THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDARIC ODE.

[Here is quoted only the last division of the Ode, where the poet sings of POESY IN ENGLAND. It will be observed that he neglects Chaucer, Spenser, and Pope.]

III. 1.

Far from the sun and summer-gale,

In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon strayed,

To him the mighty Mother did unveil
Her awful face. The dauntless child
Stretched forth his little arms and smiled.
'This pencil take,' she said, 'whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy;

Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.'

III. 2.

Nor second he that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of the abyss to spy.

He passed the flaming bounds of Place and Time:
The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,

Closed his eyes in endless night.

Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car,

Wide o'er the fields of Glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding

pace.

III. 3.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er

Scatters from her pictured urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

S

But ah! 'tis heard no more—
Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air :
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run

Such forms as glitter in the muse's ray
With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun :

Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate;

Beneath the good how far—but far above the great.

NOTES.

pinion' are alternated as objects to 'inherit,' they are combined as antecedents to 'that.'The Theban eagle, Pindar (see page 239), a native of Thebes in Boōtia. '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' (Gray). Mason, in his epitaph on Gray's monument in Westminster Abbey, admits the comparison disclaimed by the poet: Britain, he says, boasts 'A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray.'- -Deep. Compare 'abyss' (above), note.

The inversions will reward close study.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.-1728-1774.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH was born at Pallas, county Longford, Ireland, son of the parish curate. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin (1745-9), where he graduated B.A.; proceeded next to Edinburgh, where he devoted two sessions (1752-4) to medicine, among other things; and thereafter went to Leyden in Holland. In 1755 he set out on a pedestrian tour over the Continent, one guinea in his pocket, a shirt on his back, and a flute in his hand.' He took the degree of Bachelor of Medicine at 'some foreign university (whether Leyden, Louvain, or Padua, no one knows).' On his return to England (1756), he became successively assistant-chemist, physician, press reader and corrector, and school-usher, till finally he devoted himself to literature.

The Chinese Letters, published (1762) under the title of The Citizen of the World, were contributed (1760) to The Public Ledger. The Traveller (1764), a poem, made him famous. His celebrated novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, written in 1764, published in 1766, is our greatest prose idyll. The Good-natured Man, a comedy, was produced in 1768. The Deserted Village (1770), a second poem, and She Stoops to Conquer (1773), a second comedy, added to his reputation. Besides other works in general literature, he compiled several Histories (England, Rome, Greece), and at his death was engaged upon the History of Animated Nature.

LITTLE GREAT MEN.

(From The Citizen of the World.-Letter LXXIV: From Lien Chi Altangi [a Chinese Philosopher, residing in London] to Fum Hoam, First President of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin in China.)

In reading the newspapers here, I have reckoned up not less than twenty-five great men, seventeen very great men, and nine very extraordinary men, in less than the compass of half a year. These, say the gazettes, are the men that posterity are to gaze at with admiration; these the names that fame will be employed in holding up for the astonishment of succeeding ages. Let me see fortysix great men in half a year amount to just ninety-two in a year. I wonder how posterity will be able to remember them all, or whether the people in future times will have any other business to mind, but that of getting the catalogue by heart.

Does the mayor of a corporation make a speech? he is instantly set down for a great man. Does a pedant digest his commonplace-book into a folio? he quickly becomes great. Does a poet string up trite sentiments in rhyme? he also becomes the great man of the hour. How diminutive soever the object of admiration, each is followed by a crowd of still more diminutive admirers. The shout begins in his train, onward he marches to immortality, looks back at the pursuing crowd with selfsatisfaction; catching all the oddities, the whimsies, the absurdities, and the littlenesses of conscious greatness, by the way.

I was yesterday invited by a gentleman to dinner, who promised that our entertainment should consist of a haunch of venison, a turtle, and a great man. I came according to appointment. The venison was fine, the turtle good, but the great man insupportable. The moment I ventured to speak, I was at once contradicted

with a snap. I attempted, by a second and a third assault, to retrieve my lost reputation, but was still beat back with confusion. I was resolved to attack him once more from entrenchment, and turned the conversation upon the government of China: but even here he asserted, snapped, and contradicted as before. Heavens, thought I, this man pretends to know China, even better than myself! I looked round to see who was on my side, but every eye was fixed in admiration on the great man; I therefore at last thought proper to sit silent, and act the pretty gentleman during the ensuing conversation.

When a man has once secured a circle of admirers, he may be as ridiculous here as he thinks proper; and it all passes for elevation of sentiment or learned absence. If he transgresses the common forms of breeding, mistakes even a tea-pot for a tobacco-box, it is said that his thoughts are fixed on more important objects: to speak and to act like the rest of mankind, is to be no greater than they. There is something of oddity in the very idea of greatness; for we are seldom astonished at a thing very much resembling ourselves.

When the Tartars make a Lama, their first care is to place him in a dark corner of the temple: here he is to sit half-concealed from view, to regulate the motion of his hands, lips, and eyes; but above all, he is enjoined gravity and silence. This, however, is but the prelude to his apotheosis: a set of emissaries are despatched among the people to cry up his piety, gravity, and love of raw flesh; the people take them at their word, approach the Lama, now become an idol, with the most humble prostration; he receives their addresses without motion, commences a god, and is ever after fed by his priests with the spoon of immortality. The same receipt in this country serves to make a great man. The idol