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Alas, who would not wish to please her!
With bonnet blue and capuchine,
And aprons long they hid their armour,
And veil'd their weapons bright and keen
In pity to the country farmer.

Fame in the shape of a Mr. P-t
(By this time all the parish know it)
Had told, that thereabouts there lurk'd
A wicked imp they call a poet:

Who prowl'd the country far and near,
Bewitch'd the children of the peasants,

Dried up the COWS, and lam'd the deer,

And suck'd the eggs, and kill'd the pheasants.

My lady heard their joint petition,

Swore by her coronet and ermine,
She'd issue out her high commission

To rid the manor of such vermin.

The heroines undertook the task,

Through lanes unknown, o'er stiles they ventur'd,
Rapp'd at the door, nor stay'd to ask,

But bounce into the parlour enter'd.

The reader is already apprized who these ladies were; the two descriptions are prettily contrasted; and nothing can be more happily turned than the compliment to Lady Cobham in the eighth stanza.

I have been told that this gentleman, a neighbour and acquaintance of Mr. Gray's in the country, was much displeased at the liberty here taken with his name; yet, surely, without any great reason.

The trembling family they daunt,
They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle,
Rummage his mother, pinch his aunt,
And up stairs in a whirl-wind rattle.

Each hole and cupboard they explore,
Each creek and cranny of his chamber,
Run hurry-skurry round the floor,
And o'er the bed and tester clamber:
Into the drawers and china pry,
Papers and books, a huge imbroglio!
Under a tea-cup he might lie,,
Or creas'd, like dog-ears, in a folio.

On the first marching of the troops,
The Muses, hopeless of his pardon,
Convey'd him underneath their hoops
To a small closet in the garden.

So Rumour says; (who will, believe.),
But that they left the door a-jar,
Where, safe and laughing in his sleeve,
He heard the distant din of war.

Short was his joy. He little knew
The pow'r of magic was no fable;
Out of the window, whisk, they flew,
e But left a spell upon the table.

The words too eager to unriddle,
The Poet felt a strange disorder:
Transparent bird-lime form'd the middle,
And chains invisible the border.

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Fancy is here so much blended with the humour, that I believe the two stanzas, which succeed this line, are amongst those which are the least relished by the generality. The description of the spell, I know, has appeared to many persons absolutely unintelligible; yet if the reader adverts to that peculiar idea which runs through the whole, I imagine the obscurity complained of will be removed. An incident, we see, so slight as the simple matter of fact, required something like machinery to enliven it: accordingly the Author chose, with propriety enough, to employ for that purpose those notions of witchcraft, ghosts, and enchantment, which prevailed at the time when the mansion-house was built. He describes himself as a demon of the lowest class, a wicked imp who lamed the deer, &c. against whose malevolent power Lady Cobham (the Gloriana of the piece) employs two superior enchantresses. Congruity of imagery, therefore, required the card they left upon the table to be converted into a spell. Now all the old writers, on these subjects, are very minute in describing the materials of such talismans. Hence, therefore, his grotesque idea of a composition of transparent bird-lime, edged with invisible chains, in order to catch and draw him to the tribunal. Without going further for examples of this kind of imagery than the Poet's own works, let me instance two passages of the serious kind, similar to this ludicrous one. In his Ode, intitled the Bard,

"Above, below, the rose of snow, &c.

And, again, in the Fatal Sisters,

"See the grisly texture grow."

It must, however, be allowed, that no person can fully relish this burlesque, who is not much conversant with the old romance-writers, and with the poets who formed themselves on their model.

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The Godhead would have back'd his quarrel
But with a blush on recollection,

Own'd, that his quiver and his laurel
'Gainst four such eyes were no protection.
The court was sate, the culprit there,
Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping
The Lady Janes and Joans repair,
And from the gallery stand peeping:
Such as in silence of the night
Come (sweep) along some winding entry,
(Styack has often seen the sight)
Or at the chapel-door stand sentry:

In peaked hoods and mantles tarnish'd,
Sour visages, enough to scare ye,
High dames of honour once, that garnish'd
The drawing-room of fierce Queen Mary!

The Peeress comes. The audience stare,
And doff their hats with due submission:
She curtsies, as she takes her chair,
To all the people of condition.

The Bard, with many an artful fib,
Had in imagination fenc'd him,
Disprov'd the arguments of k Squib,
And all that Groom could urge against him.
But soon his rhetoric forsook him,
When he the solemn hall had seen;

A sudden fit of ague shook him,

He stood as mute as poor m Macleane.

f The humour of this and the following stanza is more pure, and consequently more obvious. It might have been written by Prior, and the wit at the end is much in his best manner.

Here fancy is again uppermost, and soars as high on her comic, as on another occasion she does on her lyric wing; for now a chorus of ghostly old women of quality come to give sentence on the culprit Poet, just as the spirits of Cadwallo, Urien, and Hoel join the bard in dreadful symphony to denounce vengeance on Edward I. The route of fancy, we see, is the same both on the humorous and sublime occasion. No wonder, therefore, if either of them should fail of being generally tasted.

The housekeeper. G.

i The description is here excellent, and I should think would please universally. k Groom of the chamber. G.

The steward.

G.

m A famous highwayman hanged the week before. G.-This stanza is of the sort where wit rather than fancy prevails, consequently much in Prior's manner.

Yet something he was heard to mutter,
"How in the park beneath an old tree
(Without design to hurt the butter,
Or any malice to the poultry,)

"He once or twice had penn'd a sonnet
Yet hop'd that he might save his bacon:
Numbers would give their oaths upon it,
He ne'er was for a conj'rer taken."

The ghostly prudes with n hagged face
Already had condemn'd the sinner.
My Lady rose, and with a grace-
• She smil'd, and bid him come to dinner.
"Jesu-maria! Madam Bridget,
Why, what can the Viscountess mean?
(Cried the square-hoods in woful fidget)
The times are altered quite and clean!

"Decorum's turn'd to mere civility;
Her air and all her manners shew it.
Commend me to her affability!
Speak to a commoner and poet!"

[Here five hundred stanzas are lost.]
And so God save our noble king,
And guard us from long-winded lubbers,
That to eternity would sing,

And keep my Lady from her rubbers.

XIV.

MR. GRAY TO DR. WHARTON.

Dec. 17, 1750.

OF my house I cannot say much,* I wish I could; but for my heart it is no less yours than it has long been; and the last thing in the world that will throw it into tumults is a fine lady. The verses you so kindly try to keep in countenance, were written merely to divert Lady Cobham and her family, and succeeded accordingly; but being shewed about in town are not liked there at

n Hagged, i. e. the face of a witch or hag; the epithet hagard has been sometimes mistaken, as conveying the same idea; but it means a very different thing, viz. wild and farouche, and is taken from an unreclaimed hawk, called an hagard; in which. it proper sense, the Poet uses it finely on a sublime occasion:

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Here the story finishes; the exclamation of the ghosts which follow is characteristic of the Spanish manners of the age, when they are supposed to have lived; and the five hundred stanzas, said to be lost, may be imagined to contain the remainder of their long-winded expostulation.

*The house he was rebuilding in Cornhill. See Letter VII. of this Section.

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all. Mrs. *, a very fashionable personage, told Mr. Walpole that she had seen a thing by a friend of his which she did not know what to make of, for it aimed at every thing, and meant nothing; to which he replied, that he had always taken her for a woman of sense, and was very sorry to be undeceived. On the other hand, the stanzast which I now inclose to you have had the misfortune, by Mr. Walpole's fault, to be made still more public, for which they certainly were never meant; but it is too late to complain. They have been so applauded, it is quite a shame to repeat it: I mean not to be modest; but it is a shame for those who have said such superlative things about them, that I cannot repeat them. I should have been glad that you and two or three more people had liked them, which would have satisfied my ambition on this head amply. I have been this month in town, not at Newcastle-house; but diverting myself among my gay acquaintance, and return to my cell with so much the more pleasure. I dare not speak of my future excursion to Durham for fear of a disappointment, but at present it is my full intention.

XV. MR. GRAY TO MR. WALPOLE.

Cambridge, Feb. 11, 1751.

As you have brought me into a little sort of distress, you must assist me, I believe, to get out of it as well as I can. Yesterday I had the misfortune of receiving a letter from certain gentlemen (as their bookseller expresses it), who having taken the Magazine of Magazines into their hands: they tell me that an ingenious Poem, called Reflections in a Country Churchyard, has been communicated to them, which they are printing forthwith; that they are informed that the excellent author of it is I by name, and that they beg not only his

+ Elegy in a Country Churchyard.

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