To bless the place, where on their opening soul
First the genuine ardour stole.

"Twas Milton struck the deep-ton'd shell,
And, as the choral warblings round him swell,
Meek Newton's self bends from his state sublime,
And nods his hoary head, and listens to the rhyme.

III. AIR.

“Ye brown o'er-arching groves,

That Contemplation loves,

Where willowy Camus lingers with delight!
Oft at the blush of dawn

I trod your level lawn,

Oft woo'd the gleam of Cynthia silver-bright

"Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy ! *

V. 31. "In long excursion skims the level lawn."

30

Thomson. Spring. Luke.

V. 32. "With silver-bright who moon enamels."

*Gaw. Douglas, in his Transl. of Virgil, Prolog. to bk. xiii. p. 450, describes the notes of the nightingale as merry:

- The mery nyghtyngele Philomene,

That on the thorne sat syngand fro the splene,
Quhais myrthfull nottis langing for to here," &c.

"Ah! far unlike the nightingale !

she sings

Unceasing thro' the balmy nights of May;

She sings from love and joy." Thomson. Agamem. p. 63.

"Him will I cheare with chanting all this night,

And with that word she 'gan to clear her throate:

But such a lively song, now by this light,

Yet never hearde I such another note."

Gascoigne. Complaynt of Phylomene.

Mr. Fox has, I think, given no authority but that of Chaucer, for the merry notes of the nightingale; see his Letter to Lord Grey, p. 12. But see Todd. Illust. of Gower.

In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of Folly, With Freedom by my side, and soft-eyed Melancholy."

IV. RECITATIVE.

But hark! the portals sound, and pacing forth 35
With solemn steps and slow,

High potentates, and dames of royal birth,
And mitred fathers in long order go:
Great Edward, with the lilies on his brow
From haughty Gallia torn,

And sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn

40

Drummond, son. xii. Luke. "Their arrow that marched hence so silver-bright." K. John. Rogers.

V. 33. Scared in cloisters dim the superstitious herd."

Thomson. Liberty, pt. iii. Luke.

V. 34. "And sensible soft Melancholy," Pope. On a certain Lady at Court, ver. 8. W. V. Pope. Prol. to Satires, v. 286. Luke.

V. 36. "With wand'ring steps and slow," Par. Lost, b. xii. ver. 648. W.- And Pope. Odys. b. x. ver. 286. Dunc. b. iv. ver. 465, as quoted by Mr. Todd. "At every step solemn and slow," Thomson. Summer. Luke.

V. 38. "In long order stand," Dryd. Æn. iii. 533. " In long order come," v. 133. Rogers.

"Unde omnes longo ordine possit Adversos legere, et venientum discere vultus."

V. 39. Edward the Third, who France to the arms of England. See Philips, in "Cyder," ii. 592:

Virg. Æn. vi. 754. W. added the fleur de lys of He founded Trinity College.

"Great Edward thus array'd, With golden Iris his broad shield emboss'd."

"Great Edward and thy greater son,

He that the lilies wore, and he that won." Denham.

V. 41. 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

That wept her bleeding Love, and princely Clare,
And Anjou's heroine, and the paler rose,
The rival of her crown and of her woes,

And either Henry there,

The murder'd saint, and the majestic lord,
That broke the bonds of Rome.
(Their tears, their little triumphs o'er,
Their human passions now no more,
Save Charity, that glows beyond the tomb.)

ACCOMPANIED.

All that on Granta's fruitful plain
Rich streams of regal bounty pour'd,

45

80

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. Gray. But consult a letter to Tyson from Gough in Nicholl. Lit. Anec. viii. 604. Luke. Fotheringay Castle was her property.

V. 42. 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. Gray.

V. 43. Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry the Sixth, foundress of Queen's College. The poet has celebrated her conjugal 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. Gray.

V. 45. Henry the Sixth and Eighth. The former the founder of King's, the latter the greatest benefactor to Trinity College. Gray.

V. 49. "One human tear shall drop, and be forgiven." Pope. Eloisa, 358. W. V. 50. "Charity never faileth," St. Paul, 1 Corinth. xiii. 8. W.

And bade these awful fanes and turrets rise,
To hail their Fitzroy's festal morning come;
And thus they speak in soft accord
The liquid language of the skies:

V. QUARTETTO.

What is grandeur, what is power?
Heavier toil, superior pain.
What the bright reward we gain?
The grateful memory of the good.
Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasures sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of gratitude."

V. 56. 66 Cui liquidam Pater

55

60

Vocem." Hor. Od. I. xxiv. 3. W. And so Lucret. v. 1378: "Liquidas voces." And Ovid. Amor. I. xiii. 8.

V. 61. Milton. Ep. on M. of Winchest. "Shot up from vernal shower." Thomson. Spring, "With vernal showers distent."

Luke.

V. 62. This comparison we find also in Theocr. Id. viii. 83: Κρέσσον μελπομένω τεῦ ἀκουέμεν, ἢ μέλι λείχον. And in Calphurn. Eclog. iv. ver. 150. These four verses, as Wakefield remarks, were suggested by Milton's Par. Lost, b. iv. ver. 641: "Sweet is the breath of morn," &c.: but see also Theocr. Idyll. . ver. 33:

· οὔτε γὰρ ὕπνος,

Οὔτ ̓ ἔαρ ἐξαπίνας γλυκερώτερον, οὔτε μελίσσαις
*Ανθεα, ὅσσον ἐμὶν Μῶσαι φίλαι.

"Opes congestas apium," A. Marcellini. Hist. xviii. 3.

V. 63. "And melt away, in a dying, dying fall," Pope. Ode on St. Cecilia. Luke.

V. 64. "After the fire, a still small voice," 1 Kings, xix. 12. And in a rejected stanza of the Elegy:

"Hark how the sacred calm that breathes around

Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;

VI. RECITATIVE.

Foremost and leaning from her golden cloud
The venerable Marg❜ret see!

"Welcome, my noble son, (she cries aloud)
To this, thy kindred train, and me:
Pleas'd in thy lineaments we trace
A Tudor's fire, a Beaufort's grace.

AIR.

Thy liberal heart, thy judging eye,
The flow'r unheeded shall descry,
And bid it round heav'n's altars shed
The fragrance of its blushing head;
Shall raise from earth the latent gem
To glitter on the diadem.

In still small accents whisp'ring from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace." W.

"Now in a still small tone

Your dying accents fall." Dryd. Edip. act ii.

V. 65. "A voice from midst a golden cloud thus mild was heard." Milt. P. L. vi. 27. Luke.

V. 66. Countess of Richmond and Derby; the mother of Henry the Seventh, foundress of St. John's and Christ's Colleges. Gray.

V. 70. 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. Gray.

V. 71. "Dryden alone escaped his judging eye."

Pope. Prol. to the Sat. 246. Also: "A face untaught to feign, a judging eye." Pope. Epist. to Craggs, p. 289. "A liberal heart and free from gall." Fuller. Abel Red. p. 314.

V. 72. This allusion to the flower and the gem we meet with again in the Elegy.

V. 73. "Delubra, et aras cœlitum," Senec. "Caloque educitur ara," Sil. Ital. xv. 388. vorum," Manil. Astr. v. 18.

Agam. v. 392. "Araque Di