probably find that he has mingled too much fancy and playfulness with his grief, to render it highly affecting.

The versification of Young is entirely modelled by his style of writing. That being pointed, sententious, and broken into short detached clauses, his lines almost constantly are terminated with a pause in the sense, so as to preclude all the varied and lengthened melody of which blank verse is capable. Taken singly, however, they are generally free from harshness, and sometimes are eminently musical.

I now dismiss you from your long attendance on the poets of this class, and remain

Your truly affectionate, &c.

LETTER XIV.

In restoring you, my dear Mary, to the company of those writers who have cultivated English poetry in what is generally deemed its most pleasing and perfect form, it is my intention without delay to enlarge your acquaintance with different modes of versification, and to familiarize your ear with those specimens of it which have proved most agreeable to refined judges.

We will begin with a poet who has employed more art and study in his compositions than almost any other; in consequence of which they are few, but exquisite in their kind. This is GRAY, a man of extensive erudition and highly cultured taste, whose place is generally assigned among the lyrical writers, though his cast of genius would have enabled him to attain

LYRIC POETRY:GRAY.

185

equal excellence in any other form of elevated poetry.

manner.

The "Odes" of Gray are pieces of great diversity both with respect to subject and The "Ode on Spring," and that "On a distant Prospect of Eton College," unite description with moral reflection. In the first of these the imagery has little novelty, but is dressed in all the splendour and elegance of poetical diction. You will remark the happy choice of picturesque epithets in such instances as "peopled air," "busy murmur," "honied spring," &c. in which a whole train of ideas is excited in the mind by a single word. The second is new in its subject, and the picture it draws of the amusements and character of the puerile age is very interesting. Yet the concluding imagery of the fiends of vice and misfortune, watching in ambush to seize the thoughtless victims on their entrance into life, presents one of the gloomiest views of human kind that the imagination ever formed.

The author's melancholy cast of thought appears with more dignity and moral instruction in his " Hymn to Adversity," which, if not one of the most splendid, is perhaps the most finished of his compositions. The sombre colouring, relieved with the brighter touches of benevolence, admirably harmonizes with the subject.

I do not mean to make remarks on all Gray's smaller pieces; but his "Fatal Sisters," from the Norse tongue, is worthy of observation, not only for the new vein of mythological imagery which it and the subsequent piece open, but on account of its measure. This consists of stanzas of four lines, each composed of seven syllables, long and short alternately. If its effect upon your ear resembles that upon mine, you will feel it to possess extraordinary spirit and animation, and to be singularly fitted for subjects of warmth and action.

The two Pindaric Odes of this writer are the productions which have principally

contributed to his eminence among lyric poets. The term pindaric, originally derived from the name of the celebrated Greek poet, had been assumed by Cowley and others to denote compositions which were characterized by nothing but their irregu larity. This character extended not only to their subjects, but to their versification, which consisted of verses of every length and modulation, forming unequal stanzas, without any return or repetition of the same measures. But this laxity was found not to be justified by classical example, which, in its correct models, provided regular returns of similarly constructed stanzas. On this plan Gray has framed the versification of his two odes; and upon examination you will find in each the mechanism of a ternary of stanzas trebly repeated in corresponding order. Whether much is gained by this artifice in point of harmony, you will judge from your own perceptions: to me, I own, the return seems too distant to produce the intended effect;