Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn:

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 100. To meet the sun upon the upland lawn]

"On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn."

After which, in his first MS., followed this stanza:

"Him have we seen the greenwood side along,

While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done,
Oft as the woodlark pip'd her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun."

100

"I rather wonder (says Mr. Mason) that he rejected this stanza, as it not only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms us peculiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the account of his whole day: whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we have only his morning walk, and his noon-tide repose."

NOTES.

Ver. 97. Hoary-headed swain] “ Hoary-tressed hind," Warton's Works, i. 159. Ver. 99. Brushing with hasty steps the dews away] Milton, Par. Lost. v. 429: "From off the ground, each morn,

We brush mellifluous dews."

So also Arcades, ver. 50: "And from the boughs brush off the evil dew."
Ver. 100. To meet the sun] So Petrarch, in Rime Scelti, p. 120:

"Re degli altri, superbo, altero fiume

Che 'n contril sol, quando e ne mena il giorno."

And Tasso, in his Sonnet to Camoëns :

"Vasco, te cui felicè ardite antenne

And in another Sonnet:

Incontro al sol che ne riporta il giorno," &c.

"Come va innanzi a l'altro sol l' aurora," &c. Langhorne, in 'Visions of Fancy,' Elegy III:

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And
pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove;

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 106. He would] Would he, мs. M. and W.

NOTES.

Ver. 100. Upland lawn]

"Ere the high lawns appeared

105

Under the opening eyelids of the morn."

Ver. 102. That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high]

Lycidas, 25. W.

"From the deep dell where shaggy roots
Fringe the rough brink with wreathed shoots."

Ver. 103. His listless length at noontide would he stretch]

T. Warton's Ode VII. 53.

Scott's Amwell, p. 22. Park's ed.

Ver. 104. And pore upon the brook that babbles by] “ Unde loquaces lympha desiliunt tuæ," Hor. Od. III. xiii. 15.

"He lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peep'd out
Upon the brook, that brawls along this wood."

Ver. 105. Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn]
"Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile

As You Like It, act ii. sc. 1. W.

Shakspeare's Sonnets.

"smylynge halfe in scorne

Skelton's Prologue to the Brage of Courte, p. 59.

_n scorn."

At our foly."

Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

“One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,

Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

"The next, with dirges due in sad array

110

115

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne :—
Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH.*

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown:

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 109. On] From, мs. M.

NOTES.

Ver. 107. Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn]
"For pale and wanne he was, alas! the while
May seeme he lov'd or else some care he tooke."

Ver. 114. Through the church-way path]

"In the church-way paths to glide.”

Spenser's January, 8. W.

Mids. Night's Dream, act v. sc. 2. W.

Ver. 115. Approach and read ( for thou canʼst read) the lay]

"Tell, (for you can,) what is it to be wise."

Pope's Ep. iv. 260. W.

"And steal (for you can steal) celestial fire." Young.

"Before the Epitaph," says Mr. Mason," Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines however are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation:

Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heaven did a recompence as largely send:

He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear,

He gain'd from heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.

120

125

NOTES.

، ، There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen are show'rs of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'
Ver. 117. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth] So Milton:
How glad would lay me down,

66

“Redditur enim terræ corpus, et ita locatum ac situm quasi operimento matris obducetur." Cicero de Legibus, ii. 22.

I cannot help adding to this note, the short and pathetic sentence of Pliny, H. N. ii. 63. "Nam terra novissime complexa gremio jam a reliquá naturâ abnegatos, tum maxime, ut mater, operit."

Ver. 119. Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth]

"Quem tu Melpomene semel

Nascentem placido lumine videris," Hor. Od. IV. iii. 1. W.

Ver. 121. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere]

"Large was his soul, as large a soul as e'er

Submitted to inform a body here," Cowley, vol. i. p. 119.

"A passage which," says the editor, "Gray seemed to have had his eye on."

Ver. 127. There they alike in trembling hope repose]" Spe trepido," Lucan. vii. 297. W. And Mallet:

"With trembling tenderness of hope and fear."

Funeral Hymn, ver. 473.

Hooker has defined 'hope' to be a " trembling expectation of things far removed,” Eccl. Pol. B. I. cited in Quart. Rev. No. XXII. p. 315.

In the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lii. p. 20, it is asserted that Gray's Elegy was taken from Collins's Ode to Evening; while in the Monthly Review, vol. liii. p. 102, it is said to be indebted to an Elegy by Gay. I see, however, not the least reason for assenting to these opinions. The passages from 'Celio Magno,' produced in the Edinburgh Review, vol. v. p. 51, are very curious, and form an interesting comparison. It is well known how much the Italian poet Pignotti is indebted to the works of Gray: some passages would have been given, but the editor was unwilling to increase the number of the notes, already perhaps occupying too much space.