Till, half recoiling, down the headlong steep
She plunges, soon o'erwhelmed and swallowed up
In that immense of being. There her hopes
Rest at the fated goal: for, from the birth
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of Renown,

Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap,
The soul should find enjoyment; but, from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,

Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.

MORAL BEAUTY.

MIND, mind alone, (bear witness, earth and heaven!)
The living fountain in itself contains

Of beauteous and sublime: here, hand in hand,
Sit paramount the Graces; here, enthroned,
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs,
Invites the soul to never-fading joy.

Look, then, abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling, unshaken, through the void immense;
And speak, O man!1 does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate

Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots; and his arm

Aloft extending, like eternal Jove,

When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,

1 And speak, O man, &c.-It is impossible to admit the propriety of this illustration, though we can scarcely fail to admire the skill with which it is introduced. Even without questioning the motives of Brutus and his confederates, the act was that of murder, and surely cannot be placed at the head of the instances of elevated virtue, which the previous lines had prepared us to expect. The "crowd of patriots," moreover, if tried by any pure standard of principles, were but indifferent specimens of moral beauty.

2 His arm aloft, &c.-This fact is related by Cicero himself in his second Philippic.

And bade the father of his country, hail!
For, lo! the tyrant prostrate in the dust,
And Rome again is free! Is aught so fair,
In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper or the Morn,
In Nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship? as the candid blush
Of him who strives' with fortune to be just?
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes ?
Or the mild majesty of private life,

Where peace with ever-blooming olive crowns
The gate; where honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings
Of innocence and love protect the scene?

ADVANTAGES OF A CULTIVATED TASTE.

OH! blest of heaven, whom not the languid songs
Of Luxury, the syren! not the bribes

Of sordid Wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils

Of pageant Honour, can seduce to leave

Those ever-blooming sweets, which, from the store
Of Nature, fair Imagination culls,

To charm the enlivened soul! What though not all
Of mortal offspring can attain the heights
Of envied life; though only few possess
Patrician treasures, or imperial state;
Yet Nature's care, to all her children just,
With richer treasures, and an ampler state,
Endows at large whatever happy man
Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp,
The rural honours his: whate'er adorns
The princely dome, the column, and the arch,
The breathing marble, and the sculptured gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him the Spring
Distils her dews, and from the silken gem
Its lucid leaves unfolds; for him the hand
Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch
With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.

1 Of him who strives, &c.-i. e. of him who struggles with adverse fortune, that he may still preserve an upright course.

Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze
Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure, unreproved: nor thence partakes
Fresh pleasure only, for the attentive mind
By this harmonious action on her powers,
Becomes herself harmonious: wont so oft
In outward things to meditate the charm
Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order, to exert

Within herself this elegance of love,

This fair inspired delight: her tempered powers
Refine at length, and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive mien.
But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze
On Nature's form, where, negligent of all
These lesser graces, she assumes the port
Of that Eternal Majesty that weighed,
The world's foundations, if to these the mind
Exalts her daring eye, then mightier far

Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms
Of servile custom cramp her generous powers?
Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth
Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?
Lo! she appeals to Nature, to the winds
And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons; all declare
For what the eternal Maker has ordained
The powers of man: we feel within ourselves
His energy divine; he tells the heart,

He meant, he made us to behold and love
What he beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being; to be great like him,
Beneficent and active. Thus the men

Whom nature's works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,
With his conceptions; act upon his plan;
And form to his the relish of their souls.

GRAY.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-Thomas Gray was born in London, on the 20th of December, 1716. His father, like Milton's, was a money-scrivener, but unlike Milton's, cared little for his son's education, which was carried on at Eton School, at the expense of his mother. On leaving Eton he entered at Peter House, Cambridge, where he resided three years. In the spring of 1739, he set out on a tour through France and Italy, in company with Horace Walpole. He has described the scenery and the incidents of his journey in his elegant letters. After an absence of two years and a half, he returned to England in 1741, and again took up his abode at Cambridge, with a view to devote himself to the study of the law. This purpose however was not maintained, but he continued to reside the greater part of his remaining life at the University. In 1768 he was appointed Professor of Modern History, and on the 24th of July, 1771, he died of an attack of gout in the stomach. He was buried at Stoke Pogeis, in Buckinghamshire, by the side of his mother whom he ever tenderly loved.

PRINCIPAL WORKS.-Gray's works are few; consisting almost wholly of lyrical odes. The most admired are those, "On the Spring," ""On a distant prospect of Eton College," "To Adversity," "The Progress of Poetry," and "The Bard;" to which must be added the far-famed 66 "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard." His letters too, from their elegance and classic style, take a high place in English literature.

CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE. "Antecedent to 'The Progress of Poetry' and to The Bard' no such lyrics had appeared. There is not an ode in the English language which is constructed, like these two compositions, with such power, such majesty, and such sweetness, with such proportioned pauses and just cadences, with such regulated measures of the verse, with such master principles of lyrical art displayed and exemplified, and, at the same time, with such a concealment of the difficulty, which is lost in the uninterrupted flowing of the lines in each stanza, with such a musical magic, that every verse in it in succession dwells in the ear, and harmonizes with that which has gone before. If indeed the veil of classical reverence and of pardonable prejudice can be awhile removed,

and if with honest unshrinking criticism we consider the subject as exemplified in Greece, and in Italy ancient and modern, and if we then weigh the merits of any single composition of Pindar, of Horace, of Dante, of Petrarch, or of any of their successors, it will fade before that excellence which encompasses, with an incommunicable brightness, the Bard of Gray.

"It was from his ear so exquisitely fine, and so musically formed; it was from the contemplation of the legitimate structure of a lyrical stanza, of the necessity of its regularity, and of the labour, and of the polish, which was required not only to perfect every verse, but every single expression to every verse; it was indeed from all these views combined, that Mr. Gray revolted from the vapid, vague, and unmeaning effusions of writers who, refusing to submit to the indispensable laws of lyrical poetry, or from ignorance of them, called their own wildness, genius, and their contempt of rules, originality. He fixed his attention on all the most finished models of Greece, and of modern Italy, he seized and apportioned their specific and their diversified merits, united their spirit, improved upon their metre, and then, in conformity with his great preconceived idea, he gave at once a lyric poetry to every succeeding age, the law, the precept, and the example."1

"His moral spirit is as explicit as it is majestic; and deeply read as he was in Plato, he is never metaphysically perplexed. The fault of his meaning is to be latent, not indefinite or confused. When we give his beauties, reperusal and attention, they kindle and multiply to the view. The thread of

association that conducts to his remote allusions, or that connects his abrupt transitions, ceases then to be invisible. His lyrical pieces are like paintings on glass, which must be placed in a strong light to give out the perfect radiance of their colouring."

"2

VERSIFICATION.-" Among the distinguishing excellencies of the poetry of Gray, must be mentioned the peculiar harmony and variety of his Versification. The attention of Gray, it must be observed, was not paid to that inferior part of the art of imitation in verse, the resemblance of sounds and motions, as those properties of things which can be imitated by words, and which is called representative versification; but to that

1 Mathias. "Observations on the Writings and on the Character of Mr. Gray," p. 71, &c. Campbell. Specimens, &c,"

2

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p. 505.