If from the realms of night my voice ye hear, Accept my vengeance. Though by me ye bled, 185 Of amorous thefts: and had her wanton son Lent us his wings, we could not have beguil'd 190 Silanus, et cruore foedavit suo Patrios Penates, criminis ficti reus." 195 Seneca Octavia, ver. 148. And see Taciti Annales, xii. c. 3, 4. V. 195. "Obstipum caput et tereti cervice reflexum.” "Et caput inflexâ lentum cervice recumbit "Nived cervice reclinis Mollitur ipsa." Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 42. Virgilii Ciris. 449. Manil. Astron. 5. v. 555. This particular beauty is also given to Helen by Constantine By the young Trojan to his gilded bark 198 HYMN TO IGNORANCE. A FRAGMENT. [See Mason's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 75. Supposed to be written about the year 1742, when Gray returned to Cambridge.] HAIL, horrors, hail! ye ever gloomy bowers, Manasses, in his "Annales,” (see Meursii Opera, vol. vii. p. 390): Δειρὴ μακρὰ καταλευκος, ὅθεν ἐμυθουργήθη Κυκνογενῆ τὴν εὐόπτον Ἑλένην χρημάτιζειν. And so also in the Antehomerica of Tzetzes, ed. Jacobs. p. 115 (though the passage is corrupted). "That soft cheek springing to the marble neck, Akenside. Pl. of Imag. b. i. p. 112. ed. Park. V. 197. See Milton. Par. L. iv. 310: "Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And sweet, reluctant amorous delay." Luke. V. 1. "Hail, horrors, hail!" Milton. Par. L. i. 205. V. 3. "Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum," Miltoni Eleg. i. 11. and 89. "juncosas Cami remeare paludes." Luke. Glad I revisit thy neglected reign, Oh take me to thy peaceful shade again. 10 But chiefly thee, whose influence breathed from 15 20 Oh say she hears me not, but, careless grown, Lethargic nods upon her ebon throne. V. 4. "Where rivers now Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train." Milton. Par. Lost, vii. 310. V. 14. "To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead." Pope. Dunciad, i. 28. And so in the speech of Ignorance in "Henry and Minerva," by I. B. 1729 (one among the poetical pieces bound up by Pope in his library, and now in my possession): 66 'Myself behind this ample shield of lead, Will to the field my daring squadrons head." V. 17. "Let Fancy still my sense in Lethe steep." Shakesp. T. Night. act iv. sc. 1. Luke. V. 22. "Here Ignorance in steel was arm'd, and there Cloath'd in a cowl, dissembled fast and pray'r; Goddess! awake, arise! alas, my fears! 25 30 Oh! sacred age! Oh! times for ever lost! (The schoolman's glory, and the churchman's boast.) For ever gone-yet still to fancy new, High on her car, behold the grandam ride *** a team of harness'd monarchs bend 35 Against my sway her pious hand stretch'd out, And so in the Dunciad, b. i. ver. 80: "All these, and more, the cloud-compelling queen V. 25. Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" V. 37. "Sesostris-like, such charioteers as these 66 May drive six harness'd monarchs if they please." High on his car, Sesostris struck my view, Pope. T. of Fame. Luke. And so S. Philips. Blenheim, v. 16: "As curst Sesostris, proud Egyptian king, That monarchs harness'd to his chariot yok'd." THE ALLIANCE OF EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT. A FRAGMENT. [See Mason's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 99; and Musæ Etonenses, vol. ii. p. 152.] ESSAY I. Πόταγ ̓ ὦ 'γαθέ· τὰν γὰρ ἀοιδὰν Οὔτι πα εἰς Αἴδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα φυλαξεῖς. Theocritus, Id. I. 63. As sickly plants betray a niggard earth, Var. V. 2. Barren] Flinty. MS. In a note to his Roman history, Gibbon says: "Instead of compiling tables of chronology and natural history, why did not Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic poem of which he has left such an exquisite specimen?" Vol. iii. p. 248. 4to. - Would it not have been more philosophical in Gibbon to have lamented the situation in which Gray was placed; which was not only not favourable to the cultivation of poetry, but which naturally directed his thoughts to those learned inquiries, that formed the amusement or business of all around him? |