Henry Etough, Rector of Therfield, Herts, said to be the ugliest person of that age. He was a Jew, bub turned Christian for the sake of a good Uving. Impromptu. Page 89. — One of the least known of Gray's friends was Mr. William Robinson, a Berkshu-e clergyman, who had a house — Denton Court — near Canterbury, where the poet twice visited him. On one of these occasions, this impromptu, written and left by the poet, was found in a drawer of his dressing-table. The cause of Gray's antipathy to Lord Holland is not stated ; Scott calls him a " thorough-bred statesman of that evil period." NOTES. 139 The Candidate. Page 90. — Not long before Lord Sandwich canyasaed theelectora for the High-steward- Bhip of Cambridge, Gray wrote these bitter lines. Htmeseal. Page 99. — Printed in the Cambridge collection, 1736, folio. In this collection also is a Latin copy of Hendecasyllables, by Horace "Walpole. Luna Habitabilis. Page 101. — Written by desire of -the college, in 1737, and printed without the author's name, in Musie Etonenses, vol. ii., p. 107. It is referred to m Mason's Memoirs. Sapphic Odb. Page 104. — Mason considered this as the first original production of Gray's Muse ; the two former Latin poems beiug imposed as exercises, by the college. Carmen ad C. I'atonidm Zephteinum. Page 107.— To West, May, 1740, and written after the poet's visit to Frescati and the cascades of TivoU. Fragment of a Latin Poem on the Gaurus. Page 108. — Sent by Gray to his friend West, With a reference to Sandys' Travels, for the history of Monte Barbaro and Monte Nuovo. A translation of this poem may be seen in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1775. Alcaic Ode, Page 111. — In 1789, a French visitor found the Album in the Chartreuse, and copied this ode from it. Not long afterwards, a mob of ruffians from Grenoble broke into the - monastery and destroyed the books. Db Pbincipiis Cogitakdi. Page 114. — When Gray was in Florence, in the April of 1741, West sent to him some fragments of a tragedy which he had begun to write on " Pausanias." Gray deferred his opinion of the piece until he had seen the whole, and, by way of letting West have his "revenge," he enclosfed fifty-three lines of "De Principiis Cogitandi," which he called a metaphysic poem. Gray elsewhere alludes to it as Tommy Lucretius. Grees: Epigram. Page 122. — "I send you an inscription for a wood adjoining to a park of mine (it is on the confines of Mount Cithseron, on the left hand, as you go to Thebes) : you know I am no friend, to hunters, and hate to be disturbed by ttieir noise."' — Gray to West^ May 27, 1742. From the Anthologia Gr^ca. Page 124. — Mr. Gray enriched an interleaved edition of the " Anthologia Grseca " (by Henry Stephens, 1566) with notes, parallel passages from various authors, and some con- jectural emendations. He translated, or imitated, a few of the epigrams, of which the reader is presented with a specimen. In Amorem Dormientbm. Page 125. — " Anthol," p. 332. Catullianam illam spirat mollitiem. — Gray. From a Fragment op Plato. Page 125. — Elegantissimum faercle fragmentum, quod sic Latin^ nostro modo adum- bravimus. — Gray. POETICAL WORKS OLIVER GOLDSMITH 21* CONTENTS. Page LIFE OP GOLDSMITH, 5 POEMS. The TraTeller, . . . • 25 Tbe Deserted Tillage, 39 BetaliatioD, 65 Ltrioai. and Miscellaneotts. To an Impertinent Musician, 63 The Clown's Reply 63 Epigram on a Beautiful Youth Struck Blind by Lightning, 63 The Gift, 64 The Logicians Refuted, 64 A Madrigal, 66 Stanzas on the Taking of Quebec, / • • . 6'? ^ An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize, 67 Description of an Author's Bed-chamber, -. 68 Lines, on Seeing Mrs. * * Perform in the Character of * * *, 69 Translation of a South American Ode, '. 71 Elegy on the Death of the Right Hon^ * * *, 70 The Captivity, 71 ' The Double Transformation, \ 84 A New Simile, 87 The Hermit 89 An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, 95 Stanzas on Woman, 96 Epitaph on Edward Purdon 97 Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner, 97 Epitaph on Thomas Farnell ,99 The Haunch of Venison, 99 ThienodiaAuguatalis 103 Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury, 113 Song, intended tor the Comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, 117 Song, in the Comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, 117 Fragmentary Translations, 118 IV CONTENTS. Page PROLoanss and Epilogues. The Prologue of Laberius, . . .' . 123 Epilogue to the Goocl-Natured Man, 124 Epilogue to The Sister, 125 Prologue to Zobeide, .... * 126 Intended Epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer, 128 Another Intended Epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer, 131 Epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer, 133 Epilogue, Spoken by Mr. Charles Lee Lewes, in the Character of Harlequin, . . 134 Vida's Qahe op Ghrss, . . . . 139 NOTES, 161 LirE OF GOLDSMITH. Oliver Goldsmith was bom in the remote village of Pallas, in Ireland, on the 10th of November, 1728. He -was the son of the Rev. Charles Goldsiiiith, a Protestant clergyman, -whose character is supposed to he delineated in The Vicar of "Wakefield and the pastor of The Deserted Village. Two years after Oliver's birth, the fortunes of his father reached their zenith in a benefice of nearly two hundred pounds a year, to which he succeeded by the death of bis wife's uncle, the rector of Kilkenny West. This called for the re- moval of the family to the pretty village of Lissoy. The children were at that time four in number : Catherine, Henry, Jane, and Oliver, then the youngest. In the next ten years the family was increased by Maurice, Charles, and John. The first-born, Hargai-et, and John, the youngest, died in childhood. Henry followed the calling of his father. The other boys seem to have led wandering and shiftless lives. Of the girls, Catherine married a wealthy hus- bahd, Mr. Hodson, and Jane a poor one ; and both for some years survived their celebrated brother. Oliver learned his letters from Elizabeth Delap, a dependant in his father's house, and afterwards schoolmistress of Lissoy. She lived to be ninety years old, and was fond of talking of the celebrated doctor, and telling how dull a boy he was. When six years of age, he was sent to the village school kept by Mr. Thomas Byrne, who had been a quarter-master in Marlborough's wars, and no doubt taught accordingly. Thence, he went to the Rev. Mr. Griffin's superior school of Elphin, where his school-fellows, we are told, " all consid- 2 ^ LIFE OP GOLDSMITH. ered him a stupid, heavy, bloek-head, little better than a fool, whom every one made fan of." He brightened up, however, before many years, and showed such lively talents that after some four years spent under the instruction of the Rev. Patrick Hughes at Edgeworths- town, it was resolved he should be sent to college. To Dublin col- lege therefore he went as a sizar, or menial student, where his brother Henry had gone as a pensioner. But the poor clergyman's circum- stances, humble as they were, had changed for the worse, by his effort to provide a portion for his daughter Catherine, who had pri- vately married a young gentleman of fortune, Mr. Hodson, while pursuing his studies under the charge of her brother Henry. Oliver was a sensitive boy, reluctant to pursue liberal studies as a servant ; but he was finally induced to submit to it by the' kind persuasions of Thomas Contarine, a clergyman who had married the sister of Charles Goldsmith, and who alone Objit Londini, Apr. IT. MBOCLXXIT. Goldsmith was rather below the middle stature ; in his youth he was active and muscular, and fond of athletic sports. As he advanced in years, he grew stout and sturdy. Judge Day, of the Irish bench, describes him as about five feet six inches in height, strong but not heavy in make, rather fair in complexion, and with brown hair. His forehead was low and prominent ; his face round, and pitted with the small-pox. All who knew him agree that his appearance was not prepossessing ; and Boswell thought that Reynolds never gave a more striking proof of excellence in his art than in giving dignity to Goldsmith's countenance and yet preserving a strong likeness. Two portraits of him by Reynolds are said to be extant, — one at Knowle, the seat of the Duke of Dorset, and another in the possession of a descendant of Mrs. Hodson. A mezzotinto print from one of these figured in the print-shop windows in the latter years of Goldsmith's life. There is an etching by Bunbury which is said to be very like him. Goldsmith always spoke with a decided Irish brogue, which he 16 LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. seems rather to have cultivated than studied to correct. In one of his criticisms for GriiEths, he objects to the rhyming of " key " with " be; " his ear was familiar with it as hiy. His manners, in the opinion of his countryman, Judge Ejay, were simple and natural, but without the refinement and good breeding which the exquisite polish of his writings would lead us to expect. Keynolds told North- cote that by his boyish and social manners Goldsmith soon became the plaything and favorite of a company among whom his entrance had produced perhaps an "awful silence." His conversational powers were not of a high order. He said of himself, that he always argued best when alone. Horace Walpole styled him " an inspired idiot." Johnson remarked that " no man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, nor more wise when he had." And yet he sometimes gave Johnson himself a hard hit. Reynolds told a story that shows Ursa Major had not always the best of it. Goldsmith was saying, one day, that he thought he could vmte a good fable, alluded to the simplicity which it requires, and observed that in most fables the animals introduced seldom talk in character. " For instance," said he, " the fable of the little fishes who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to he changed into birds. The skill," he continued, " consists in making them talk like little fishes." At this, Johnson began to shake his sides and roll about with laughter. The comment of Goldsmith was inimitably apt and telling. " Why, Mr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think ; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." He was excitable, and, when excited,destituteof self control. This temperament brought him into numerous scrapes. At one time he made proposals to Tonson for an edition of Pope. The bibliopole rejected his ofier in somewhat disrespectful terms, and Goldsmith caned the messenger. At a party at Blackwall, a dispute arose about Tristram Shandy, that terminated in a fracas, in which the story is that Goldsmith was beaten. His assault on Evans we have already mentioned. He was easily duped. When his afiairs were at the worst, he had about him a number of feUow-countrymen whose circumstances were even worse than his own, and who levied upon him for their support. He was eminently social in his disposi- tion, — a " clubable man," — and quite as fond of singing his songs LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. 17 and telling his stories to his jolly Irish comrades, at the Globe Tavern in Fleet-street, on Wednesday evening, as of taking part in the conversations of the Literary Club on Friday. "With the same spirit he mingled in the pleasant circle of the Horuecks and Bunburys — dining, supping and playing cards with them, now joining in a minuet, and now figuring in a masquerade. A sloven in his early days, Goldsmith became somewhat eccentric in dress during his social career ; and Boswell describes him as being " seriously vain " in this regard. His suit of" Tyrian bloom " has become historical, as Mr. William Filby, his tailor, has been immortalized for it, under the name of John. "Let me tell you," said Goldsmith to Garrick, one day, at a dinner of Boswell's, as the actor was quizzing him about his appearance, " when my tailor brought home my bloom-colored coat he said, ' Sir, I have a favor to beg of you. When anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Klby, at the Harrow in Water-lane.' " " Why, sir," remarked Johnson, " that was because he knew the strange color would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat even of so absurd a color.'' Tyrian blooms, how- ever, and Mr. Filby's bills, could not have ruined him. He spent large sums on his chambers and his entertainments, and never could resist temptation at a gaming-table. No experience could teach him the value of money, which he raised and squandered " by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. ' ' To his habits of composition we have alr^dy alluded. Prose he would write " a volume a month," as he said. His manuscript was remarkably fair and clean, and for whole quires there was not an erasure or alteration. His thoughts flowed from him with perfect ease, in the best forms of expression. With his verse, his mode of composition was entirely difierent. Here he paused, erased, re-wrote, rejected, polished and refined, with almost as much labor as Gray. In writing The Deserted Village, as we are told by his friend Cooke, he first sketched a part of his design in prose, in which he expressed his ideas as they occurred to him. He then sat down to verify them, correct them, and add such other ideas as he thought better fitted to the subject ; and if in this process he threw ofi' any verses impromptu, those he would afterwards revise with great care, lest they should be found unconnected with his main design. Ten lines, 23 18 LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. from the tenth to the fifteenth, had been his second morning's work ; and when Cooke entered his chamber he read them to him aloud. " Come," he added, " let me tell you this is no bad morning's work ; and now, my dear boy, if you are not better engaged, I should be glad to enjoy a shoemaker's holiday with you." This was a cheap country excursion, terminated by a supper in town, at the Grecian Coffee-house or the Globe in Fleet-street. It was by this patient elaboration, this toilsome devotion of the beet hours of his best years, that he produced the two great poems on which his fame rests, and which, wherever the English language is spoken, and as long as it continues to be read, will carry and perpet- uate the name of Goldsmith. His blunders and his brogue, his vanity, and his habit of blurting out what was uppermost in his mind, — these defects made Goldsmith too often the butt of the circles in which he moved ; and yet there seems to have been no one whose company was more liked. He was beloved bj Burke and Reynolds. When the great statesman heard of his death he burst into tears. To Sir Joshua his loss is said to have been the severest blow he ever suffered. The stately and formal Bishop Percy, the earliest of his distinguished friends, was warmly attached to him. He says, not only that there never was a man more benevolent and friendly, but that whatever appeared of envy or jeal- ousy in his conduct was a mere momentary sensation, that he knew not how, like other men, to conceal. Though coarse and rough with him as with all the woijd, Johnson admired Goldsmith, and permitted no one to abuse him vrith impunity. The simple, frolicsome, blun- dering, improvident, big-hearted, impulsive Irishman, was very dear to his sometime brother of Grub-street, the great sage and moralist, who appreciated his genius, and insisted always that whatever he undertook he did it better than anybody else. Much that we know of Goldsmith we derive from writers who had no love for him. Neither Boswell, nor Beattie, nor Cumberland, can be entirely relied upon, when he is the subject. They had all private griefs, which distorted their judgment and gave a false color to their portraits. Boswell knew that he had spoken of him contemptuously, as a burr sticking to Johnson, and was jealous of his hold on the affec- tions of their common friend. He rebuked Reynolds for flattering, in an allegorical picture, " so mean a writer as Beattie " at the expense LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. 19 of a genius like Voltaire ; and Beattie thought that Qoldamith was envious of him ! Cumberland was a coxcomb, and talks of Gold- smith's dining with " us," as if the poet was only a chance -visitor, and himself an habitue of the brilliant circle in which they met. Not only, then, has he been represented as a mere fool by those who were really fools (as Northcote says) , he was also disparaged by those who were more moved by malice than folly. But, in spite of all the cavils and caricatures of rivals, in spite of faults and foibles too wpll known and too severely punished in his lifetime, the praise cannot be denied him of being a perfectly pure writer ; and one to whom Dr. Johnson consented to award the title could not have been otherwise than a very great man. " Goldsmith's poetry," says Mr. Campbell, who was no less a critic than poet, " enjoys a calm and steady popularity. It inspires us, indeed, with no admiration of daring design or of fertile inven- tion ; but it presents, within its narrow limits, a distinct and unbroken view of poetical delightfuhaess. His descriptions and sentiments have the pure zest of nature. He is refined without false delicacy, and correct without insipidity. Perhaps there is an intellectual com- posure in his manner, which may, in some passages, be said to approach to the reserved and prosaic ; but he unbends from this graver strain of reflection to tenderness, and even to playfulness, with an ease and grace almost exclusively his own ; and eonnecta extensive views of the happiness and interests of society with pictures of life that touch the heart by their familiarity. His language is certainly simple, though it is not cast in a rugged or careless mould. He is no disciple of the gaunt and famished school of simplicity. Delib- erately as he wrote, he cannot be accused of wanting natural and idiomatic expression. He uses the ornaments which must always distinguish true poetry from prose ; and when he adopts colloquial plainness, it is with the utmost care and skill, to avoid a vulgar humility. There is more of this sustained simplicity, of this chaste economy and choice of words, in Goldsmith, than in any modern poet." THE TRAYELLEU 23* DEDICATION. TO THE B.EV. HENRT GOLDSMITH. Dear Sir : I am sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a dedication } and perhaps it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands that it ia addressed to a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity with an income of forty pounds a year. I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the laborers are but few ; while you have left the field of ambition, where the laborers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition — what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party — that which pursues poeti- cal fame is the wildest. Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations j but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement. Painting and Music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival Poetry, and at length supplant her ; they engross all that favor once shown to her, and though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birthright. Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken fefforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favor of blank verse and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests, and iambics, alliter- ative care and happy negligence ! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it : and as be is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say ; for error is ever talkative. But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous — I mean party. Party en- tirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind ia once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in what contributes to increase Uie distemper. Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader who has once gratified his appetite with calumny makes ever after the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet : his tawdry lampoons are called satires -j his turbulence is said to be force, and his frenzy fire. What reception a Poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse, to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavored to show that there may be equal happiness in states that are differently governed from our own ; that every state has a particular principle of happiness ; and that this principle in each may be carried to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge better than yourself how far these positions are illustrated in this poem. I am, dear sir, f Your most affectionate brother, OLIVEU QoLDSMrTU. THE TRAVELLER; OB, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY. Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Or by the lazy Scheldt or -wandering Po ; Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor Against the houseless stranger shuts the door ; Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies, A weary waste expanding to the skies — • Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untra veiled fondly turns to thee ; Still to my Brother turns, with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, And round his dwelling guardian saints attend. Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire ; Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, And every stranger finds a ready chair ; Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale ; Or press the bashful stranger to his food, And learn the luxury of doing good. But me, not destined such delights to share. My prime of life in wandering spent and care ; 24 goldsmith's poems. Impelled with steps unceasing to pursue Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view ; That, like the circle bounding earth and skies. Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies ; My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, And find no spot of all the world my own. Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend, I sit me down a pensive hour to spend ; And placed on high, above the storm's career, Look downward where an hundred realms appear ; Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide, The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride. When thus Creation's charms around combine. Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine 1 ' Say, should the philosophic mind disdain That good which makes each humbler bosom vain 7 Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can. These little things are great to little man ; And wiser he whose sympathetic mind Exults ia all the good of all mankind. Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendor crowned, Ye fields where summer spreads profusion round. Ye lakes whos.e vessels catch the busy gale, Ye bending swains that dress the flowery vale ; For me your tributary stores combine ; Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine ! As some lone miser, visiting his store. Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er ; -Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill, Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still : Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, Pleased with each good that Heaven to man supplies : THE TRAVELLER. 25 Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall, To see the hoard of human bliss so small ; And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find Some spot to real happiness consigned, Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest. May gather bliss, to see my fellows blest. But where to find that happiest spot below, Who can direct, when all pretend to know 1 The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own ; Extols the treasures of his stormy seas. And his long nights of revelry and ease : The naked negro, panting at the line, Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine. Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, And thanks his gods for all the good they gave- Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country ever is at home. And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, And estimate the blessings which they share. Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find An equal portion dealt to all mankind ; As different good, by Art or Nature given To different nations, makes their blessings even. Nature, a mother kind alike to all, StiU grants her bliss at Labor's earnest call : With food as well the peasant is supplied On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side ; And, though the rocky-crested summits frown. These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down. From Art more various are the blessings sent ; Wealth, commerce, honor, liberty, content. 26 goldsmith's poems.- Yet these each other's power so strong contest, That either seems destructive of the rest. Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honor sinks where commerce long prevails. Hence every state, to one loved blessiQg pjrbnej' Conforms and .models life to that alone. Each to the favorite happiness attends, And spurns the plan that aims at other ends ; Till, carried to excess in each domain. This favorite good begets peculiar pain. ^ But let us try these truths with closer eyes, And trace them through the prospect as it lies : Here for a while my proper cares resigned, Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind ; Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast, That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast. Far to the right, where Apennine ascends, Bright as the summer, Italy extends : Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side, Woods over woods in gay theatric pride, While oft some temple's mouldering tops between With venerable grandeur mark the scene. Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast The sons of Italy were surely blest. Whatever fruits in different climes are found. That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground ; Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear. Whose bright succession decks the varied year ; Whatever sweets salute the northern sky With vernal lives, that blossom but to die ; These here disporting own the kindred soil, Nor ask luxuriance \ from the planter's toil; THE TRAVELLER. 27 While sea-born gales their gekd wings expand To winnow 'fragrance round the smiling land. But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, And sensual bliss is all the nation knows ; In florid beauty groves and fields appear, Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. Contrasted faults through all his manners reign ; Though poor, luxurious ; though submissive, vain ; Though grave, yet trifling ; zealous, yet untrue ; And even in penance planning sins anew. All evils here contaminate the mind. That opulence departed leaves behind ; For wealth was theirs — nor far removed the date When commerce proudly flourished through the state. At her command the palace learned to rise, Again the long-fallen column sought the skies ; The canvas glowed, beyond even Nature warm, The pregnant quarry teemed with human form : Till, more unsteady than the southern gale, Commerce on other shores displayed her sail ; While naught remained of all that riches gave, But towns unmanned, and lords without a slave : And late the nation found, with fruitless skill, Its former strength was but plethoric ill. Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride : From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind An easy compensation seem to find. Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed. The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade ; Processions formed for piety and love, A mistress or a saint in every grove. 28 goldsmith's poems. By sports like these are all tteir cares beguiled, The sports of children satisfy the child. Each nobler aim, repressed by long control. Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul ; While low delights, succeeding fast behind. In happier meanness occupy the mind. As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway. Defaced by time and tottering in decay. There in the ruin, heedless of the dead. The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed ; And, wondering man could want the larger pile. Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. My soul, turn from them ; turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display, Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. No product here the barren hills afford But man and steel, the soldier and his sword ; No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array. But winter lingering chills the lap of May ; No Zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast. But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest. Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm. Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Though poor the peasant's hut, his feast though small. He sees his little lot the lot of all ; Sees no contiguous palace rear its head, To shame the meanness of his humble shed ; No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal. To make him loathe his vegetable meal ; But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil. THE TKAVBLLBK. 29 Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes ; With patient angle trolls the finny deep. Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep ; Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way. And drags the struggling savage into day. At night returning, every labor sped. He sits him down, the monarch of a shed ; Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze ; While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard, Displays her cleanly platter on the board : And haply too some pilgrim, thither led. With many a tale repays the nightly bed. Thus every good his native wilds impart Imprints the patriot passion on his heart ; And even those ills, that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fiind supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms. And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms ; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest. Clings close and closer to the mother's breast. So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar But bind him to his native mountains more. Such are the charms to barren states assigned Their wants but few, their wishes all confined. Yet let them only share the praises due ; If few their wants, their pleasures are but few ; For every want that stimulates the breast Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest. Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies, That first excites desire, and then supplies ; 24 30 goldsmith's poems. Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, To fill the languid pause with finer joy ; Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame, Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame. Their level life is but a smouldering fire, Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong' desire ; Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer On some high festival of once a year. In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire. But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow ; Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low : For, as refinement stops, from sire to son Unaltered, unimproved, the manners run ; And love's and friendship's finely-pointed dart Fall blunted from each indurated heart. Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest ; But all the gentler morals, such as play Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way,- These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly, To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. VTo kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, I turn ; and France displays her bright domain. Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease. Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please. How often have I led thy sportive choir. With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire, Where shading elms along the margin grew, And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew ! And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill, THE TRAVELLER. 31 Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. Alike all ages : dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze ; And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore. Has frisked beneath the burthen of threescore. So blest a life these tholghtless realms display ; Thus idly busy rolls their world away : Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear, For honor forms the social temper here : Honor, that praise which real merit gains. Or even imaginary worth obtains. Here passes current ; paid from hand to hand. It shifts, in splendid traffic, round the land ; From courts to' camps, to cottages it strays. And all are taught an avarice of praise ; They please, are pleased ; they give to get esteem, Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem. But while this softer art their bliss supplies, It gives their follies also room to rise ; For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought. Enfeebles all internal strength of thought ; And the weak soul, within itself unblest. Leans for all pleasure on another's breast. Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art. Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart ; Here vanity assumes her pert grimace, And trims her robes of frieze with copper-lace ; Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer. To boast one splendid banquet once a year : The mind "still turns where shifting fashion draws, Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause. 32 GOLDSMITH'S POEMS. To men of other miads my fancy flies, Embosomed in the deep where Holland Ues. Methinks her patient sons before me stand, Where the broad ocean leans against the land, And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride. Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, The firm connected bulwark seems to grow ; Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar, Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore : While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile ; The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale, The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, The crowded mart, the cultivated plaia, A new creation rescued from his reign. Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil Impels the native to repeated toil, Industrious habits in each bosom reign, And industry begets a love of gain. Hence all the good from opulence that springs. With all those ills superfluous treasure brings, Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts Convenience, plenty, elegance and arts ; But view them closer, craft and fraud appear. Even liberty itself is bartered here. At gold's superior charms all freedom flies ; The needy sell it, and the rich man buys : A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves, Here wretches seek dishonorable graves. And, calmly bent, to servitude conform, Dull as their lakes that slumber ia the storm. THE TRAVELLER. 33 Heavens ! how unlike their Belgic sires of old ! Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold ; War ia each breast, and freedom on each brow ; — How much unlike the sons of Britain now ! Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing. And fhes where Britain courts the western spring ; Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, And brighter streams than famed Hydaspeg glide. There all around the gentlest breezes stray ; There gentle music melts on every spray ; Creation's mildest charms are there combined, Extremes are only ia the master's mind ! Stem o'er each bosom reason holds her state. With daring aims irregularly great ; Pride iu their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of human kind pass by, Intent on high designs — a thoughtful band, By forms unfashioned, fresh from Nature's hand, Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, True to imagined right, above control ; While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan. And learns to venerate himself as man. Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured here, Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear ; Too blest iudeed were such without alloy. But fostered even by Freedom ills annoy ; That independence Britons prize too high Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie : The self-dependent lordlings stand alone. All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown ; Here, by the bonds of Nature feebly held. Minds combat minds, repelling and repelled ; 24* 34 goldsmith's poems. Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar, Repressed Ambition struggles round her shore. Till, over-Tvrought, the general system feels Its motion stop, or frenzy fire the wheels. Nor this the worst. As Nature's ties decay, As duty, love, and honor fail to sway. Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law. Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe. Hence all obedience bows to these alone. And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown : Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms. The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms, Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame, Where kings have toiled, and poets wrote for fame. One sink of level avarice shall lie. And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonored die. Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state, I mean to flatter kings, or court the great : Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire, Far from my bosom drive the low desire ! And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel ; Thou transitory flower, alike undone By proud contempt or favor's fostering sun. Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure, I only would repress them to secure ; For just experience tells, in every soil. That those who think must govern those that toil ; And all that Freedom's highest aims can reach Is -but to lay proportioned loads on each. Hence, should one order disproportioned grow, Its double weight must ruin all below. THE TRAVELLER. 35 0, then, how blincl to all that truth requires, Who think it freedom when a part aspires ! Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms. Except when fast-approaching danger warms ; But when contending chiefs blockade the throne, Contracting regal power to stretch their own ; When I behold a factious band agree To call it freedom when themselves are free ; Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law ; The wealth of climes, where savage, nations roam. Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home ; Fear, pity, justice, indignation start. Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart ; Till half a patriot, half a coward grown, I fly from petty tyrants to the throne. Yes, Brother, curse with me that baleful hour. When first Ambition struck at regal power ; And thus, polluting honor in its source, Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force. Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore, Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore 1 Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste, Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste ; Seen Opulence, her grandeur to maintain. Lead stern Depopulation in her traia, And over fields where scattered hamlets rose, Li barren solitary pomp repOse 1 Have we not seen, at Pleasure's lordly call, The smiling long-frequented village fall 1 Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed, The modest matron, and the blushing maid, 36 goldsmith's poems. Forced from their homes, a melancholy train, To traverse climes beyond the -western main ; Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around. And Niagara stuns with thundering sound 7 Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways Where beasts with man divided empire claim. And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim ; There, while above the giddy tempest flies. And all around distressful yells arise. The pensive exile, bending with his woe, To stop too fearful, and too faint to go. Casts a long look where England's glories shine. And bids his bosom sympathize with mine. Vain, very vain, my weary search to find That bliss which only centres in the mind. Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose. To seek a good each government bestows 1 In every government, though terrors reign, Though tyrant-kings or tyrant-laws restrain, How small, of all that human hearts endure. That part which laws or kings can cause or cure ! Still to ourselves in every place consigned. Our own felicity we make or find : With secret course, which no loud storms annoy Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damiens' bed of steel. To men remote from power but rarely known — Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. DEDICATION. TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Dear Sm ; I can have no expectations, in an address of this kind, either to add to your reputation or to establish my own. Tou can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you are said to excel ; and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few have a jusfcer taste in poetry than you. Setting interest there- fore aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at present id follow- ing my affectionB. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is since dead. Fernait me to inscribe this poem to you. How far >^ou may be pleased with the versification and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I do not pretend to inquire : but I know you will object — and, indeed, several of our best and wisest friends concur in the opinion — that the depopulation it deplores is nowhere to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination. To this I can scarce make any other answer, than that I sincerely believe what I have written ; that I have taken all possible pains, in my country exciu-sions, for these four or f?^e years past, to be certain of what I allege ; an^ that all my views and inquiries have led me to believe those miseries real which I here attempt to display. But this is not the place to enter into an inquiry whether the country be depopulating or not ; the discussion would take up much room, and I should prove myself, at best, an indiffer- ent politician, to tire the reader with a long preface, when I want his unfetigued attention to a long poem. In regretting the depopulation of the counti-y, I inveigh against the increase of our luxu- ries -, and here also I expect the shout of modem politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages ; and all the wisdom of antiquity, in that particular, as erroneous. Still, however, I must remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to states by which so many vices are introduced, and so many king- doms have been undone. Indeed, so much has been poured out of late on the other side of the question, that, merely for the sake of novelty and variety, one would sometimes wish to be in the right. I am, dear sir, Your sincere friend, and ardent admirer, Oliver Goldsmith. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain, Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid, And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed : Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease. Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, How often have I loitered o'er thy green. Where humble happiness endeared each scene ! How often have I paused on every charm, — The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm. The never-failing brook, the busy mill, The decent church that topped the neighboring hill, The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade. For talking age and whispering lovers made ! How often have I blessed the coming day When toil remitting lent its turn to play, And all the village train, from labor free, Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree ; While many a pastime circled in the shade. The young contending as the old surveyed. And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground. And sleights of art and feats of strength went round : And still„as each repeated pleasure tired. Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired ; The dancing pair that simply sought renown By holding out to tire each other down ; 40 goldsmith's poems. The swain mistrustless of his smutted face. While secret laughter tittered round the place ; The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, The matron's glance that would those looks reprove. These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these, With sweet succession taught even toil to please ; These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed ; These were thy charms — but all these charms are fled. Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn. Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen. And desolation saddens all thy green : One only master grasps the whole domain. And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, But choked with sedges works its weedy way ; Along thy glades, a solitary guest. The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest ; Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall ; And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand. Far, far away thy children leave the land. HI fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay : Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade ; A breath can make them, as a breath has made ; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride. When once destroyed, can never be supplied. A time there was, ere England's griefs began, When every rood of ground maintained its man : THE DBSEKTED VILLAGE. 41 For him light labor spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life required, but gave no more ; His best companions. Innocence and Health ; And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. But times are altered ; trade's unfeeling train Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain : Along the lawn where scattered hamlets rose, Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose ; And every want to opulence allied, And every pang that folly pays to pride. Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom. Those calm desires that asked but little room, Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene, Lived in eajoh look, and brightened all the green. These, far departing, seek a kinder shore, And rural mirth and manners are no more. Sweet Auburn ! parent of the blissful hour, Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power. Here, as I take my solitary rounds Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds. And, many a year elapsed, return to view Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, Remembrance wakes with all her busy train. Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs — and God has given my share — I still had hopes my latest hours to crown. Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting, by repose. I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, 25 42 goldsmith's poems. Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I felt, and all I saw ; And, as an hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, Pants to the place from whence at first he flew, I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return, and die at home at last. blest retirement, friend to life's decline, Retreats from care, that never must be mine ! How happy he who crowns, in shades like these, A youth of labor with an age of ease : Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly ! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; No surly porter stands, in guilty state, To spurn imploring Famine from the gate ; But on he moves, to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending Virtue's friend — Bends to the grave with unperceived decay, While Resignation gently slopes the way — And, all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past. Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close Up yonder hiU the village murmur rose ; There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below ; The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool. The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ; THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 43 These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, For all the bloomy flush of life is fled : All but yon widowed, solitary thing, , That feebly bends beside the plashy spring ; She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread. To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread. To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn. To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn ; She only left of all the harmless train. The sad historian of the pensive plain ! Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled. And still where many a garden flower grows wild, There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear. And passing rich with forty pounds a year. Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place ; Unpractised he to fa-vm, or seek for power By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour. Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise. His house was known to all the vagrant train ; He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; The long-remembered beggar was his guest. Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there, and had his claim allowed ; 44 goldsmith's poems. The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire, and talked the night away ; Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done. Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; Careless their merits or their faults to scan. His pity gave ere charity began. /T]hus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And even his failings leaned to virtue's side ; But in his duty prompt, at every call, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all ; And, as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, _ He tried each art, reproved each dull delay. Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. Beside the bed where parting life was laid. And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed. The reverend champion stood : at his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise. And his last faltering accents whispered praise. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place ; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. The service passed, around the pious man. With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; Even children followed, with endearing wile. And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed. Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 45 To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in, heaven. As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm. Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way. With blossomed furze unprofitably gay. There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view ; I knew him well, and every truant knew : Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face ; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; Full well the busy whisper, circling round. Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned : Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught. The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew ; 'T was certain he could write, and cipher too, Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage — And even the story ran — that he could gauge. In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill. For even though vanquished he could argue still ; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. But passed is all his fame. The very spot. Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot,. 25* 46 goldsmith's poems. Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye. Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired. Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round, linagination fondly stoops to trace The parlor splendors of that festive place ; The whitewashed wall, the nicely-sanded floor, -The varnished clock that clicked behind the door ; The chest contrived a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; The pictures placed for ornament and use. The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ; The hearth, except when winter chilled the day, With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay, While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show. Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row. Vain transitory splendors ! could not all Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall 1 Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour's importance to the poor man's heart ; Thither no more the peasant shall repair To sweet oblivion of his daily care ; No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail ; No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear : The host himself no longer shall be found Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ; Nor the coy maid, half-willing to be prest, Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 47 Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, These simple blessings of the lowly train — To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art : Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play. The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway ; Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined; But the long pomp, the midnight masquei'ade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed. In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain : And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy. The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy 7 Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 'T is yours to judge, how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land. Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore. And shouting Folly hails them from her shore ; Hoards even beyond the miser's wish abound, And rich men flock from all the world around. Yet count our gains. This wealth is'but a name That leaves our useful products still the same. Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds. Space for his horse, his equipage, and hounds : The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their growth ; His seat, where solitary sports are seen. Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; 48 goldsmith's poems. Around the world each needful product flies, For all the luxuries the world supplies. While thus the land, adorned for pleasure — all In barren splendor feebly waits the fall. As some fair female, unadorned and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies. Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes : But when those charms are past, for charms are frail. When time advances, and when lovers fail — She then shines forth, solicitous to bless. In all the glaring impotence of dress. Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed : In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed. But verging to decline, its splendors rise. Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; While, scourged by famine, from the smiling land The mournful peasant leads his humble band ; And while he sinks, without one arm to save, The country blooms — a garden, and a grave. Where, then, ah ! where shall poverty reside, To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride 1 If to some common's fenceless limits strayed He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade. Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, And even the bare- worn common is denied. If to the city sped — what waits him there 1 To see profusion that he must not share ; To see ten thousand baneful arts combined To pamper luxury, and thin mankind ; To see each joy the sons of pleasure know Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 49 Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the sickly trade ; Here," -while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign, Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train ; Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy ! Sure these denote one universal joy ! Are these thy serious thoughts ? — Ah, turn thine eyes Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. She once, perhaps, ia village plenty blessed, Has wept at tales of innocence distressed — Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; Now lost to all — ^her friends, her virtue fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, When idly first, ambitious of the town. She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. Do thine, sweet Auburn ! thine, the loveliest train, Do thy fair tribes participate her pain 1 Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led. At proud men's doors they ask a little bread ! Ah, no ! To distant climes, a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go. Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. Far difierent there from all that charmed before. The various terrors of that horrid shore ; 50 goldsmith's poems. Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day ; Those roatted woods where birds forget to sing, But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling ; Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around ; Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake ; Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey. And savage men more murderous still than they ; While oft in whii-ls the mad tornado flies, Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. Far different these from every former scene. The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, The breezy covert of the warbling grove, That only sheltered thefts of harmless love. Good Heaven ! what sorrows gloomed that parting day, That called them from their native walks away. When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, - • Hung round their bowers, and fondly looked their last, And took a long farewell, and wished in vain For seats like these beyond the western main ; And shuddering still to face the distant deep, Returned and wept, and still returned to weep. The good old sire the first prepared to go To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe ; But for himself, in conscious virtue brave. He only wished for worlds beyond the grave. His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, The fond companion of his helpless years. Silent went next, neglectful of her charms. And left a lover's jbr a father's arms. , THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 51 With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose, And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear, And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear ; Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief In all the silgjit manliness of grief. Luxury ! thou cursed by Heaven's decree. How ill exchanged are things like these for thee ! How do thy potions, with insidious joy. Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy ! Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown. Boast of a florid vigor not their own ; At every draught more large and large they grow, A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe ; Till, sapped their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. Even now the devastation is begun. And half the business of destruction done ; Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural Virtues leave the land. Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale. Downward they move, a melancholy band, Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. Contented toil, and hospitable care. And kind connubial tenderness are there ; And piety with wishes placed above. And steady loyalty, and faithful love. And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid. Still first to fly where sensual joys invade. Unfit in these degenerate times of shame To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame ; 52 goldsmith's poems. Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, My shame in crowds, my solitary pride ; Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe. That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so ; Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel. Thou nurse of every virtue — fare -thee well ! Farewell ! and ! where'er thy voice be tried. On Torno's clifis, or Pambamarca's side, Whether where equinoctial fervors glow, Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, Still let thy voice, prevailiag over time. Redress the rigors of the inclement clime ; Aid slighted truth : with thy persuasive strain Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain ; Teach him, that states of native strength possessed, Though very poor, may still be very blessed ; That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labored mole away — While self-dependent power can time defy, As rooks resist the billows and the sky. RETALIATION 26 ADVERTISEMENT. The following account by Garrick of the origin of Retaliation, and the notes annexed, by Mr. Peter Cunningham, are extracted from the very complete edition of Qoldsmith's works just issued by Mr. Murray. " As the cause of writing the following printed poem, called Retaliation^ has not yet been fully explained, a person concerned in the business begs leave to give the following just and minute account of the whole affair. " At a meeting of a company of gentlemen,* who were well known to each other, and diverting themselves, among many other things, with the peculiar oddities of Dr. Gold- smith, who never would allow a euiferior in any art, ffom writing poetry down to dancing a hornpipe, the doctor, with great eagerne89,~inBisted on trying his epigrammatic powers with Mr. Garrick, and each of them was to write the other's epitaph. Mr. Garrick im- mediately said that his epitaph was finished, and spoke the following distich extempore : ' Here lies N0II7 Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll,* Goldsmith, upon the company's laughing very heartily, grew very thoughtful, and either would not or could not write anything at that time j however, he went to work, and some weeks after produced the foUowmg printed poem, called Retaliation, which has been much admired, and gone through several editions. The public in general have been mistaken in imagining that this poem was written in anger by the doctor ; it was just the contrary ; the whole on all sides was done with the greatest good humor ; and the follow- ing poems in manuscript were written by several of the gentlemen on pui'pose to provoke the doctor to an answer, which came forth at length with great credit to him in Retalia- tion.'*^— J). Gabeick, [MS.J " To this highly interesting account (now first printed, or even referred to, by any biog- rapher or editor of Goldsmith) I am indebted to my friend Mr. George Daniel, of Isling- ton, who allowed me to transcribe it from the original in Garrick's own handwriting, dis- covered among the Garrick papers, and evidently designed as a preface to a collected edition of the poems which grew out of Goldsmith's trying his epigrammatic powers with Garrick. I may observe also that Garrick's epitaph or distich on Goldsmith is (through this very paper) the first time printed as it was spoken by its author. " Retaliation was the last work of Goldsmith, and a posthumous publication — appear- ing for the first time on the 18th of April, 1774." — Peter Cunningham. * At the St. James's Coffee House, in St. James's-street. RETALIATION. Of old when Scarron his companions invited, Each guest brought his dish, and the feast was united ; If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish, Let each guest bring himself, — and he brings the best dish ; Our Dean shall be venison, just fresh from the plains ; Our Burke shall be tongue, Ttith the garnish of brains ; Our Will shall be wild-fowl, of excellent flavor ; And Dick with his pepper shall heighten their savor ; Our Cumberland's sweet-bread its place shall obtain ; And Douglas is pudding, substantial and plain ; Our Garrick 's a salad, — for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree ; To make out the dinner, full certain I am That Ridge is anchovy, and Reynolds is lamb ; That Hjckey 'a a capon, and, by the same rule, Magnanimous Goldsmith a gooseberry fool. At a dinner so various, at such a repast. Who 'd not be a glutton, and stick to the last 1 Here, waiter, more wine ! let me sit while I 'm able, Till all my companions sink under the table ; Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head, Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the dead. Here lies the good Dean, reunited to earth, Who mixed reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth ; If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt, At least, in six weeks, I could not find them out ; 00 GOLDSMITH'S POEMS. Yet some have declared, and it can't be denied 'em, That sly-boots was cursedly cunning to hide 'em. Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much ; Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind : Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote ; Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining. And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining : Though equal to all things, for all things unfit ; Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit ; For a patriot too cool ; for a drudge disobedient ; And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient. In short, 't was his fate, unemployed, or in place, sir — To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor. Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint. While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in 't ; The pupil of impulse, it forced him along. His conduct still right, with his argument wrong ; Still aiming at honor, yet fearing to roam. The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home ; Would you ask for his merits ? alas ! he had none ; What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own. Here lies honest Richard, whose fate I must sigh at ; Alas ! that such frolic should now be so quiet ! What spirits were his ! what wit and what whim I Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb ; Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball ; Now teasing and vexrog — yet laughing at all ! In short, so provoking a devil was Dick, That we wished him full ten times a day at Old Nick ; RETALIATION. 57 But, niissing his mirtli and agreeable vein, As often we wished to have Dick back again. Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts. The Terence of England, the mender of hearts ; A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are. His gallants are all faultless, his women divine, And comedy wonders at being so fine ! Like a tragedy queen he has dizened her out, — Or rather like tragedy giving a rout. His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd Of virtues and feelings that folly grows proud ; And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone. Adopting his portraits, are pleased with their own. Say, where has our poet this malady caught 7 Or wherefore his characters thus without fault 1 Say, was it that vainly directing his view To find out men's virtues, and finding them few. Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf. He grew lazy at last — and drew from himself ? Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax. The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks ; Come, all ye quack bards, and ye quacking divines, ' Come, and dance on the spot where your tyrant reclines ! When satire and censure encircled his throne, I feared for your safety, — I feared for my own : But now he is gone, and we want a detector, Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture ; Macpherson write bombast, and call it a style ; Our Townshend make speeches, and I shall compile ; New Landers and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over. No countryman living their tricks to discover ; 26* 58 goldsmith's poems. Detection her taper shall quench to a spark, And Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the dark. Here lies David Garrick, — describe me, who can, An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man : As an actor, confessed without rival to shine ; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line ; Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart. The man had his failings, — a dupe to his art. Like an iU-judgiag beauty, his colors he spread. And beplastered with rouge his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, afiecting ; 'T was only that when he was off he was acting. With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turned and he varied full ten times a day. Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick If they were not his own by finessing and trick ; He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack. For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back. Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came, And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame ; Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease. Who peppered the highest was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, — If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave. What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ! How did Grub-street reecho the shouts that you raised, While he was be-Rosciused, and you were be-praised ! But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, To act as an angel, and mix with the skies ; Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill. Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; ' EBTALIATION. 59 Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with love, And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellya above. Here Hickey jeclines, a most bliint pleasant creature, And slander itself must allow him good-nature ; He cherished his friend, and he relished a bumper ; Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser 7 I answer, no, no, — for he always was wiser ; Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat ? His very worst foe can't accuse him of that ; Perhaps he confided in men as they go. And so was too foolishly honest 1 Ah, no ! Then what was his failing 1 come, tell it, and burn ye — He was — could he help it 7 — a special attorney. Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, He has not left a better or wiser behind ; His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; Still born to improve us in every part, — His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering. When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing ; When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stilff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. POSTSCEIPT. Here Whitefoord reclines, and, deny it who can. Though he merrily lived, he is now a grave man ; Rare compound' of oddity, frolic, and fun, — Who relished a joke, and rejoiced in a pun ; 60 goldsmith's poems. Whose temper was generous, open, sincere — A stranger to flattery, a stranger to fear ; Who scattered around wit and humor at will ; Whose daily bans mots half a column might fill ; A Scotchman, from pride and from prejudice free ; A scholar, yet surely no pedant was he. What pity, alas ! that so liheral a mind Should so long be to newspaper essays confined ; Who perhaps to the summit of science could soar. Yet content " if the table he set on a roar," — Whose talents to fill any station were fit. Yet happy if Woodfall confessed him a wit. Ye newspaper witlings ! ye pert scribbliag folks \ Who copied his squibs, and reechoed his jokes : Ye tame imitators, ye servile herd, come, Still follow your master, and visit his tomb ; To deck it bring with you festoons of the vine, And copious libations bestow on his shrine ; Then strew all around it — you can do no less — Cross-readings, ship-news, and mistakes of the press. Merry Whitefoord, farewell ! for thy sake I admit That a Scot may have humor — I had almost said wit : This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse — • " Thou best-humored man with the worst-humored Muse." LYEICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. LYRICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. TO AN IMPEETESTBNT MUSICIAN. EXTEMPORE. Our herald hath proclauned this saying : " See i^sop dancing," — andliis monkey playing. THE CLOWN'S REPLY. John Tkott was desired by two witty peers To tell them the reason why asses had ears : "An't please you," quoth John, "I'm not given to letters, Nor dare I pretend to know more than my betters ; Howe'er, from this time I shall ne'er see your graces, As I hope to be saved ! without thinking on asses." EPIGRAM ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING. Sure 't was by Providence designed, Rather in pity than in hate. That he should be, like Cupid, blind. To save him from Narcissus' fate. 64 goldsmith's poems. THE GIFT. TO IRIS, IN BOW-STKEET, COVENT-GARDEN. Say, cruel Iris, pretty rake, Dear mercenary beauty. What annual oflfering shall I make Expressive of my duty 1 My heart, a victim to thine eyes. Should I at once deliver — Say, would the angry fair-one prize The gift, who slights the giver ? A bill, a jewel, watch, or toy, My rivals give — and let them : If gems or gold impart a joy, I '11 give them — when I get them. I '11 give — but not the fall-blown rose, Or rosebud more in fashion ; Such short-lived offerings but disclose A transitory passion. I '11 give thee something yet unpaid. Not less sincere than civil : I '11 give thee — ah ! too charming maid, I '11 give thee — to the devil ! THE LOGICIANS REFUTED. IN IMITATION OF DEAN SWIFT. Logicians have but ill-defined As rational the human mind ; THE LOGICIANS REPUTED. 65 Reason, they say, belongs to man — But let them prove it if they can. Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius, By ratiocinations specious, Have strove to prove with great precision, With definition and division, Homo est ratione prcBditum — But for my soul I cannot credit 'em : And must in spite of them maintain That man and all his ways are vain. And that this boasted lord of nature Is both a weak and erring creature ; That instiuct is a surer guide Than reason, boasting mortals' pride. And that brute beasts are far before 'em : Deus est anima brutorum. Who ever knew an honest brute At law his neighbor prosecute ; Bring action for assault and battery. Or friend beguile with lies and flattery 1 O'er plains they ramble unconfined, No politics disturb their mind ; They eat their meals, and take their sport, Nor know who 's in or out at court ; They never to the levee go To treat, as dearest friend a foe ; They never importune his grace. Nor ever cringe to men in place ; Nor undertake a dirty job, Nor draw the quill to write for Bob. Fraught with invective they ne'er go To folks at Paternoster-row : 27 66 goldsmith's poems. No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters, No pickpockets, or poetasters, Are known to honest quadrupeds ; No single brute his fellow leads. Brutes never meet in bloody fray, Nor cut each other's throats for pay. Of beasts, it is confessed, the ape Comes nearest us in human shape : Like man, he imitates each fashion, And malice is his ruling passion, But both in malice and grimaces A courtier any ape surpasses. Behold him, humbly cringing, wait Upon the minister of state : View him soon after to inferiors Aping the conduct of superiors ; He promises with equal air. And to perform takes equal care. He in his turn finds imitators ; At court, the porters, lackeys, waiters, Their masters' manners still contract — And footmen lords and dukes can act. Thus, at the court, both great and small Behave alike — for all ape all. A MADRIGAL. miTATBD FEOM THE FRENCH 01' SArNT PAYIN. Weeping, murmuring, complaining, Lost to every gay delight — Myra, too sincere for feigning, Fears the approaching bridal night. STANZAS. — AN ELEGY. 67 Yet why impair thy bright perfection, Or dim thy beauty with a tear 1 Had Myra followed my direction, She long had wanted cause of fear. STANZAS ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC. Amidst the clamor of exulting joys, Which triumph forces from the patriot heart, Grief dares to mingle her soul-pierciug voice. And quells the raptures which from pleasure start. WoLiB, to thee a streaming flood of woe Sighing we pay, and think even conquest dear ; Quebec ia vain shall teach our breast to glow. Whilst thy sad fate extorts the heart-wrung tear. Alive, the foe thy dreadful vigor fled. And saw thee fall with joy-pronouncing eyes ; Yet they shall know thou conquerest, though dead — Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise. AN ELEGY ON THAT GLORT OP HEK SEX, MRS. MART BLAIZE. Good people all, with one accord. Lament for Madam Blaize, Who never wanted a good word — From those who spoke her praise.