A heart, within whose sacred cell
The peaceful virtues lov'd to dwell.
Affection warm, and faith sincere,
And soft humanity were there.
In agony,1 in death resign'd,
She felt the wound she left behind,
Her infant image here below,
Sits smiling on a father's woe:
Whom what awaits, while yet he strays
Along the lonely vale of days?
A pang, to secret sorrow dear;
A sigh; an unavailing tear;
Till time shall every grief remove,

With life, with memory, and with love.

EPITAPH ON A CHILD.

[This sextain, which has never been printed before, is here given from a copy in the handwriting of Alexander Dyce, lately found slipped into a book at South Kensington, and made by him when the original MS. was sold in 1854. It appears to have been written in June 1758 at the request of Dr. Wharton, whose only son had died in infancy early in the month of April. Gray's difficulty in writing it will be found described in a letter to Wharton, dated June 18, 1758.-ED.]

HERE, freed from pain, secure from misery, lies
A child, the darling of his parents' eyes:

1 In agony, etc.]—

"To hide her cares her only art,

Her pleasure, pleasures to impart,

A gentler Lamb ne'er sported on the plain,
A fairer flower will never bloom again :
Few were the days allotted to his breath;
Now let him sleep in peace his night of death.

SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.

WRITTEN IN 1761, AND FOUND IN ONE OF HIS POCKET-BOOKS.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune:
Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat
odd;

No very great wit, he believed in a God :

A place or a pension he did not desire,

But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.1

In ling'ring pain, in death resign'd,

Her latest agony of mind

Was felt for him, who could not save

His all from an untimely grave."-MS.

1 Squire] At that time Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of St. David's. Dr. S. Squire died in 1766. Bishop Warburton one day met Dean Tucker, who said that he hoped his Lordship liked his situation at Gloucester, on which the sarcastic Bishop replied, that never bishoprick was so bedeaned, for that his predecessor Dr. Squire had made religion his trade, and that he Dr. Tucker had made trade his religion.-[Mit.]

EPITAPH ON SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMS.

[Sir William Peere Williams, Bart., a young soldier whose "fine Vandyck head" Gray admired, was killed at the storming of Belleisle, June 13, 1761. He was in a dejected frame of mind, and, inadvertently walking too close to the enemy's sentinels, was shot through the body. Frederick Montague induced Gray to write the Epitaph, which was to have been inscribed on a monument at Belleisle. Walpole describes Williams as a gallant and ambitious young man, who had devoted himself to war and politics." In the expedition to Aix he was on board the "Magnanime" with Lord Howe, and was deputed to receive the capitulation.-ED.]

HERE, foremost in the dangerous paths of fame,

Young Williams fought for England's fair renown; His mind each Muse, each Grace adorn'd his frame, Nor envy dar'd to view him with a frown.

At Aix, his voluntary sword he drew,

There first in blood his infant honour seal'd;
From fortune, pleasure, science, love, he flew,
And scorn'd repose when Britain took the field.

With eyes of flame, and cool undaunted breast,
Victor he stood on Bellisle's rocky steeps-
Ah, gallant youth! this marble tells the rest,

Where melancholy friendship bends, and weeps.

WELSH FRAGMENTS.

[These fragments no doubt belong to the year 1764, and were inspired, like The Triumphs of Owen, by Evan's Specimens of Welch Poetry.-ED.]

THE DEATH OF HOEL.

AN ODE. SELECTED FROM THE GODODIN.

HAD I but the torrent's might,

With headlong rage and wild affright
Upon Deïra's squadrons hurl'd

To rush, and sweep them from the world!

Too, too secure in youthful pride,
By them, my friend, my Hoel, died,
Great Cian's son: of Madoc old
He ask'd no heaps of hoarded gold;
Alone in nature's wealth array'd,
He ask'd and had the lovely maid.

To Cattraeth's vale in glitt'ring row
Thrice two hundred warriors go:
Every warrior's manly neck
Chains of regal honour deck,
Wreath'd in many a golden link:
From the golden cup they drink

Nectar that the bees produce,
Or the grape's extatic juice.

VOL. I.

K

Flush'd with mirth and hope they burn:
But none from Cattraeth's vale return,
Save Aëron brave, and Conan strong,
(Bursting through the bloody throng)
And I, the meanest of them all,
That live to weep and sing their fall

CARADOC.

HAVE ye seen the dusky boar,
Or the bull, with sullen roar,
On surrounding foes advance?
So Caradoc bore his lance.

CONAN.

CONAN'S name, my lay, rehearse,
Build to him the lofty verse,
Sacred tribute of the bard,
Verse, the hero's sole reward.
As the flame's devouring force;
As the whirlwind in its course;
As the thunder's fiery stroke,
Glancing on the shiver'd oak;
Did the sword of Conan mow
The crimson harvest of the foe.