had the antiqua regna' of the Latin poets in his mind, and the deserta regna.' Besides, to molest a reign,' is a very ungraceful and most unusual expression; and only endured for the rhyme's sake.

• Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap.' This is redundant.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn.”

If the hearth blazes, of course it must burn; but blazing hearth' Gray had from Thomson, and burn' was added for the rhyme, return.”

'No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.'

Here the epithet lowly, as applied to bed, occasions an ambiguity, as to whether the poet meant the bed on which they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid, which is in poetry called a low or lowly bed. Of course the former is designed; but Mr. Lloyd, in his Latin translation, mistook it for the latter. There can be no greater fault in composition than a doubtful meaning, vitanda in primis ambiguitas.

• Or busy housewife ply her evening care.'

To ply a care, is an expression that is not proper to our language, and was probably formed for the rhyme — 'share.'

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield;
How bent the woods beneath their sturdy stroke.'

This stanza is made up of various pieces inlaid. Stubborn glebe,' is from Gay; drive afield,' from Milton; sturdy stroke,' from Spenser. Such is too much the system of Gray's compositions, and therefore such the cause of his imperfections. Purity of language, accuracy of thought, and even similarity of rhyme all give way to the introduction of certain poetical expressions; in fact, the beautiful.jewel, when brought, does not fit into the new setting, or socket. Such is the difference between the flower stuck into the ground, and those that grow from it.

Their homely joys and destiny obscure;

The short and simple annals of the poor."

A very imperfect rhyme, such as Swift would not have allowed, and ought not to have appeared in such a poem, where the finishing is supposed to be high, and the expression said to be select.

'And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave.'

This expression simply means beauty and wealth,' and is much weakened by the addition e'er gave, which was necessary for the rhyme' grave.'

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault.'

A prosaic and colloquial line.

• Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust?'

An unusually bold expression, to say the least. Pope has,

• But when our country's cause provokes to arms.'

Again,

• Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,' &c.

Incorrect in the syntax:

--Some hands is laid.'

• Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd.'

The rod of empire' is rather a semi-burlesque expression, than a serious one, and degrades the image. Tickell has a better:

Proud names, that once the reins of empire held."

But then the rhyme sway'd' would not have done. We see, while writing this, that reins' was in the original MS., and undoubtedly dispossessed of its place for the sake of the verb.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll,' &c. It is necessary to go back six stanzas to find the subject to which the relative their refers; i. e.

• The short and simple annals of the Poor.'

• Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll.'

This fine expression is taken from Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici - -Rich with the spoils of Nature.'

• Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage.'

The use of the word rage' for desire, if not introduced by Pope, was too much used by him.

So just thy skill, so regular thy rage;'

And,

Be justly warm'd by your own native rage.'

• Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast.

It should be who,' instead of ‹ that.'

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land.

This is from Tickell

To scatter blessings on the British land.'

• From insult to protect.'

Sculpture deck'd,' is not an allowable rhyme; and what is the force or meaning of the word still erected nigh?'

• Their lot forbade, nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd-
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
Or shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

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.'

Who does not feel how flat and superfluous is the latter stanza, after the fine concluding couplet of the former? The two stanzas ought to have been remodelled; part of the second thrown into the first, and then the whole should conclude with the greatest crime, the grandest imagery, and the finished picture,

Forbatle to wade through slaughter to a throne,

Or shut the gates of mercy on mankind.’

There should the description close; all after that must be weak and superfluous.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray.'

There is an ambiguity in this couplet, which indeed gives a sense exactly contrary to that intended; to avoid which, one must break the grammatical construction. The first line is from Drummond: -Far from the madding worldling's hoarse discords.'

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day.

• Precincts,' a lifeless and prosaic word; and unsuited to the epithet warm.' How superior is Tasso

E lascio mesta l'aure suave della vita.'

• And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.'

This is ungrammatical. Many a holy text that teaches,' it ought to be.

• On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires,
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.'

• Pious drops' is from Ovid-'piæ lacrymæ;''Closing eye,' is from Pope's Elegy; Voice of Nature,' from the Anthologia; and the last line from Chaucer

• Yet in our ashes cold is fire yreken.'

From so many different quarries are the stones brought to form this elaborate mosaic pavement. From this stanza the style of composition drops into a lower key; the language is plainer, and is not in harmony with the splendid and elaborate diction of the former part. Mr. Mason says it has a Doric delicacy. There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

His listless limbs at noontide would he stretch.'

Such imperfect rhymes are not allowable in short and finished poems. And So, in the following stanza, we saw him borne'

beneath yon aged thorn.' And in the xx and xxi stanzas, there are four lines in the rhymes of similar sound, as nigh,' sigh,' supply,' 'die.'

Now drooping woful-wan, like one forlorn.'

• Woful-wan' is not a legitimate compound, and must be divided into two separate words, for such they are, when released from the handcuffs of the hyphen. Hurd has wrongly given lazy-pacing,' and barren-spirited,”and high-sighted,' as compound epithets, in his notes on Horace's Art of Poetry!

'Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.'

A very bald, flat, prosaic line.

• Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth.”

Such personifications are not in the taste of our old and best writers, but grow up in modern times. Dodsley's Specimens are full of them. So little did the printer know about it, that he has not even printed science with a capital letter. Horace is correct, as well as beautifully poetical:

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode.”

It should be

Nor.'

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

• "Twas on a lofty vase's side,

Where China's gayest art had dy'd

The azure flowers that blow."

Ode on the Death of a favourite Cat.

So Lady M. Montagu, in one of her Town Eclogues, written in 1715:

• Where the tall jar erects its stately pride,
With antic shapes in China's azure dy’d.'

Friday-The Toilette. D.
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight.'

So Lady M. Montagu

Elegy.

She said, and slowly leaves the realms of night,
While the curs'd phantoms praise her droning flight.'
The Court of Dullness. D.

• Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnassus,' &c.

Compare Gabriel Harvey:

Progress of Poesy.

'It is not long, since the goodlyest graces of the most noble commonwealthes upon earth, Eloquence in speech, and Civility in manners, arriued in these remote parts of the world: it was a happy reuolution of the heauens, and worthy to be chronicled in an English Liuy, when Tiberis flowed into the Thames; Athens removed to London; pure Italy and fine Greece planted themsetues in rich England; Apollo with his delicate troupe of Muses forsooke his old mountaines and riuers, and frequented a new Parnassus, and an other Helicon, nothinge inferiour to the olde, when they were most solemnely haunted of diuine wittes, that taught Rhetorique to speake with applause, and Poetry to sing with admiration.' Pierce's Supererogation, 1593, p. 15.

D.

• Amazement, in his van, with Flight combin❜d,
And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.'
The Bard, St. ii. 1.

So Swift:

On he went, and in his van Confusion and Amaze, while Horror and Affright brought up the Rear.'

Battle of the Books. D