NOTES. ON THE SPRING. P. 1. The original manuscript title given by Gray to this Cde, was "Noontide." It appeared for the first time in Dodsley's Collection, vol. ii. p. 271, under the title of "Ode." ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT. P. 4. On a favourite cat, called Selima, that fell into a China tub with gold fishes in it, and was drowned. Walpole, after the death of Gray, placed the China vase on a pedestal at Strawberry Hill, with a few lines of the Ode for its inscription. ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE, P. 7. Her Henry s holy shade.] King Henry the Sixth, founder of the College. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. P. 15. Æolian lyre.] Pindar styles his own poetry "Eolian." P. 15. Ceres' golden reign.] Fields of corn. P. 16. Oh! Sov'reign of the willing soul.] Power of harmony to calm the turbulent passions of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar. P. 16. The Lord of War.] Mars, the god of war. P. 16. The feather'd king.] The eagle of Jove. P. 16. Thee the voice, the dance, obey.] Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. P. 16. Idalia.] The favourite retreat of Venus in Cyprus. P. 16. Cytherea's day.] The festival of Venus. P. 17. Man's feeble race what ills await!] 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. P. 18. In climes beyond the solar road.] Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilised nations: its connexion with Liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. P. 18. Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep.] Progress of Poetry from Greece 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. Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them; but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since. P. 19. In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid.] SHAKSPEARE. P. 20. The living throne, the sapphire blaze.] "For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. And above the firmament, that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone. This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord." Ezek. i. 20, 26, 23. P. 20. With necks in thunder cloth'd.] "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?" Job.-This verse and the foregoing are meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes. P. 21. That the Theban eagle bear.] Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of their noise. THE BARD P. 22. This Ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death. P. 22. Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail.] 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. P. 22. Snowdon's shaggy side.] Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which includes all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. P. 23. Stout Glo'ster.] Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford; married at Westminster, May 2 1290, to Joan de Acres or Acon (so called from having been born at Acon in the Holy Land), second daughter of King Edward.-He died 1295. P. 23. "To arms!" cried Mortimer.] Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. They both were Lord Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the king in this expedition. P. 24. On dreary Arvon's shore they lie.] The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite to the Isle of Anglesey. P. 24 And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.] See the Norwegian Ode (The Fatal Sisters) that follows. P. 25. The shrieks of death, thro' Berkley's roof that ring.] Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle. P. 25. She-wolf of France.] Isabel of France, Edward the Second's adulterous queen. P. 25. The scourge of heav'n.] Triumphs of Edward the Third in France. P. 25. Low on his funeral couch he lies!] Death of Edward the Third, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress. P. 25. Is the sable warrior fled?] Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father. P. 25. Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows.] Magnificence of Richard the Second's reign. See Froissart, and other contemporary writers. P. 26. Fill high the sparkling bowl.] Richard the Second, as we are told by Archbishop Scroop and the confederate Lords in their 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. P. 26. Heard ye the din of battle bray.] Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster. P. 26. Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murder fed.] Henry the Sixth, George Duke of Clarence, Edward the Fifth, Richard Duke of York, &c. believed to be murdered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar. P. 26. Revere his consort's faith.] Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown, P. 26. His father's fame.] Henry the Fifth. P. 26. And spare the meek usurper's holy head.] Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown. P. 26. Above, below, the rose of snow.] The white and red roses, devices of York and Lancaster. P. 26. The bristled boar in infant-gore.] The silver boar was the badge of Richard the Third; whence he was usually known in his own time by the name of the Boar. P. 27. Half of thy heart we consecrate.] 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 his regret and sorrow for the loss of her are still to be seen at Northampton, Gaddington, Waltham, and other places. P. 27. No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.] It was the common belief of the Welsh nation, that King Arthur was still alive in Fairyland, and would return again to reign over Britain. P. 27. All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue, hail !] Both Mer'in and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island; which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor. P. 28. Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face.] Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says, "And thus she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princelie checkes." P. 28. Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear.] Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high veneration among his countrymen. P. 28. In buskin'd measures move.] SHAKSPEARE. P. 29. A voice, as of the cherub-choir.] MILTON. P. 29. And distant warblings lessen on my ear.] The succession of poets after Milton's time. ODE FOR MUSIC. P. 30. This Ode was performed in the Senate-House at Cambridge, July 1, 1769, at the installation of his Grace Augustus-Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of the University. P. 32. Great Edward, with the lilies on his brow.] Edward the Third, who added the fleur-de-lys of France to the arms of England. He founded Trinity College. P. 32. And sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn.] Mary de Valentia, Countess of Pembroke, daughter of Guy de Chatillon, comte de St. Paul in France; of whom tradition says, that her husband Audemar de Valentia, Earl of Pembroke, was slain at a tournament on the day of his nuptials. She was the foundress of Pembroke College or Hall, under the name of Aula Mariæ de Valentia. P. 32. Princely Clare.] Elizabeth de Burg, Countess of Clare, was wife of John de Burg, son and heir of the Earl of Ulster, and daughter of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, by Joan of Acres, daughter of Edward the First. Hence the poet gives her the epithet of princely. She founded Clare Hall. P. 32. And Anjou's heroine, and the paler rose.] Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry the Sixth, foundress of Queen's College. The poet has celebrated her conjuga! fidelity in "The Bard," epode 2d, line 13th.— Elizabeth Widville, wife of Edward the Fourth, hence called the paler rose, as being of the house of York. She added to the foundation of Margaret of Anjou. P. 32. And either Henry there.] Henry the Sixth and Eighth. The form.er the founder of King's, the latter the greatest benefactor to Trinity College. P. 33. The venerable Margret see!] Countess of Richmond and Derby; the mother of Henry the Seventh, foundress of St. John's and Christ's Colleges. P. 33. A Tudor's fire, a Beaufort's grace.] The Countess was a Beaufort and married to a Tudor: hence the application of this line to the Duke of Grafton, who claims descent from both these families. P. 34. The laureate wreath, that Cecil wore, she brings.] Lord Treasurer Burleigh was Chancellor of the University in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. THE FATAL SISTERS. P. 35. To be found in the Orcades of Thormodus Torfæus; Hafniæ, 1697, folio; and also in Bartholinus, p. 617, lib. iii. c. 1. 4to. Vitt er orpit fyrir valfalli, &c. In the eleventh century Sigurd, Earl of the Orkney Islands, went with a fleet of ships and a considerable body of troops into Ireland, to the assistance of Sictryg with the silken beard, who was then making war on his father-in-law Brian, King of Dublin: the earl and all his forces were cut to pieces, and Sictryg was in danger of a total defeat; but the enemy had a greater loss by the death of Brian their king, who fell in the action. On Christmas-day (the day of the battle), a native of Caithness in Scotland, of the name of Durrad, saw at a distance a number of persons on horseback riding at full speed towards a hill, and seeming to enter into it. Curiosity led him to follow them, till looking through an opening in the rocks, he saw twelve gigantic figures resembling women: they were all employed about a loom; and as they wove, they sung the following dreadful song; which when they had finished, they tore the web into twelve pieces, and (each taking her portion) galloped six to the north, and as many to the south. These were the Vulkyriur, female divinities, Parca Militares, servants of Odin (or Woden) in the Gothic mythology. Their name signifies Choosers of the slain. They were mounted on swift horses, with drawn swords in their hands; and in the throng of battle selected such as were destined to slaughter, and conducted them to Valkalla, the hall of Odin, or paradise of the brave; where they attended the banquet, and served the departed heroes with horns of mead and ale: their numbers are not agreed upon, some authors representing them as six, some as four. THE DESCENT OF ODIN. P. 39. The original is to be found in Sæmund's Edda, and in Bartholinus, De Causis contemnendæ Mortis; Hafniæ, 1689, quarto, lib. III.. c. ii. p. 632. Upreis Odinn allda gautr, &c. P. 39. Hela's drear abode.] Niflheliar, the hell of the Gothic nations, |