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riso, e la sacra fonte dèl simpatico pianto. Non può essere più poetica la ragione ch'egli fabbrica della cecità del Miltono, il quale oltrepassati i fiammanti confine dello spazio e del tempo, ebbe ardire di fissare lo sguardo colà dove gli angioli stessi paventano di rimirare; e gli occhi suoi affuocati in quel pelago di lucé si chiusero tosto in una notte sempiterna. Con qual bravura non ha egli imitato la grandiosa immagine di Pindaro nella prima delle Pitiche, quando dipinge il Re degli Augelli, l'Aquila ministra del fulmine di Giove vinta anch'essa dalla forza dell'armonia? E non si vedon eglino in quel bel verso,

Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay

espressi quei due di Tibullo ?

Illam quidquid agat, quoquo vestigia flectat,
Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor.

Pieno degli spiriti dé più nobili antichi autori, non mette già egli il piede nelle loro pedate; ma francamente cammina col garbo, e con la disinvoltura di quelli. Superiore di gran lunga al concettoso Cowley, il quale nella Lirica avea tenuto sinora il campo, ben egli dovea vendicar la causa della poesia contro alla ferità di quel'Odoardo, che, soggiogata la Wallia, vi spense il gentil seme dei poeti, i quali animando i loro compatrioti a belle imprese, erano i successori, si può dire, degli antichi Druidi, e gli antecessori del medesimo Gray. Con qual forza con quale ardore nol fa egli accesso della sacra fiamma dell' estro e della libertà? Troppo lungo io sarei se esprimer le volessi il piacere di che mi è stata cagione la varietà grandissima d'immagini ch'egli ha saputo fare entrare nel vaticinio che contro alla razza di Odoardo fulmina il Poeta Wallese. La dirò bene all'orecchio che quel vaticinio mi sembra di gran lunga superiore al vaticinio di Nereo sopra lo eccidio di Troia. Dico all'orecchio, perché non vorrei avere contro di me la plebe dè letterati. Troppo èlla si scandalizzerebbe all'udire che a una fattura di dieciotto secoli fa se ne voglia preferire una de' nostri giorni, che non ha avuto il tempo di far la patina che hanno fatto le cose dei Greci dei Latini. Æolio carmine noiblis il Signor Gray si può chiamare a ragione Britannæ fidicen Lyræ: ed io mi rallegro sommamente con esso lei, che la patria sua vanti presentemente, e in uno de' suoi amici, un poeta, che non la cede a niuno di quegli antichi,

Che le Muse lattar più ch'altri mai.

ODE V.

1. This highly-finished Ode, which Mr. Gray entitled the Progress of Poetry, describes its power and influence as well as progress, which his explanatory notes at the bottom of the page point out, and this with all the accuracy of metaphysical precision, disguised under the appearance of Pindaric digression. On the first line of it he gave, in his edition, the following note.-"Pindar styles his own poetry, with its musical accompaniments, Αἰοληὶς μολπή, Αιόλιδες χορδαί, Αἰολίδων πνοαί auλov; Æolian song, Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute." It will seem strange to the learned reader, that he thought such explanation necessary, and he will be apt to look on it as the mere parade of Greek quotation; but his reason for it was, that the Critical Reviewers had mistaken his meaning, (see note, p. 203 of the Memoirs) and supposed the Ode addressed to the Harp of Æolus; which they said "was altogether uncertain and irregular, and therefore must be very ill adapted to the Dance." See Epodei. 1. 1. This ridiculous blunder, which he did not think proper openly to animadvert on, led him to produce his Greek quotations, that they might chew on them at their leisure; but he would hardly have done this, had not the reception his Ode met with made him abate, not only of respect to his critics, but to his readers in general. See his own note.

2. Awake, Æolian lyre, awake. Stanza i. l. 1.

IMITATION.

Awake, my glory awake, lute and harp.

VARIATION.

David's Psalms. G.

In his manuscript it originally stood,

Awake, my lyre: my glory, wake.

And it would have been lucky for the above-mentioned critics, if it had been thus printed.

3. Perching on the sceptred hand. Antist. i. l. 8.

This description of the bird of Jupiter, Mr. Gray, in his own edition, modestly calls" a weak imitation of some incomparable lines in the first Pythian of Pindar;" but if they are compared with Mr. Gilbert West's translation of the above lines, (though far from a bad one) their superior energy to his version will appear very

conspicuous.

Perch'd on the sceptre of th' Olympian King,

The thrilling darts of harmony he feels;

And indolently hangs his rapid wing,

While gentle sleep his closing eyelid seals,
And o'er his heaving limbs in loose array,

To every balmy gale the ruffling feathers play.

Here, if we except the second line, we find no imagery or expression of the lyrical cast. The rest are loaded with unnecessary epithets, and would better suit the tamer tones of elegy. West's Pindar, Vol. I. p. 85.

4. Glance their many-twinkling feet. Ep. i. l. 11.

IMITATION.

Μαρμαρυγὰς θηεῖτο ποδῶν· θαύμαζε δὲ θυμῷ.

Homer. Od. e. G.

5. Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare.

This and the five flowing lines which follow are sweetly introduced by the short and unequal measures that precede them : the whole stanza is indeed a masterpiece of rhythm, and charms the ear by its well-varied cadence, as much as the imagery which it contains ravishes the fancy. "There is," says our Author in one of his manuscript papers, "a tout ensemble of sound, as well as of sense, in poetical composition, always necessary to its perfection. What is gone before still dwells upon the ear, and insensibly harmonizes with the present line, as in that succession of fleeting notes which is called melody." Nothing can better exemplify the truth of this fine observation than his own poetry.

6. The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love.

IMITATION.

Λάμπει δ' ἐπὶ πορφυρέησι
Παρείησι φῶς ἔρωτος.

Ep. i. l. 17.

Phrynichus apud Athenæum. G.

7. Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy, and glittʼring shafts of war.

IMITATION.

Stanza ii. l. 11, 12.

Or seen the morning's well-appointed star,

Come marching up the eastern hills afar. Cowley. G. 8. In climes beyond the solar road. Antist. ii. l. 1.

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Tutta lontana dal camin del sole. Petrarch Canzon. ii. G.

9. Far from the sun and summer-gale. Stanza iii. l. 1.

An ingenious person who sent Mr. Gray his remarks anonymously on this and the following Ode soon after they were published, gives this stanza and the following a very just and well-expressed eulogy: "A poet is perhaps never more conciliating than when he praises favourite predecessors in his art. Milton is not more the pride than Shakspeare the love of their country: it is therefore equally judicious to diffuse a tenderness and a grace through the praise of Shakspeare, as to extol in a strain more elevated and sonorous the boundless soarings of Milton's epic imagination." The critic has here well noted the beauty of contrast which results from the two descriptions; yet it is further to be observed, to the honour of our Poet's judgment, that the tenderness and grace in the former does not prevent it from strongly characterizing the three capital perfections of Shakspeare's genius; and when he describes his power of exciting terror (a species of the sublime) he ceases to be diffuse, and becomes, as he ought to be, concise and energetical.

10. He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time.

IMITATION.

Antist. iii. 1.4.

Flammantia mænia mundi. Lucretius. G.

11. The living throne, the sapphire blaze. Antist. iii. 1. 5.

IMITATION.

For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels, and above the firmament, that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone-this was the appearance of the glory of the Lord.

Ezekiel i. 20. 26. 28. G.

12. Clos'd his eyes in endless night. Antist. iii. l. 8.

IMITATION.

Οφθαλμῶν μὲν ἄμερσε· δίδου δ' ἡδεῖαν ἀοιδήν.

Homer. Od. G.

This has been condemned as a false thought, and more worthy of an Italian poet than of Mr. Gray. Count Algarotti, we have found in his letter to Mr. Howe, praises it highly; but as he was an Italian critic, his judgment, in this point, will not, perhaps by many, be thought to overbalance the objection. The truth is, that this fiction of the cause of Milton's blindness is not beyond the bounds of poetical credibility, any more than the fiction which precedes it concerning the birth of Shakspeare; and therefore would be equally admissible, had it not the peculiar misfortune to encounter a fact too well known on this account the judgment revolts against it. Milton himself has told us, in a strain of heart-felt exultation (see his Sonnet to Cyriac Skynner), that he lost his eye-sight,

overply'd

IN LIBERTY'S DEFENCE, his noble task;
Whereof all Europe rings from side to side;

And when we know this to have been the true cause, we cannot admit a fictitious one, however sublimely conceived, or happily expressed. If, therefore, so lofty and unrivalled a description will not atone for this acknowledged defect in relation to matter of fact, all that the impartial critic can do, is to point out the reason, and to apologize for the Poet, who was necessitated by his subject to consider Milton only in his poetical capacity.

13. With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace. Antist. iii. l. 12.

IMITATION.

Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Job.

This verse, and the foregoing, are meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes. G.

14. Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

IMITATION.

Ep. iii. l. 4.

Words that weep, and tears that speak. Cowley. G.

15. That the Theban eagle bear. Ep. iii. l. 9.

Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον.

Olymp. ii.

Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while its pursues its flight, regardless of their noise. G. 16. The critic, above quoted, concludes his remarks on this Ode, which he had written after his observations on the Bard, in a manner which accounts, in my opinion, for the superior pleasure that it has given to him, and also to the geneality of readers. "I quit," says he, "this Ode with the strongest conviction of

its abundant merit; though I took it up (for this last attentive perusal), persuaded that it was not a little inferior to the other. They are not the treasures of imagination only that have so copiously enriched it: it speaks, but surely less feelingly than the Bard (still my favourite) to the heart. Can we in truth be equally interested, for the fabulous exploded gods of other nations (celebrated in the first half of this Ode) as by the story of our own Edwards and Henrys, or allusions to it? Can a description, the most perfect language ever attained to, of tyranny expelling the muses from Parnassus, seize the mind equally with the horrors of Berkley Castle, with the apostrophe to the tower?

"And spare the meek Usurper's holy head!

"I do not mean, however, wholly to decry fabulous subjects or allusions, nor more than to suggest the preference due to historical ones, where happily the Poet's fertile imagination supplies him with a plentiful choice of both kinds, and he finds himself capable of treating both, according to their respective natures, with equal advantage."

ODE VI.

1. I promised the reader, in the 193d page of the Memoirs, to give him, in this place, the original argument of this capital Ode, as its Author had set it down on one of the pages of his common-place book. It is as follows: "The army of Edward I. as they march through a deep valley, are suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summit of an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the King with all the misery and desolation which he had brought on his country; foretels the misfortunes of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares, that all his cruelty shall never extinguish the noble ardour of poetic genius in this island; and that men shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valour in immortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly censure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that rolls at its foot." Fine as the conclusion of this Ode is at present, I think it would have been still finer, if he could have executed it according to this plan; but unhappily for his purpose, instances of English poets were wanting. Spenser had that enchanting flow of verse which was peculiarly calculated to celebrate virtue and valour; but he chose to celebrate them, not literally, but in allegory. Shakspeare, who had talents for every thing, was undoubtedly capable of exposing vice and infamous pleasure; and the drama was a proper vehicle for his satire: but we do not ever find that he professedly made this his object; nay, we know that, in one inimitable character, he has so contrived as to make vices of the worst kind, such as cowardice, drunkenness, dishonesty, and lewdness, not only laughable, but almost amiable; for with all these sins on his head, who can help liking Falstaff? Milton, of all our great poets, was the only one who holdly censured tyranny and oppression: but he chose to deliver this censure, not in poetry, but in prose. Dryden was a mere court parasite to the most infamous of all courts. Pope, with all his laudable detestation of corruption and bribery, was a Tory; and Addison, though a Whig and a fine writer, was unluckily not enough of a poet for his purpose. On these considerations Mr. Gray was necessitated to change his plan towards the conclusion: hence we perceive, that in the last epode he praises Spenser only for his allegory, Shakspeare for his powers of moving the passions, and Milton for his epic excellence. I remember the ode lay unfinished by him for a year or two on this very account; and I hardly believe that it would ever have had his last hand but for the circumstance of his hearing Parry play on the Welch harp at a concert at Cambridge, (see Letter XXV. Sect. IV.) which he often declared inspired him with the conclusion.

2. Mr. Smith, the musical composer and worthy pupil of Mr. Handel, had once an idea of setting this Ode, and of having it performed by way of serenata or oratorio. A common friend of his and Mr. Gray's interested himself much in this design, and drew out a clear analysis of the Ode, that Mr. Smith might more perfectly understand the Poet's meaning. He conversed also with Mr. Gray on the subject, who gave him an idea for the overture, and marked also some passages in the Ode in order to ascertain which should be recitative, which air, what kind of

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