bank, the steepest hill I ever saw a road carried over in England. For it mounts up in a straight line (without any other repose for the horses than by placing stones every now and then behind the wheels) for a full mile. Then the road goes on a level along the brow of this high 5 hill over Rumbold Moor, till it gently descends into Wharfdale. So they call the Vale of the Wharf and a beautiful vale it is. Well wooded, well cultivated, well inhabited, but with high crags at distance, that border the green country on either hand, through the midst of 10 it, deep, clear, full to the brink and of no inconsiderable breadth runs in long windings the river; how it comes to pass that it should be so fine and copious a stream here, and at Tadcaster (so much lower) should have nothing but a wide stony channel without water, I cannot tell 15 you; I passed through Long Addingham, Ilkeley (pronounce Eccla) distinguished by a lofty brow of loose rocks to the right; Burley, a neat and pretty village among trees; On the opposite side of the river lay Middleton Lodge, belonging to a Catholic gentleman of 20 that name. Weston, a venerable stone fabric with large offices, of Mr. Vavasor. The meadows in front gently descending to the water, and behind a great and shady wood. Farnley (Mr. Fawkes) a place like the last; but larger and rising higher on the side of the hill. Ottley is 25 a large airy town, with clean but low rustic buildings, and a bridge over the Wharf. I went into its spacious Gothic church, which has been new roofed with a flat stucco ceiling. In a corner of it is the monument of Thomas Lord Fairfax and Helen Aske, his Lady, descended from 30 the Cliffords and Latimers, as her epitaph says. The figures not ill cut; particularly his in armour, but bareheaded; lie on the tomb. I take them for the grand parents of the famous Sir Thomas Fairfax. I have utterly forgot, where my journal left off, but (I think) it was after the account of Gordale, near Settle. If so, there was little more worth your notice: the principal things were Wharfdale in the way from Skipton 5 to Ottley, and Kirkstall Abbey, three miles from Leeds. The first is the valley formed by the River Wharf, well cultivated, well inhabited, well wooded, but with high rocky crags at distance, that border the green country on either hand: Through the midst of it, runs the river in Io long windings deep, clear, and full to the brink, and of no inconsiderable breadth. How it comes to be so fine and copious a stream here, and at Tadcaster (so much lower) should have nothing but a wide stony channel, with little or no water, I cannot tell you. Kirkstall is a 15 noble ruin in the Semi-Saxon style of building, as old as K. Stephen, toward the end of his reign, 1152. The whole church is still standing (the roof excepted) seated in a delicious quiet valley on the banks of the River Are, and preserved with religious reverence by the Duke of 20 Montagu. Adjoining to the church between that and the river are variety of chapels, and remnants of the abbey, shattered by the encroachments of the ivy, and surmounted by many a sturdy tree, whose twisted roots break through the fret of the vaulting, and hang stream25 ing from the roofs. The gloom of these ancient cells, the shade and verdure of the landscape, the glittering and murmur of the stream, the lofty towers and long perspectives of the church, in the midst of a clear bright day, detained me for many hours and were the truest 30 subjects for my glass I have yet met with any where. As I lay at that smoky ugly busy town of Leeds, I dropt all farther thoughts of my journal, and after passing two days at Mason's (though he was absent), pursued my way by Nottingham, Leicester, Harborough, Kettering, Thrapston, and Huntingdon, to Cambridge, where I arrived, 22 October; having met with no rain to signify, till this last day of my journey. There's luck for you! NOTES ON THE POEMS. I. ODE ON THE SPRING. Gray wrote this Ode at Stoke in June, 1742. He sent it to his school friend, Richard West, not knowing that West's death had already occurred on the first of June. The Ode was first published in 1748, in Dodsley's Collection of Poems by Several Hands, with no signature; it next appeared in the folio of 1753, Designs by Mr. R. Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray. Gray added the footnotes in the edition of his Poems in 1768. Mason said that Gray originally gave the title of Noontide to this Ode; and Mr. Gosse, Gray's Works, I, 4, notes that in a copy of the poem, in Gray's handwriting, preserved at Pembroke College, the title is : Noon-tide. An Ode. Mason said that Gray probably meant to write two companion pieces, Morning and Evening. He suggested that the Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude, beginning "Now the golden Morn aloft" may have been intended for the Morning ode, and the Elegy for the Evening. These conjectures are ingenious, whether true or not. 1. Hours. The Horae, goddesses of the changes of the seasons. Cf. Comus, 986: "The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours." Mitford notes that the Hours are joined with Aphrodite in the second Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5) and that to Apollo (194–5) and are made part of her train in Hesiod (Works and Days, 75). 3. Disclose. Open, expand. Cf. "The canker galls the infants of the spring, Too oft before their buttons [i.e. buds] be disclosed." 5. The Attic Warbler. The Nightingale. This bird is very common in Attica. Philomela, daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, was supposed to have been changed into a nightingale. Wakefield compares Milton, Par. Reg., iv, 245: |