CRITICISM ON GRAY'S ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. EDINBURGH, PRINTED BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. .CRITICISM ON THE ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. BEING A CONTINUATION OF DR JOHNSON'S CRITICISM ON THE POEMS OF GRAY. THE SECOND EDITION. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR JOHN BALLANTYNE AND CO. ; AND FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, LONDON. 1810. & IblO ADVERTISEMENT. lo prevent mistakes, and injustice to his Readers and himself, the Editor of the following Tract feels himself bound to declare, that he has no farther con- cern in it, than as being accidentally the channel through which it is convey- ed to the public. Having ordered, a few months ago, ' Irish editions of some * It is with concern that the editor has learnt, that this species of traffic, so convenient for the knights companions of the light purse, is so much at present on the decline, as to threaten (in the language of the Counter) to be speedily knocked up. The Irish editors have imprudently screwed up their prices too high : and their rivals on this side the water have been, of late, unusually sharp set in running them down, by the assistance of the Statute Book, and the officers of the customs. It was a sorry sight to the editor, A 11 ADVERTISEMENT. late publications (an irregularity into which the high prices of town-made books, and the low state of his own fi- nances, have sometimes betrayed him, to the detriment of copy-hold rights, and " against the form of the statute in that case provided ;") he found the par- cel, on its arrival in his chambers, to be double-fortified with swathes of printed sheets ; resembling, in their general ap- pearance, what is known among the last vacation, to see the royal warehouses at the ports op- posite to the Irish coast, crowded with so many choice and famous authors, languishing in ignoble bonds, and some of them expiring, in defiance of magna charta, under cruel tortures, . . . Here lay Mrs C-th— ne M- y, new from the sheers and spunge, — her pure costume gothically " da- masked," " her silver skin laced with her golden blood/' — pointing to her ample gashes, and pining under the denial of her habeas corpus There lay the redoubted Junius, his body dismembered by the axe, and his quarters at the king's disposal, — and there the stately G-b-ns, laniatum corpore toto, the vehicle of his keen elocution bored through with a red-hot iron, &c. &c. Non t mild si linguae centum sint, oraque centum, Omnia pctnarum percurrere nomina possim ! ADVERTISEMENT. Ill trade, by the name of imperfections. This, being quite " selon les Regies" ex- cited neither curiosity nor attention ; but approaching, soon after, the parcel more nearly, for the purpose of undoing the twine, the wrappers were again forced upon his eye ; when he perceived, by certain cabilistical marks upon the mar- gins and field, and which his printer would laugh at him should he attempt to depict that what he had taken at first for im- perfections, were no other than proof- sheets, of a work apparently critical, and which he felicitated himself on his chance of feasting on, perhaps, before the public. He set himself accordingly to examine the sheets with attention ; and found them, not without some sur- prise, to contain a methodical criticism upon Gray's " Elegy written in a Coun- try Church-yard ; M executed in a man- ner somewhat outre, and including obser- vations on certain other poems of Gray, IV ADVERTISEMENT. together with allusions to certain analy- ses of them, preceding this particular criticism, but which were not to be found in these sheets. A sudden thought now entered his head, and one which some will perhaps think he too hastily adopt- ed. Having been lately reading Dr John- son's Criticism on Gray, (a work which afforded him infinite gratification,) and the doctors manner being then strongly impressed on his mind, he fancied he perceived a resemblance betwixt the style and mode of criticism displayed in the doctor's published strictures on Gray's other poems, and that adopted in the criticism before him. The leges judicandi were the same ; and the editor was led to fancy it possible, that the observations on the Elegy written in a Countr} r Church-yard, were composed by Dr Johnson, and printed off for publica~ tion, along with the other parts of the Criticism on Gray, but afterwards with- ADVERTISEMENT. V drawn ; from the suspicion that a cen- sure so free, of one of the most popular productions in the English language, might be ill-received by the public. Full of this idea, the editor formed the reso- lution of restoring to his fellow-readers what seemed to him to have been need- lessly taken away ; and thus of gratify- ing their palates with a dish that one meets not with every day. What his riper sentiments upon this subject are, the' editor does not choose to say. The public are in possession of the evidence, both external and internal ; and they are left to judge for themselves. It is, however, but fair to admit, that there are some circumstances which ap- pear rather unfavourable to the idea, that this Criticism on Gray's Elegy is the genuine production of Dr Johnson. Although it is not difficult to conceive, that means might have been found to VI ADVERTISEMENT. get the * proof-sheets of this work trans- mitted successively to Ireland (as the proof-sheets of other works have been, even in due course of post) ; and although the case of an % author of note, as well as of boldness, withdrawing a printed work, previous to the day of publication, is not without precedent in the annals of literature ; yet the boldness of Dr John- son is so colossal, and his just confidence in the propriety of his own taste, and the x The great number of proprietors (in all thirty-six " con- Xez") whose names, in eight files, marshalled in the form of the Cuneus, defend the title-page of Dr Johnson's amu- sing work, though calculated to strike terror in after pi- rates, may have even contributed to render easy the first trespass. Secrecy and prudence distributed among thirty- six men, amount to little else than names. 'Mn the mul- titude of counsellors there is safety :" The case does not apply to copy-holders. % It is said to be a vouched anecdote of the author of " Essays and Treatises on several subjects/' that he revo- ked and destroyed certain essays, which he had already got printed off, and in which he found reason to suspect that he had taken his ground rather hastily. ADVERTISEMENT. Vll soundness of his critical creed, so com- pletely inebranlable, that one may be jus- tified in doubting, whether it could be possible for him to bring himself to can- cel, from prudence, that which he had once printed off for publication. So stands the argument on one side ; but riANTi Aora Aoros isos antikeitai, * as the shrewd Sextus has told us. But, whatever may be the editor's opi- nion with respect to the authenticity of the tract now offered to the public, he finds himself at full liberty to acknow- ledge, that he has more than once re- pented of the resolution he had formed to reprint it. He soon found that the sheets were in some places so faint and blotted, and in others so erased and torn, that it was impossible to present it for 1 A truism respectfully recognised in this inn. " Repli- cation" versus " Plea" " Sur-Reb utter" versus " Rebut- ter;' &c. V1U ADVERTISEMENT. publication, unless in a manuscript co- py, taken with much pains, and in which it would be necessary to call in the aid of conjecture, toward completing the sense by supplement and interpolation. Difficult as this appeared in prospect, he found it still more difficult in execu- tion : but, though he was often tempted to abandon his enterprise, a perseverance almost whimsical at last bore him through the labour he had undertaken. How he has acquitted himself in it, it belongs not to him to say. He may have committed mistakes ; but he has committed none that he possessed the means of avoiding. In the case of one or two proper names, he is not sure that he may not have sup- plied the defaced characters incorrectly. From what has been now stated, this tract must necessarily be supposed to meet the public eye, in a state somewhat different from that in which it came from the pen of its supposed author. The ADVERTISEMENT. IX characteristic peculiarities of the writer, and chat poignancy which distinguishes all his productions, must naturally be found in it, in a disguised and flattened state ; and the strictures must have lost* of course, " part of what Temple would call their race ; a word which, applied to wines, in its primitive sense, means the flavour of the soil/' * It was once intended to print the Cri- ticism in a manner resembling the edi- tions of Festus, which distinguish, by a difference of character, the unimpaired passages in the original, from the supple- ments and interpolations. But technical reasons were adduced against this mode ; to which the editor was obliged to yield, as he possessed not science sufficient to refute them. In place of this contri- vance he had substituted another, which would have equally gratified the curi- 1 Johnson. — Life of Pope* X ADVERTISEMENT. osity of the lovers of the imitative arts, for whose entertainment this publication was meant. In imitation of Mr Brooke Boothby, 1 he meant to have deposited the original in the British Museum, for the inspection of the curious. But, alas ! the late dreadful conflagration, which extended itself, in part, to his chambers, deprived him of the power of executing what he had planned. The zeal and ac- tivity of friends, which saved all his va- luable property, overlooked these dirty sheets. The editor soon after saw their remains. They had died a gentle death. The flame seemed just to have reached them at the time its violence was spent; for they lay, undissipated, in a drawer half open, and which was little rnore than singed. The characters were in part le- gible, being marked in a pale white, spreading over a livid ground ; at once See Preface to " Rousseau Juge de Jean Jaques. ADVERTISEMENT. XI furnishing a proof of identity, and claim- ing a joint appropriation of the charac- ter which the poet had applied exclusive- ly to man : " Even in our ashes live their wonted fires." Lincoln s Inn, 15th Jan, 1783. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,* The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea; The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me, * — - The knell of parting day,] Squilla di lontano, Che paia 'lgiorno pianger, che si muore. Dante, Purgat. 1. §, 2 CRITICISM IL Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds ; Save where the beetle wheels his drony flighty And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; III. Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such, as, wand'ring near her secret bower, Molest her ancient, solitary reign. IV. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Whereheaves the turf inmanyamoukTringheap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. V. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 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 on gray's elegy. VI. 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. VII. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield ; Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke : How jocund did they drive their team afield 1 How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! VIII. 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. IX. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e er gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour : The path of glory leads out to the grave. 4 CRITICISM X. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If mem 'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise ; Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fret- ted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise^ XL Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? Gan honour's voice provoke the silent dust ? Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of death ? XII. Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre. XIII. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul ! 11 on gray's elegy, XIV. Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Full maiiy a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desart air. XV. 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. XVI. Th' applause of list'ning 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, XVII. Their lot forbad : nor circumscrib'd alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes con- fined: Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; B . 6 CRITICISM XVIII. The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride, With incense kindled at the muse's flame. XIX. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray : Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. XX. Yet even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. XXI. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered muse, The place of fame and elegy supply ; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die. ON GRAYS ELEGY. 7 XXII. For who, to dumb forget fulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? XXIII. On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires : Even from the grave the voice of nature cries ; Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. 1 XXIV. For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Do'st in these lines their artless tale relate ; If, chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate ; Even in our ashes live their wontedjires.'} Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, Fredda una lingua, et due begli occhi chiusi, Rimaner dopo noi pien di faville. Petr. Son, 169. CRITICISM XXV. 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. XXVI. " There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, " That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, " His listless length at noontide would he stretch, si And pore upon the brook that babbles by. XXVII. " Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, " Mutt'ring his wayward fancies, he would rove ; in a book of which perhaps one fifth part is worth reading, the sym- pathies of surrounding friends, as con- stituting the acutest part of a dying man's anguish. Having recorded his wish to die in an inn (a species of death for which there will be few competitors,) he proceeds thus : " At home, — I know " it, — the concern of my friends, and the " last services of wiping my brow, and " smoothing my pillow, which the qui- " vering hand of pale Affection shall pay " me, will so crucify my soul, that I shall I Winter. 108 CRITICISM " die of a distemper which my physician " is not aware of/' Amongst Doctors who thus disagree, who shall settle the dispute ? To a mind given to shift its views, and to sensibili- ties not yet properly made up, both as- pects of the fact, and both impressions of the sentiment, offer themselves in turn ; and both are in turn approved. Of this vicissitude of feeling, no man is without his share. As the frame of the mind al- ters, so alter its likings, and its prepos- session in favour of a sentiment, or its opposite. Of sentiments exclusively just, the catalogue would be but small. Re- lative truth is all we have a title to ex- pect in the department of taste ; of which, as no standard exists, it is vain to suppose any standard should be found. Scepticism, dangerous in philosophy, and impious in religion, urges a reasonable plea for admission into the court of cri- ticism ; of whose decisions she may tern- on gray's elegy. 109 per the severity, and diminish the self- importance. With these mutually contradictory sen- timents (to which the late Mr Savage gave the name of ambidextrous, and of which he had made large collections from the body of English poetry that then exist- ed,) — sentiments to which the mind makes alternate love, as the antiquary bestows his admiration, now on the Head of the medal, and now on the Reverse, the wri- tings of all authors of fancy are replete. We recognise them, at times contradict- ing each other, and at times contradict- ing themselves. The language of the * The appropriation of the word is contrary to analogy. Colliding would have been more proper. On the occasions alluded to, it is the mind that is ambidextrous; not these/*- timents. Savage, whose fancy led him to form more pro- jects than his means allowed him to execute, seems to have intended some work upon this subject. But to render the design complete, his Collections, of which I retain an indis- tinct idea, should have taken in prose- writers as well as poets, and other languages as well as the English. 110 CRITICISM Leasowes is, that to the passionate lover, the wonted haunts of the beloved object give gratification, when from these haunts she is absent. They tell me, my favourite maid, The pride of that valley, is gone : Alas ! where with her I have strayed, I could wander with pleasure, alone.* The image is one that pleases for the time : but, reflected from the lakes of Hagley, which is only a few miles off, it meets the eye with its form inverted, and yet it pleases still. The shades of Hagley now have lost their boast.— How, in the world, to me a desart grown, Abandoned and alone, Without my sweet companion, can I live ? * There are frames of mind that suit ei- ther view. It is not in poetry as in logic. 1 Shenstone. Absense, * Littleton. Monody. on gray's elegy. Ill Here two contradictories may dwell to- gether, each of equal authority with its opposite. Though poetry may be justifiable in presenting us with opposite views, each of which may be true for the time, yet she ought to beware, when she is deal- ing out her universal?, that she offer us not a relative in place of an absolute truth. It is in this view that Gray is censurable in the present instance. That the sympathies of friends give ease to a dying man, may be, in general, as just a sentiment as that they give him pain ; that they soften his anguish, as that they point it : but, here, the enunciation is di- dactic. The poet speaks in no charac- ter, and to no particular class, but brings forth the sentiment in the form of a po- sition ; and, considered as a position, it js not true. The third line of the stanza contains 112 CRITICISM an hyperbole, which is out-hyperboled in the fourth : Even from the grave the voice' of Nature cries Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. —a position at which Experience revolts, Credulity hesitates, and even Fancy stares. He who can bring himself to believe, that he has heard the voice of Nature crying from the grave of a dead man, is in train to assent, in time, to the propo- sition, that " even in our ashes live their wonted fires :" though Friendship should caution him to stop short, and Pleasan- try suggest to him that surface-views are oft delusive ; and that he may find him- self, on this occasion, if he goes farther on, incedere per igxes suppositos cineri doloso. But I am ashamed of the ex- penditure of precious time, incurred by the examination of a proposition con- trary to all truth, abstract or poetical ; which Madness cannot shape itself t® on gray's elegy, us the conviction of; nor elongations, more than Pindaric, bring imagination in con- tact with, even for a moment. What makes this conceit (if by the name conceit may be called that which cannot be conceived) the more unpar- donable in Gray is, that, (by a process of judgment the reverse of that former- ly commemorated, with regard to the closing line of a stanza in his Ode on Spring) he introduced the line, in which it is conveyed, in place of another ; and as an improvement of the original thought.' The stanza, in its first state, concluded with this line, " Awake and faithful to her wonted fires ;" which, if we chasten still farther, upon the suggestion of Mr Mason, into Awake and faithful to her Jirst desires ; Mason. 114 CRITICISM we shall then, instead of two hyperboles, have only one, lengthened by the addi- tion of a trail. I think Mason has in- formed us, that he advised him to alter the line. But Gray could not afford to want it : for here, it is probable, he once intended to conclude the Elegy; and this mode of " twirling off the thought into an apophthegm," he thought the most imposing he was likely to find. Gray has, in a note on this line, en- deavoured to justify the thought by a reference to a passage in Petrarch. But no authority can give dignity to non- sense, or transmute false taste into true. As to the writings of Petrarch, it may be allowed that, in them, as in most of the Italian poetry, many instances of con- ceit occur. Yet more have been fancied than found. A poet who possesses this vein in himself, imagines that he meets with it wherever he goes. Thoughts ap- parelled in the simplest garb, appear to 13 on gray's elegy. 115 him drest out in point. The ideas, that pass in review before him, partake of the colour of his mind ; and his fancy, like Shakespear's green-eyed monster, " makes the food it feeds on." Ovid abounds in conceits, and quaintnesses ; but the eyes of Cowley multiplied them, as they did those of Petrarch, to infi- nity. After reference thus soberly made to the authority of Petrarch, Curiosity will, no doubt, prick up his ears when he is told, that the passage, quoted from that poet, contains not the sentiment in ques- tion. Mason, whose taste was too good to make him admit the authority of Pe- trarch in defence of an unnatural thought, seems not, however, to have doubted that the thought was really Petrarch's. And, indeed, if, of the sonnet referred to, the three lines quoted by Gray be taken, detached from the rest, they may, though somewhat awkwardly, be forced into the 116 CRITICISM expression of that thought. Taken along with the context, and in connection with its design, the wildness of the idea vanishes, and propriety and nature in- vest it. The poet is complaining of the hope- lessness of his love. 1 " The flame I che- " rish," says he, " how intense ! yet how u unrewarded ! and even unperceived ! " unperceived by her, whom alone I wish " to recognise it, though marked by all " besides ! Ah, distrustful fair-one ! in " whom much beauty is mixed with lit- " tie faith, look at my love-lorn eye, and " doubt my passion, if you can. No, you " cannot, you do not, doubt it ; but my " luckless star hardens your heart against " my ardent love. Yet not altogether " unrewarded shall be my passion, al- " though unrewarded by you. The tune- * Petr. Son. 170, 6 ON GRAY'S ELEGY. 117 " ful homage, which you regard not, shall " gain me immortal fame. The flame, "which you repay not with kindred " flame, shall spread its contagion over " many hearts. As a living principle, it " shall pervade my verse. I see it, in " Fancy's eye, shooting its sparks into " future ages ; and {when the two fair " orbs that inspired it are closed, and the " tongue that sung their praises is cold) " . . . . SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE !" Versified thus : Ah ! how within me glows the subtle flame I To all but one fair infidel confess'd. She, only dear, supreme in worth and fame, She only, doubts her empire in my breast : Thou rich in beauty ! — yet, in faith how poor ! Speaks not my fever'd eye the wasting grief? —But for my luckless star, ere now, full sure, Some drops from Pity's fount had brought relief. Yet glows not, meedless quite, the warm desire ; — But, when OU? dust has filled the fatal urn, Long, in my verse, shall live the gonial fire, Which warm'd thy bosom cold to no return. — Wide shall its sparks the kindred flame inspire; And other Lauras melt ; — and other Petrarchs mourn S So much for this celebrated sentiment, i 11$ CRITICISM in the $legy written in a Country Church- yard ; a sentiment which it is heresy not to support, and sluggishness not to feel : and so much for the passage of Petrarch, on which Gray supposed he had built it. If* one line, in which there is a little of point, be excepted, the sonnet of which it makes the close, is as simple as ever was sung. A tuneful lover consoles him- self for the hardness of his mistress's heart, by anticipating the enthusiasm with which posterity will read the verses, in which he has sung her praise. Here is no voice of Nature crying from the grave of the dead ; here are no inurned ashes glowing with posthumous fires. It is not the ashes of Petrarch and Laura that glow, but posterity that glows, when Petrarch and Laura are no more. 2 * " Fredda una lingua, et due begli occhi chiusi." * I subjoin the Sonnet at length, as Petrarch gave it. I observe Castelvetro has explained the passage as the ON GRAY S ELEGY. 1 19 On this sonnet of Petrarch, mishap seems to have been entailed. Cowley, to whom Petrarch was an inexhaustible mine, struck upon it, in one of his days of digging. He knew it, by its general appearance, to be ore, and set himself accordingly to smelt it ; but so clumsily did he perform the operation, and so author of the Criticism apprehends it. " Che quos ;" in reference to " millc" The misconception of this reference, and an inattention to the absolute construction, in the verse, " Fredda una lingua, e duo begli occhi chiusi," seem to have given rise to the English poet's mistake. — Editor. Lasso, Ch'i' ardo ; ed altri non mel crede : Si crede ogni uom, se non sola colei Ch'e sovr' ogni altra, e ch' i' sola vorrei : Ella non par che'l creda, e si sel vede : Infinita bellezza, e poca fede, Non vedete voi'l cor negli occhi miei ? Se non fosse mia stella, i' pur devrei Al fonte di pieta trovar mercede. Quest' arder mio, di clie vi cal si poco, E i vostri onori in mie rime diffusi Ne porian' infiaramar fors ancor mille : Ch' i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio foco, Fredda una lingua, e duo begli occhi chiusi. Rimaner dopo noi pien' di faville. 3 IgO CRITICISM much heterogeneous metal did he suffer to run into it, that the most skilled as- sayers will scarcely know to what speci- men to refer it. It is wrought up into one of the pieces of The Mistress, and is here given to the reader, both as being a curiosity in itself, and as illustrating the part of Cowley's poetical character, hinted in these strictures on Gray, and stated, elsewhere, at length. HER UNBELIEF. I. 'Tis a strange kind of unbelief in you, That you your vict'ries should not spy : Vict'ries begotten by your eye.— That your bright beams, as those of comets do, Should kill ; but not know how, or who. II. That, truly, you my idol may appear, Whilst all the people smell, and see, The od'rous flames I offer thee, Thou sitt'st, and do'st not see, nor smell, nor hear, Thy constant, zealous, worshipper ! on gray's elegy. 121 III. They see't too well, who at ray fires repine ; Nay, th' unconcern'd themselves do prove Quick-eyM enough to spy my love. Nor does the cause in thy face clearer shine, Than the effect appears in mine. IV. Fair infidel ! by what unjust decree, Must I, who, with such restless care, Would make this truth to thee appear,-— Must I, who preach, and pray for't, be Damn'd, by thy incredulity ? V. I, by thy unbelief, am, guiltless, slain : O have but faith ; and then, that you That faith may know for to be true, It shall itself b' a miracle maintain; And raise me from the dead again.- — &c. What an heterogeneous mass is here ! what a chaos of jarring elements ! JFn- gida pugnantia calidi% humentia siccis ! This strange mistress is, first, an infidel ; then she is a gainer of battles ; which battles are begot ; and their father is her eye. That eye, however, is a blind 122 CRITICISM one ; as blind as a comet. Then she grows into the idol Baal ; and is not only blind but deaf; and moreover without the sense of smelling : but that does not hinder her face from shining. Next she is trans- formed into Cause ; and her lover into Effect : after which she becomes an infi- del again ; and her lover is transformed into a priest ; in which character he both preaches and prays, to convert her ; but all to no purpose : — for, after having run the risk of damnation, he is actually made to suffer death. Yet that does not damp his zeal. He is resolved to make one trial more; and, finding all other arguments fail, proposes the powerful one of mira- cles ; undertaking, if she will first believe on trust, to rise, himself, from the dead, in order to confirm her faith ! — Such is the process in this piece ; a process, in the contemplation of which Reason feels herself humbled ; and Fancy, put to shame ; whilst Religion reclaims, indig- on gray's elegy. 123 riant that her mysteries should suffer profanation, by such absurd and wan- ton allusions. What now remains of the Elegy, par- takes of the nature of an After-piece. In his " Elegy to the Memory of an Un- fortunate Lady," the vanity of Pope had tempted him to introduce himself. For this he had some plausible colour; as with this lady (who seems to have been more foolish than unfortunate, and to discover whose family, and private his- tory, curiosity has laboured in vain) he had, or thought it creditable to be thought to have had, some connection, in the way of friendship or love. The example of Pope has, in this instance, been imita- ted by Gray, who had not the same mo- tive to inspire the design, nor the same ability to regulate its execution. In the 124 CRITICISM abruptness of the introduction of their own affairs, and the want of art in en- grafting them on the general design, there is a considerable similarity. The little that Pope had to say of himself, he thought likely to come best from his own mouth. Gray, who has not said much more of himself, has put what is to be said in the mouth of another. Pope has alluded to his own death ; but Gray, ad- vancing a step farther, has proceeded to the circumstances of his burial, and even given us the epitaph on his stone. Of this After-piece, rather adhering to the Elegy than uniting with it, criticism thinks it unnecessary that the examina- tion should be minute or long. on gray's elegy. 125 XXIV. That a " kindred spirit" should be more interested in the fate of the writer, than one of a different temperament, is natural ; but how this kindred spirit should, in his lonely contemplations, stumble into the same Churchyard in which this Elegy was written, we search in vain for a probable account. One is tempted to suppose Gray to have some- times figured this Elegy as fixed up in the Country Church-yard, as well as ori- ginally penned in it. But this only leads us from one incongruity, to land us im- mediatel} T in another. Why does the kindred spirit enquire the fate of him, whose fate is commemorated in the Ele- gy that made him originally known ? as is also the very enquiry he is here sup- posed to make. But I hasten from this part of the piece, afraid of being invol- 19,6 CRITICISM ved in its entanglements, and apprehen- sive of the confusion of ideas that it seems to threaten to him who shall dwell on it long. That Gray, in a work so serious, should have intended to amuse himself* or his reader, with picturing the talkativeness of the rustic character, or the excursive- ness of narrative age, I am not willing to believe. But certain it is, that the " hoary-headed swain" tells the " kin- dred spirit" more than was asked of him ; and, instead of simply relating the fate of the writer, enters somewhat diffusely into his character. Here, again, the manners are violated ; and the rus- tic is made to tell his tale, in language the most chaste and polished, and in style the most poetical, that the Elegy contains. Gray seems, by a kind of per- verseness of application, to have finish- ed off this passage with all the care of which he was master; and to have given ON GRAY S ELEGY. 127 it out of his hand with a consciousness of success, that brings back to memory the self-complacency of Bayes, after one of his most ranting passages, in which he thinks he has brought out every ex- cellence to which even his powers were adequate — " That is as well as I can do." That Gray should have formed a wish to exert himself with more than ordi- nary earnestness on a subject so near to him, is not to be wondered at. But he forgets that the enthusiasm and fancy, which might be allowable in a descrip- tion of his character, when that descrip- tion came from himself, are inadmissible in the mouth of another, and that other a stranger, and a clown. But this is one of the most strongly marked peculiari- ties of his poetical temperament. He is always more attentive to the grandeur and magnificence of his building, than to the propriety of its site, He is e^yer 128 CRITICISM meditating a great structure ; taking it for granted, that it may stand in all places alike. From all quarters he fa- tigues himself in collecting ponderous and bulky materials, which he encou- rages himself to pile up, till they shall have reached the Empyreum ; without considering the incongruities in the de- sign, or the obstacles that may ruin its execution : like the commemorated pro- jectors of a tower that was to reach to heaven, which they began to build in a plain, and without considering that the very laws of matter, on which the ope- ration of building proceeds, entailed im- practicability. The epithet bestowed by an ancient critic l on Euripi- des, may, with propriety, be transferred to Gray ; as may also the critic's description of the strained and laboured elevation of 1 Longin. de Sublim. on gray's elegy. 129 that poet's tragical imagery, in which he is ludicrously compared to Homer's Lion, " lashing his hips with his tail, and forcing himself forward to fight/' XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. vNor is much of the poet's character unfolded by the rustic ; though many words are used. " That he was a man " given to musing ; that he loved to " meet the sun in the morning, and to " repose in the shade at noon ; that he " walked by the side of a wood, and " lounged on the bank of a brook ; and " that, after having been two days miss- " ing, he was decently buried, on the " third, at the foot of an old thorn- — is all that the hoary-headed swain can say about him : for the rest he refers to the Epitaph, or, as he calls it, the Lay, en- 130 CRITICISM graved upon his tombstone ; and which lay, from the kindred spirit's knowing him by this Elegy, he doubts not he is qua- lified to read. Here is little gratifica- tion to curiosity : and, as to the original question about his fate, we are left al- most as much in the dark as before. That he is now dead and buried, is all of his fate we know : though the short- ness of the interval between his burial, and the time when he was last seen, with his loitering so much by the side of the water, furnishes, in the case of so melancholy a man, matter for further conjecture, and wakes suspicion of sui- cide. Of the three-stanza'd Epitaph, which the rustic terms a Lay, the supplemen- tal information is not great. " That he " was poor, obscure, pensive, not un- " learned, sympathising, and blessed with # a friend (1 suppose of his own sex) with on ghay's elegy. 131 " something more that might be men- " tioqed, were it not needless to go deep " into the character of a dead man" — is all the information we draw from it ; information not momentous enough to make us regret the want of more. The manner in which the character is " made out/' though in particular in- stances fortunate, is not without faults. The hastiness of his steps in mounting " the upland lawn," and the purpose for which he mounts it, are circumstances more associab.le with the Allegro cha- racter, than with the Penseroso. So thought the great discriminator of these characters. His man of cheerfulness is eager to observe the glory of the rising sun; his pensive man's morning is not bright; but * " kerchief d in a comely cloud." So also Thomson, to whose au- 1 Milton, Penseroso, 132 CRITICISM thority, on most occasions, he has not scorned to pay some regard : As, through the failing glooms, Pensive I stray ; or, with the rising dawn, On Fancy's eagle wing excursive soar. 1 In Thomson these actions belong to two descriptions of character. Gray has wrought both into one. If the " steps" must be " hasty/' the operation of brush- ing the dew from the grass will not help him to mend his pace ; it is an action tending rather to impede accelerated motion, than to promote it. " Chance," in the twenty-fifth stanza, used adverbially, though justified by a Latin idiom, is rebating to an English ear. But the poet was in distress. The necessity of his situation called for the idea twice, within the compass of three lines. A word of two syllables brought 1 Summer. ON gray's elegy. 3 33 him relief in the one case ; and a word of one syllable in the other. He could not use " haply" twice. " Lonely con- templation/' is not well said. Who is there that goes into company to con- template ? One is surprised to see a wri- ter, who deals in " trembling hope," " living ashes/' " little great/' put up so contentedly with " solemn stillness/' " lonely contemplation/' and " flowers that blow." Gray, speaking of water, has used " ambient tide." He that has dipt much in " ambient tide," will soon emerge to " ambient air :" then we shall find him among " feathered songsters ;" a set of company rarely now to be met with even in Poetry's horn-book. " His poring on the brook," is charac- teristical. But his stretching himself at the foot of a beech, is no more than the lounging Tityrus had done before him. Tityrus' beech is a spreading one, as what beech is not ? Of Gray's beech it K 134 CRITICISM is left to be supposed that it spreads ; but we are expressly told that it nods ; and that it " wreathes its old fantastic roots high." What is meant by a tree wreathing its roots high ? Vegetation seems here inverted, and age endowed with the pliancy of youth* Theory can, in no other way, account for the strange form in which this beech appears, than by supposing it to have been an image, not of fancy, but of fact. A mind strongly irritable upon the ap- proximation of external forms, treasures up the grotesque images both of living and still nature, as they present them- selves, and brings them forth, afterwards, as the effects of inspiration. Gray had casually come in the way of some lusus nature of the beech tribe, of whose fan- tastic form the outline had continued upon his mind, and imprest his fancy with a vivid picture. Of Gray's inspi- rations, it is known, that many derived on gray's elegy. 135 their origin from casual impressions, made on the organs of sense. The sight of the Welch harper, Parry, ' and the rapture he felt at his execution, animated him to the finishing his " Bard/' after it had lain by, for two years, hopeless : and the " loose beard" and " hoary hair stream- ing to the wind," with which he has in- vested his tuneful Cambrian, were de- rived from a representation, by Ra- phael, of the Supreme Being, in the vi- sion of Ezekiel.* The beech seems literally to have been Gray's " favourite tree ;" and, in the con- templation of it, in all its varieties, he seems to have passed many poetical hours. In the year 1737, he met with beeches, in grounds belonging to his uncle, of so singular a character, that I am willing to indulge the reader with Mason. a Ibid. 136 CRITICISM the description of them, in the poet's own words/ And, as they bow their hoary tops, relate, In murmuring sounds, the dark decrees of fate ; While visions, as poetic eyes avow, Cling to each leaf, and swarm on every bough. On such beeches it was his fortune again to stumble in Italy, after an interval of three years ; and them also he has cele- brated, though in the ancient language of their country.* Haerent sub omni nam folio nigri Phoebaea luci (credite) somnia; Arguti usque et lympha et aurae Nescio quid solito loquuntur. 5 * Mason. * Ibid. 3 Of visions in Jieri, latent on the leaves of trees, till poetic eyes shall look them into form, the conception, un- less borrowed from the Norse, may be new : though it was the opinion of Dr Blake, that the Fancy of Gray was se- cretly led, in the formation of it, by the obscure recollec- tion of the Legend of Sir John Mandeville, according to which, in certain very cold latitudes, articulate sounds were arrested by the frost, at the moment of their emission from the mouth of $he speaker, and continued in that torpid ©n gray's elegy. 137 The thorn in Glastonbury Church-yard is known to have suggested to Gray, in the Elegy, the idea of that thorn, un- der which he fancies himself as buried. What particular beech he had in his eye, there is now no means of knowing. Chronology forbids us to suppose it to have been the beech which he found in the Highlands of Scotland, and which, to the astonishment of less fortunate tra- vellers, he reports, upon his own mensu- ration, to have been upwards of sixteen feet in the girth, and no less than eighty feet high. 1 Why the pensive man should lie ra- ther under the shade of a beech, than under any other shady tree, save Gray's predilection for the beech, no reason can be assigned. In a situation nearly simi- state, until they were again thawed into vocality, by the return of the warm season ! 1 Mason, 138 CRITICISM Jar, Thomson stretches himself under an oak. The general idea is the same. ■ — — Let me haste into the mid-wood shade, Where scarce a sun-beam wanders thro' the gloom ; And, on the dark green grass, beside the brink ©f haunted stream, that, by the roots of oai^. Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large. 1 XXX. XXXL XXXII. Of the Epitaph much more need not be said. The head of him who is im«* mersed in the earth, can with little pro- priety be said to " rest on her lap/' The transference of the word lap, is not hap- py. It is " velvet green" over again. The ground of the objection is the same. A metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art. A metaphor drawn from art de- ■ ' * Summer. on gray's elegy. 139 grades nature. As Gray is known to^ have been learned, that " Science frown- ed not on his birth," may be said with truth, according to the usual ac- ceptation of the words, But phrases, such as " Fortune smiled on his birth,** H Science frown'd not on his birth," are become flat by usage. They were poeti- cal ; are now rhetorical ; and will soon be prosaic. He " who gives to misery all he has," when that all is a tear, may be free from the charge of hard-heartedness ; but will be affectedly denominated boun- tiful ; as his giving this kind of all, will he, with quaintness, called giving large- ly. " Recompence" is used improperly. Tor loss or suffering we make recom- pence, but for bounty we offer return : and we are not properly said to " dis- close" that, which by investigation we discover. " Merits and frailties reposing on the bosom of his Father, and his God/' 140 CRITICISM Js an idea which Apprehension doubts if she has clearly made out : but if " Fa- ther" and " God" relate to the same Be- ing, the idea is pious, and the Elegy ends better than it begun. Meditation guides to Morality ; Morality inspires Religion ; and Religion swells out into Devotion. It is surprising that a writer like Gray should think the authority of Petrarch necessary for the justification of the ex- pression, " trembling hope f an expres- sion, which, though it has a little of the concetto in it, has it in less degree than several others he has used without scru- ple. But Gray was fond of Petrarch, and had no objection that his fondness should be known. In his Notes, he is ostentatious of authorities, in the de- fence of his expressions. Had it become expedient for him, on any occasion, to use the " joy of grief," he would, no doubt, have referred his reader to the ©n gray's ELEGY. 141 Pseudo-Gaelic Poems, which, at a par- ticular time, he wrought up his taste to relish, and almost his understanding to believe authentic. On the present oc- casion, there was no need to travel so far as Petrarch for an authority ; for what is the mode of speaking or writing that will not have its authority in the compositions of every language ? Pope's " trembling, hoping," was at hand. — Even the Portefolios of Tate and Bra- dy would have furnished him with " aw- ful mirth." Of the J stanza that Gray once pub- lished as part of this Elegy, and after- wards saw cause to withdraw, Criticism chooses to decline the examination, un- willing to shew eagerness to condemn 1 There, scatter'd 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. IM CRITICISM him, who has already condemned him- self. For the discontinuance of it in the after-editions, Mason has assigned this cause, that it was thought by its author to be awkwardly parenthe- tical. But there were other reasons that rendered it expedient that it should be suffered to slip out quietly. The same images, delineated, and assembled, near- ly in the same manner, are to be found in some of Collins' Pieces, published about 1746. I am aware that to fix imi- tation upon Gray, is not to bestow ori- ginality upon Collins. Some of Collins' images can be traced to Pope ; and some of Pope's, as well as Collins', to ages of high antiquity. " By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed," &c. make part of the wailings of Electra in Sophocles, for the supposed death of Orestes : " The turf lying light on the breast/' (to which a ludicrous contrast is on re- cord) standing now so high in the list of on gray's elegy. 143 elegiac common places, occurs in the Alcestis of Euripedes ; and Homer has made his Mountain Nymphs (the Fays of those times) plant elms, since sup- planted by flowers, around Eetion's grave. Property in fancy is like other property. Priority of appropriation must found the original right ; and of that priority our investigation must determine with the record. Of the writers to whom Gray has done homage for his tenure, I think Pope is not one. Let it not, however, be ima- gined, that, though nothing is acknow- ledged, nothing is owing. The " Elegy to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady/' has given to the " Elegy written in a Country Church-yard," many things both in the way of sentiment and design. The " storied urn' of Gray, is the " weeping Loves" of Pope ; and " ani- mated bust," is only an obscure expres- 144 CRITICISM sion for Pope's " polished marble emu- lating the face." " What, though no sacred earth allow thee room, " Nor hallowed dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb V has furnished the perhaps improved idea expressed in • • • -Though mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where, thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. That funeral honours, however scrupu- lously paid, cannot " back from its man- sion call the fleeting breath/' is also to be found in Pope, though stated in a different way : So, peaceful, rests without a stone, a name, What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame ;— A heap of dust alone remains of thee : 'Tis all thou art ; and all the proud shall be ! " The morn bestowing her earliest tears ;" (poetical phraseology for dew) " the first roses of the year blowing/' &c. are on gray's elegy. 145 images which both Collins and Gray thought worth gathering. ******** Here Criticism is content to stop ; congratulating herself on the termina- tion of a labour irksome, but not over- whelming ; invidious, but not void of use. If she has descended into too mi- nute an examination, it has not been with a view to darken counsel, but to furnish light. Of fine writing, the per- fection is not so well promoted by ab- stract canons, as by individual illustra- tions ; by the inculcating what should be written, as by the examination of what has been written. The detection of par- ticular blemishes is more productive of good than the display of general perfec- tion. There is a common-weal in taste, as w r ell as in government. Minute and characteristical exhibitions, of errors as well as of excellence, are necessary for 146 CRITICISM improvement* in both. Inde tibi, tuceque REiruBLiCiE, quod imitere, capias ; inde fcedum inceptu, fcedum exitu, quod vites. In the execution of this necessary task, Criticism finds herself engaged in much labour, and subjected to much self-denial : impeded by prejudice, and deterred by misconstruction* But the labour is honourable ; and the end use- ful. She is content to forget the hard- ships she has suffered ; and solace her- self with the view of the good she has done. In examining the Elegy written in a Country Church-yard, she has found much room for censure, and some room for praise. The Piece has been over- rated; and many serious persons, who meditate on death from a sense of duty, consider Conscience as concerned in their finding this Meditation perfect. Of perfections no doubt it contains some ; but it contains blemishes too .; and, if on gray's elegy. 14? Criticism grant it nothing but its merit, what will be its praise ? To rate that merit precisely, is perhaps not easy : but, where the premises are, the conclusion may be found. Those who are resolved to fortify themselves in the feeling which they have encou- raged themselves to entertain of its per- fections, may find many strong positions, in which they may maintain themselves, without immediate danger of being for- ced. The subject is serious ; the views in- teresting ; the thoughts tender ; the ver- sification, in general, smooth ; the lan- guage not unsuitable. The flights are sometimes bold ; often catching : and the execution often striking ; and some- times natural. But what, of all things, is likely to ensure this performance a lasting and general interest is. that it abounds with images which find a mir- rour in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. 148 CRITICISM, &C. Where so many beauties are, room may be afforded for faults : of these, Criti- cism has not concealed what came in her way ; and, to such as may urge her to a farther search, she will content her- self with tendering, concerning the Ele- gy, the admonition which its writer has tendered concerning himself: NO FARTHER SEEK ITS MERITS TO DISCLOSE, NOR DRAW ITS FRAILTIES FROM THEIR DREAD ABODE F I N I S. Edinburgh : Printed by James Ballantyne & Co. 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