And ye, that from the stately brow Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among His silver-winding way.2 Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!3 Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, 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, To breathe a second spring. Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen The captive linnet which enthral? To chase the rolling circle's speed, 1 "That is, the turf of whose lawn, the shade of whose grove, the flowers of whose mead. So in Shak. speare:-The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword; that is, 'The courtier's eye, the soldier's sword, the scholar's tongue.' This singularity often occurs in Mr. Pope."— Wakefield. Mr. Wakefield has a complaint against this compound epithet. The silver shedding tears of Shakspeare, Two Gent. of Ver. Act. lii. sc. 1, and the silver-quivering rills of Pope, might perhaps have reconciled him to it, if he had recollected them. Both these expressions, as well as one from Dart's "Westminster Abbey," "Where Thames in silver-currents winds his way," are cited in this place by Mr. Mitford. * Mr. Wakefield here quotes from the "Odyssey," O. 397. And It may be remarked, that the analents were by no means unacquainted with that species of pathos which is derived from the melancholy delight of early remembrance. The feeling which induces us to dress up the past in a fancied superiority of enjoyment, is natural and universal; nor can the indulgence of it be pernicious, so ong as it does not interfere with the necessary energies of the present hour. 4"And bees their honey redolent of spring." Dryden's Pythag. System. As Gray refers this expression to Dryden, it is probable that he was not acquainted with any ear Her authority. Dr. Johnson is highly offended at it, as passing beyond the utmost limits of our lan guage, and of common apprehension. The critic, perhaps, never in his life partook of the feeling here described, or possibly he would not have objected to the expression. 6 The ill-natured criticism of Dr. Johnson on this line cannot be refuted better than it has been by Mr. Mitford. "His supplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop, or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames had no better means of knowing than himself.”—Are we by this rule of criticism to judge the following passage in the twentieth chapter of Rasselas! "As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: Answer, said she, great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of tny native aing. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, single habitation, from waica tnou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint." While some, on earnest business bent, 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry: Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,1 And lively cheer, of vigor born; Alas! regardless of their doom, No sense have they of ills to come, Yet see how all around them wait? The ministers of human fate, And black Misfortune's baleful train! These shall the fury Passions tear, And Shame that skulks behind; That inly gnaws the secret heart; Ambition this shall tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy. 1 "This is at once poetical and just: and yet there seems to be an impropriety in the next verse :— Less pleasing when possest: for though the object of hope may truly be said to be less pleasing in possession than in the fancy; yet Hope in person cannot possibly be possessed."— Wakefield. 2 "This representation of the ministers of Fate, and the two succeeding stanzas, which exhibit the variety of human passions, with their several attributes, blends moral instruction with all the an mation and sublimity of poetry.”—-Wakefield. 8 "I do not know that any poet, ancient or modern, has given so complete a picture of the passions in so short a compass."— Wakefield. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, That mocks the tear it forced to flow; Lo! in the vale of years beneath' The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen: Those in the deeper vitals rage: Lo! Poverty, to fill the band, To each his sufferings: all are men, The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, And happiness too swiftly flies? SONG. Thyrsis, when we parted, swore And the bud that decks the thorn? 1 A most happy idea; and the whole stanza is exquisitely beautiful, and will not be disgraced by appearing in the same view with a passage in "Paradise Lost," where description is carried to its highest pitch of excellence: "Immediately a place Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisome, dark; A lazar-house it seem'd; wherein were laid Numbers of all diseased; all maladies Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums. Book xi. ver. 477. Idle notes! antimely green! Prove not always winter past. Cease, my doubts, my fears to move- The chief prose compositions of Gray are his letters, which are among the best in the language, full of just remarks, beautiful criticisms, and descriptions of natural scenery, "which a painter might study, and which a poet alone could have conceived;" and occasionally exhibit a genial humor which mark the author of the "Ode to a Favorite Cat." In 1798, before the letters of Cowper were published, Dr. Beattie thus writes to a friend: "I am ac quainted with many parts of your excursion through the north of England, and very glad that you had my old friend Mr. Gray's Letters' with you, which are indeed so well written, that I have no scruple to pronounce them the best letters that have been printed in our language. Lady Montagu's are not without merit, but are too artificial and affected to be confided in as true, and Lord Chesterfield's have much greater faults; indeed, some of the greatest that letters can have: but Gray's letters are always sensible, and of classical conciseness and perspicuity. They very much resemble what his conversa. tion was." HOW HE SPENDS HIS TIME IN THE COUNTRY. To MR. WAlpole. I was hindered in my last, and so could not give you all the trouble I would have done. The description of a road, which your coach-wheels have so often honored, it would be needless to give you; suffice it, I arrived safe at my uncle's, who is a great hunter in imagination; his dogs take up every chair in the house, so I am forced to stand at this present writing; and though the gout forbids his galloping after them in the field, yet he continues still to regale his ears and nose with their comfortable noise and stink. He holds me mightily cheap, I perceive, for walking when I should ride, and reading when I should hunt. My comfort amidst all this is, that I have, at the distance of half a mile, through a green lane, a forest, (the vulgar call it a conimon,) all my own, at least as good as so, for I spy no human thing in it but myself. It is a little chaos of mountains and precipices; moun tains, it is true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, nor are the declivities quite so amazing as Dover Cliff; but just such hills as people who love their necks as well as I do, may venture to climb; and crags that give the eye as much pleasure as if they were more dangerous. Both vale and hill are covered with most venerable beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are always dreaming out their old stories to the winds, And, as they bow their hoary tops, relate, While visions, as poetic eyes avow, Cling to each leaf, and swarm on every bough. At the foot of one of these squats me I, (Il penseroso,) and there grow to the trunk for a whole morning. The timorous hare and sportive squirrel gambol around me like Adam in Paradise, before he had an Eve; but I think he did not use to read Virgil, as I commonly do there. In this situation I often converse with ny Horace, aloud too, that is, talk to you, but I do not remember that I ever heard you answer me. I beg pardon for taking all the conversation to myself, but it is entirely your own fault. I shall be in town in about three weeks. Adieu. September, 1737. NETLEY ABBEY AND SOUTHAMPTON.-BEAUTIFUL SUNSET. TO MR. NICHOLLS.2 I received your letter at Southampton, and as I would wish to treat everybody according to their own rule and measure of good breeding, have, against my inclination, waited till now before I answered it, purely out of fear and respect, and an ingenious diffi dence of my own abilities. If you will not take this as an excuse, accept it at least as a well-turned period, which is always my principal concern. So I proceed to tell you that my health is much improved by the sea; not that I drank it, or bathed in it, as the common people do: no! I only walked by it, and looked upon it. The climate is remarkably mild, even in October and November; no snow has been seen to lie there for these thirty years past; the myrtles grow in the ground against the houses, and Guernsey lilies bloom in every window; the town, clean and well-built, surrounded by its old stone walls, with their towers and gateways, stands at the point of a peninsula, and opens full south to an arm of the sea. which, having formed two beautiful bays on each hand of it, stretches away in direct view till it joins the British Channel: it is skirted on either side with gently-rising grounds, clothed with thick wood, and directly cross its mouth rise the high lands of the Isle of Wight at distance, but distinctly seen. In the bosom of the woods (concealed from profane eyes) lie hid the ruins of Netley Abbey; there may be richer and greater houses of reli gion, but the Abbot is content with his situation. See there, at the top of that hanging meadow, under the shade of those old trees that bend into a half circle about it, he is walking slowly, The same ludicrous expression is met with in Foote's play of 'The Knights,' p. 27, from the month of Sir Penurious Trifle:And what does me I, but take a trip to a coffee-house in St. Martin's Lane,' &c. See also Don Quixote' by Smollet, vol. iv. p. 30."-Mitford. 2 Rector of Lounde and Bradwell, in Suffolk. His acquaintance with Mr. Gray commenced a few years before the date of this, when he was a student in Cambridge |