gave noble instances of both; and the Arabians carried their conquests as far as the Tartars. Rome also (for many centuries) repulsed those very nations, which, when she grew weak, at length demolished her extensive empire. *** b The reader will perceive that the Commentary goes further than the text. The reason for which is, that the Editor found it so on the paper from which he formed that comment; and as the thoughts seemed to be those which Mr. Gray would have next graced with the harmony of his numbers, he held it best to give them in continuation. There are other maxims on different papers, all apparently relating to the same subject, which are too excellent to be lost; these therefore (as the place in which he meant to employ them cannot be ascertained) I shall subjoin to this note, under the title of detached sentiments. "Man is a creature not capable of cultivating his mind but in society, and in that only where he is not a slave to the necessities of life. "Want is the mother of the inferior arts, but Ease that of the finer; as eloquence, policy, morality, poetry, sculpture, painting, architecture, which are the improvements of the former. "The climate inclines some nations to contemplation and pleasure others to hardship, action, and war; but not so as to incapacitate the former for courage and discipline, or the latter for civility, politeness, and works of genius. "It is the proper work of education and government united to redress the faults that arise from the soil and air. "The principal drift of education should be to make men think in the northern climates, and act in the southern. "The different steps and degrees of education may be compared to the artificer's operations upon marble; it is one thing to dig it out of the quarry, and another to square it; to give it gloss and lustre, call forth every beautiful spot and vein, shape it into a column, or animate it into a statue. To a native of free and happy governments his country is always dear; He loves his old hereditary trees.' COWLEY. while the subject of a tyrant has no country; he is therefore selfish and base-minded; he has no family, no posterity, no desire of fame; or, if he has, of one that turns not on its proper object. "Any nation that wants public spirit, neglects education, ridicules the desire of fame, and even of virtue and reason, must be ill-governed. "Commerce changes entirely the fate and genius of nations, by communicating arts and opinions, circulating money, and introducing the materials of luxury; she first opens and polishes the mind, then corrupts and enervates both that and the body. "Those invasions of effeminate southern nations by the warlike northern people, seem (in spite of all the terror, mischief, and ignorance which they brought with them) to be necessary evils; in order to revive the spirit of mankind, softened and broken by the arts of commerce, to restore them to their native liberty and equality, and to give them again the power of supporting danger and hardship; so a comet, with all the horrors that attend it as it passes through our system, brings a supply of warmth and light to the sun, and of moisture to the air. "The doctrine of Epicurus is ever ruinous to society: it had its rise when Greece was declining, and perhaps hastened its dissolution, as also that of Rome; it is now propagated in France and in England, and seems likely to produce the same effect in both. "One principal characteristic of vice in the present age is the contempt of fame. Many are the uses of good fame to a generous mind: it extends our existence and example into future ages; continues aud propagates virtue, which otherwise would be as short-lived as our frame; and prevents the prevalence of vice in a generation more corrupt even than our own. It is impossible to conquer that natural desire we have of being remembered; even criminal ambition and avarice, the most selfish of all passions, would wish to leave a name behind them." Thus, with all the attention that a connoisseur in painting employs in collecting every slight outline as well as finished drawing which led to the completion of some capital picture, I have endeavoured to preserve every fragment of this great poetical design. It surely deserved this care, as it was one of the noblest which Mr. Gray ever attempted; and also, as far as he carried it into execution, the most exquisitely finished. That he carried it no further is, and must ever be, a most sensible loss to the republic of letters.—MASON. STANZAS TO MR. BENTLEY; A FRAGMENT. IN silent gaze the tuneful choir among, And bids the pencil answer to the lyre. See, in their course, each transitory thought 5 a These lines were written as a compliment to Mr. Bentley, who had designed some illustrations for Mr. Gray's Poems, and in particular a head-piece to the Long Story. That the panegyric may not be thought excessive, Mr. Mason has informed us, that the original drawings, which were long preserved with care at Strawberry Hill, were infinitely superior to the published engravings of them so much so, that he who had only seen the latter, could by no means judge of the excellence of the former. To confirm this statement, it should be remembered, that for the sake of one of these designs, Mr. Gray was content to risk his poetical credit by the publication of the Long Story. The tardy rhymes that used to linger on, And catch a lustre from his genuine flame. Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy grace, His quick creation, his unerring line; The energy of Pope they might efface, 10 15 And Dryden's harmony submit to mine. But not to one in this benighted age Is that diviner inspiration given, That burns in Shakspeare's or in Milton's page, As when conspiring in the diamond's blaze, The meaner gems Enough for me, if to some feeling breast And as their pleasing influence 'flows confest,' Ver. 10. To Censure cold, and negligent of Fame.] "Careless of censure, not too fond of fame." 20 25 Pope's Essay on Criticism, p. 699. b A corner of the Author's manuscript being here torn off, Mr. Mason has endeavoured to fill up the chasm by the words printed in inverted commas. |