Alas! regardless of their doom No sense have they of ills to come, Yet see, how all around 'em wait And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, show them where in ambush stand, To sieze their prey, the murth'rous band! These shall the fury Passions tear, The vultures of the mind, Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that sculks behind; Or pineing Love shall waste their youth, 60 65 V. 51. "E'en now, regardless of his doom, Applauding honour haunts his tomb." Collins. Ode on the Death of Col. Ross, 4th stanza of his first manuscript. V. 55. These two lines resemble two in Broome. Ode on Melancholy, p. 28: "While round, stern ministers of fate, Pain, and Disease, and Sorrow wait." And Otway. Alcib. act v. sc. 2. p. 84: grim ministers of fate." "Then enter, ye V. 61. "The fury Passions from that flood began." See Pope. Essay on Man, iii. 167. V. 63. " Exsanguisque Metus," Stat. Theb. vii. 49. And from him Milton. Quint. Novemb. 148: "Exsanguisque Horror." Pers. Sat. iii. v. 115, “Timor albus." V. 66. "But gnawing Jealousy out of their sight, Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bite." Spenser. F. Q. vi. 23. That inly gnaws the secret heart; And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart. Ambition this shall tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow; 70 75 80 A griesly troop are seen, V. 68. "With praise enough for Envy to look wan.' Milton. Son. to Lawes, xiii. 6. W. Par. L. i. 601, " Care sate on his faded cheek." Luke. V. 69. Gray has here imitated Shakespeare. Richard III. act i. sc. 1: "" Grim-visag'd War." and Com. of Err. act v. sc. 1: "A moody and dull melancholy kinsman to grim and comfortless Despair." Yarrington (Two Trag. in one) "Grim-visag'd despair." Todd. V. 76. "Affected Kindness with an alter'd face," Dryden. Hind. and Panth. part iii. V. 79. "Madness laughing in his ireful mood:" Dryden. Pal. and Arc. (b. ii. p. 43. ed. Aik.) Gray. And so K. Hen. VI. p. 1. act iv. sc. 2: "But rather moody mad." And act iii. sc. 1: "Moody fury." Chaucer. Knyghte's Tale, 1152. V. 81. Declin'd into the vale of years," Othello, act iii. sc. 3. Compare also Virg. Æn. vi. 275. The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen : This racks the joints, this fires the veins, Those in the deeper vitals rage: Lo! Poverty, to fill the band, That numbs the soul with icy hand, And slow-consuming Age. To each his suff'rings: all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan; The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, 85 90 95 V. 83. "Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain," Pope. Essay on Man, ii. 118. Dryden. State of Innoc. act v. sc. i: With all the numerous family of Death." Claudian uses language not dissimilar: Cons. Honor. vi. 323: "Inferno stridentes agmine Morbi." And Juv. Sat. x. 218: "Circumsedit agmine facto Morborum omne genus." Hor. Od. 1. iii. 30, "Nova febrium terris incubuit cohors." V. 84. See T. Warton's Milt. p. 432, 434, 511. V. 90. "His slow-consuming fires." Shenstone. Love and Honour. V. 95. We meet with the same thought in Milton. Com. 359: ver. "Peace, brother; be not over-exquisite To cast the fashion of uncertain evils; For grant they be so, while they rest unknown, What need a man forestall his date of grief?" W. V. 98. Soph. Ajax, v. 555 : Ἐν τῷ Φρονεῖν γαρ μηδεν, Hotoros Bios. W. See Kidd's note to Hor. Ep. xi. 2. 140. V. 99. See Prior, (Ep. to Hon. C. Montague, st. ix.) "From ignorance our comfort flows, The only wretched are the wise."— Luke. Add Davenant. Just Italian, p. 32, "Since knowledge is but Since sorrow never comes too late, 100 HYMN TO ADVERSITY.* -Zĥva Τὸν φρονεῖν Βροτοὺς ὁδώ σαντα, τῷ πάθει μαθών ESCH. AGAM. ver. 181. [This Ode, suggested by Dionysius' Ode to Nemesis. v. Aratus. ed Oxford, p. 51, translated by S. Meyrick, in Bell's Fug. Poetry, vol. xviii. p. 161.] Daughter of Jove, relentless power, sorrow's spy, it is not safe to know." And Dodsley. Old Plays, xi. p. 119: Ignorance is safe; I then slept happily; if knowledge mend me not, To wake me into judgment." * This Hymn first appeared in Dodsley. Col. vol. iv. together with the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard;" and not, as Mason says, with the three foregoing Odes, which were published in the second volume. In Mason's edition it is called an Ode; but the title is now restored, as it was given by the author. The motto from Eschylus is not in Dodsley. V. 1. "Arŋ, who may be called the goddess of Adversity, Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour The bad affright, afflict the best! With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, design'd, 10 is said by Homer to be the daughter of Jupiter: Il. r. 91. Πρέσβα διὸς θυγάτηρ ̓́Ατη, ἣ πάντας ἀᾶται. Perhaps, however, Gray only alluded to the passage of Æschylus which he quoted, and which describes Affliction as sent by Jupiter for the benefit of man. Potter in his translation has had an eye on Gray. See his Transl. p. 19. V. 2. "Then he, great tamer of all human art," Pope. Dun. i. 163. V. 3. "Affliction's iron flail." Fletcher. Purp. Isl. ix. 28. Ibid. In Wakefield's note, he remarks an impropriety in the poet joining to a material image, the "torturing hour." If there be an impropriety in this, it must rest with Milton, from whom Gray borrowed the verse: 66 when the scourge Inexorably, and the torturing hour, Calls us to penance." Par. Lost, ii. 90. But this mode of speech is authorized by ancient and modern poets. In Virgil's description of the lightning which the Cyclopes wrought for Jupiter, Æn. viii. 429. Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosæ Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri: In Par. Lost, x. 297, as the original punctuation stood : This punctuation is now altered in most of the editions. The new reading was proposed by Dr. Pearce. |