Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 25 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power, Sacrum vestutis extruat lignis focum Lassi sub adventum viri." 30 Epod. ii. 39.-Wakefield. Ver. 24. Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.] « Ουδε τι μιν παιδες ποτι γουνασι παππαζουσιν, Ελθοντ' εκ πολεμοιο, και αινης δηιοτητος.” Iliad, E. 408. Ver. 27. How jocund did they drive their team afield.] "We drove afield." Lycidas, 27.-Wakefield. Ver. 28. How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke.] "But to the roote bent his sturdie stroake, And made many woundes in the waste oake." Ver. 33. The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power.] Mr. Mitford considers our Author as under obligation, in this stanza, to his friend West's Monody on the Death of Queen Caroline : "Ah me! what boots us all our boasted power, Our golden treasure, and our purple state; They cannot ward th' inevitable hour, Nor stay the fearful violence of fate." Dodsley's Misc. ii, 279. Awake alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 35 If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise Where through the long-drawn isle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 40 Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Ver. 37. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault.] This stanza is ennobled by what our Author calls thrilling verse; an amazing swell and magnificence of expression, productive o those sensations, which Milton will best describe: "There let the pealing organ blow To the full-voiced quire below, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes." Il Pens. Eloisa. WAKEFIELD. Ver. 41. Can storied urn, or animated bust.] "Nor can thy eloquence, nor noble birth, Horace. WAKEFIELL "Heroes in animated marble frown." Pope's Temple of Fame, 7 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre: 45 But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page And froze the genial current of the soul. Ver. 44. Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death.] The peculiar expressiveness of these two heavy-sounding epithets placed together, is caught from Shakspeare's Henry VIII. act iii. sc. 2. "When I am forgotten, as I shall be, And sleep in dull cold marble." Ver. 46. Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire.] Longinus, who is remarkable for a richness and sublimity of language, has the same metaphor: " Χρη-τας ψυχας ανατρέφειν προς τα μεγεθη, και ώσπερ εγκυμονας αει ποιειν γενναιου παραστηματος.”De Sub. ix. "We ought to prepare and foster our souls for the reception of sublime ideas, and to make them pregnant, as it were, with these generous affections."-Wakefield. Ver. 48. Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.] The expression "living lyre" occurs in Cowley; and in Pope's Windsor Forest we have the following: "Who now shall charm the shades where Cowley strung His living harp, and lofty Denham sung.' WAKEFIELD. Ver. 51. Chill Penury repressed their noble rage.] 'Be justly warmed with your own native rage." It is an excellent word, taken from the opyn of the Greeks.— Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 55 Ver. 53. Full many a gem, of pures tray serene.] A writer in the Quarterly Review, vol. ix. cites the following passage from Bishop Hall's Contemplations, as a singular instance of accidental resemblance:-"There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowells of the earth, many a faire pearle in the bosome of the sea, that never was seene, nor never shall bee."-Line vi. p. 872. So Milton, in his Comus, speaks of the That, like to rich and various gems, inlay Ver. 21. Ver. 55. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.] There kept my charms concealed from mortal eye, Pope's Rape of the Lock, iv. 157.—WAKEFIELD. "In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen, She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green; And waste their music on the savage race." The above passage, from Young's Universal Passion, is quoted in the Quarterly Review, and the critic there observes, that our Author is under two distinct obligations to it within the compass of three lines. The two following passages are noticed by Mr. Mitford : "Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent Of odours in unhaunted deserts." Chamberlayne's Pharonida, pt. ii. b. iv. p. 94. "Like woodland flowers, which paint the desert glades, And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades." A. Philips' Thule, p. 135. This whole stanza of Gray, however, bears a yet closer re Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 60 semblance to the following lines of Celio Magno, which are quoted in the fifth volume of the Edinburgh Review, p. 51. Ma (qual in parte ignota Ben ricca gemma altrui cela il suo pregio, O fior, ch' alta virtù ha in se reposta) Visse in sen di castità nascosta In sua virtute e'n Dio contento visse Lunge dal viso mondan, che l'alma intrica." The last two lines are compared with the ninth stanza of the Elegy. The expression "desert air," Mr. Wakefield discovers in Pindar: Ver. 57. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast.] What son of freedom is not in raptures with this tribute of praise to such an exalted character in immortal verse? This honourable testimony and the noble detestation of arbitrary power, with which it is accompanied, might possibly be one cause of Dr. Johnson's animosity against our poet. Upon this topic, the critic's feelings, we know, were irritability itself, and tremblingly alive all o'er. WAKEFIELD. Ver. 60. Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.] Mr. Edwards, the author of Canons of Criticism, considering that there was one very important defect in this part of the Poem, endeavoured to supply it by the following lines; intended to come in in this place: "Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charms Shone with attraction to herself unknown; Whose beauty might have blessed a monarch's arms, There is another stanza which is not given here, as it is |