At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common 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,

goes.

And tastes it as it '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,

'Sooth'd by flattery's tinkling sound,' Go, softly rolling, side by side, Their dull but daily round:

Le matin d'un beau jour, la verdure des bois,
La fraicheur d'une violette;

Milles spectacles, qu'autrefois
On voyoit avec nonchalance,

Transportent aujourd'hui, présentent des appas
Inconnus à l' indifférence,

"" la foule ne voit pas."

Gresset. tom. i. p. 145.

V. 55. "Communemque prius, ceu lumina solis." Ovid. Met. i. 135. "Nec solem proprium natura, nec aëra fecit." Ovid. Met. vi. 350. "Ne lucem, quoque hanc quæ communis est." Cicero. "Sol omnibus lucet." Pet. Arb. c. 100. "Communis cunctis viventibus aura." Prudent. Sym. ii. 86. "The common benefit of vital air." Dryden.

To these, if Hebe's self should bring
The purest cup from pleasure's spring,
Say, can they taste the flavour high
Of sober, simple, genuine joy?

'Mark ambition's march sublime
Up to power's meridian height;
While pale-eyed envy sees him 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.

'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.

70

75

80

85

V. 56. "Balm from open'd Paradise." v. Fairfax. Tasso, iv. 75. Luke. "And Paradise was open'd in the wild." Pope. "And paradise was open'd in his face." Dryden. Absalom, ed. Derrick, vol. i. p. 116.

V. 59. So Milton accents the word:

"On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd."

Par. Lost, b. vi. ver. 772.

V. 65. Tout s'émousse dans l'habitude;

L'amour s'endort sans volupté;

Las des mêmes plaisirs, las de leur multitude,
Le sentiment n'est plus flatté."

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.*

THEB. LIB. VI. VER. 704-724.

THIRD in the labours of the disc came on,
With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon;
Artful and strong he pois'd the well-known weight
By Phlegyas warn'd, and fir'd by Mnestheus' fate,
That to avoid, and this to emulate.

His vigorous arm he tried before he flung,
Brac'd all his nerves, and every sinew strung;
Then, with a tempest's whirl, and wary eye,
Pursu'd his cast, and hurl'd the orb on high;

This translation, written at the age of twenty, which Gray sent to West, consisted of about a hundred and ten lines. Mason selected twenty-seven lines, which he published, as Gray's first attempt at English verse; and to show how much he had imbibed of Dryden's spirited manner at that early period of his life.

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.
The theatre's green height and woody wall
Tremble ere it precipitates its fall;

10

15

20

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 heav'd the craggy rock;
Where Ocean frets beneath the dashing oar,
And parting surges round the vessel roar;
'Twas there he aim'd the meditated harm,
And scarce Ulysses scap'd his giant arm.
A tiger's pride the victor bore away,
With native spots and artful labour gay,
A shining border round the margin roll'd,
And calm'd the terrors of his claws in gold.

Cambridge, May 8, 1736.

25

V. 12. v. Milt. P. L. iv. 181, "At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound." Luke.

V. 14. v. Milt. P. L. iv. 140, "As the ranks ascend shade above shade, a woody theatre of stateliest view." Luke.

THE FRAGMENT OF A TRAGEDY,

DESIGNED BY MR. GRAY ON THE SUBJECT OF THE DEATH OF AGRIPPINA.*

"THE Britannicus of Racine, I know, was one of Gray's most favourite plays; and the admirable manner in which I have heard him say that he saw it represented at Paris, seems to have led him to choose the death of Agrippina for his first and only effort in the drama. The execution of it also, as far as it goes, is so very much in Racine's taste, that I suspect, if that great poet had been born an Englishman, he would have written precisely in the same style and manner. However, as there is at present in this nation a general prejudice against declamatory plays, I agree with a learned friend, who perused the manuscript, that this fragment will be little relished by the many; yet the admirable strokes of nature and character with which it abounds, and the majesty of its diction, prevent me from withholding from the few, who I expect will relish it, so great a curiosity (to call it nothing more) as part of a tragedy written by Gray. These persons well know, that till style and sentiment be a little more regarded, mere action and passion will never secure reputation to the author, whatever they may do to the actor. It is the business of the one to strut and fret his hour upon the stage;' and if he frets and struts enough, he is sure to find his reward in the plaudit of an upper gallery; but the other ought to have some regard to the cooler judgment of the closet: for I will be bold to say that if Shakespeare himself had not written a multitude of passages which please there as much as they do on the stage, his reputation would not stand so universally high as it does at present. Many of these passages, to the shame of our theatrical taste, are omitted constantly in the representation: but I say not this from conviction that the mode of writing, which Gray pursued, the best for dramatic purposes. I think myself, what

*See Tacitus's Annals, book xiii. xiv. Mason.