Upon the seraph-wings of Extasy, He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, 100 V. 98. "Flammantia monia mundi," Lucret. i. 74. Gray. See also Stat. Silv. iv. 3. 156: "Ultra sidera, flammeumque solem." And Cicero de Finibus, ii. 31. Hor. Epist. 1. xiv. 9. V. 99. "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." Ezek. i. 20, 26, 28. Gray." Ay sang before the saphir-color'd throne," Poem at a solemn Music (Milton), ver. 7. "Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The cherub Contemplation." Il Pens. ver. 53. "Whereon a sapphire throne inlaid, with pure Amber, and colours of the showery arch." Par. L. vi. 758. "He on the wings of cherub rode sublime, On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd." Ibid. ver. 771. V. 101. "Dark with excess of bright thy skirts appear." Milt. P. L. iii. 380. Luke. V. 102. Οφθαλμῶν μὲν ἄμερσε· δίδου δ' ἠδεῖαν ἀοιδὴν, Hom. Od. e. ver. 64. Gray. "In æternam clauduntur lumina noctem," Virg. Æn. x. 746. W." And closed her lids, at last, in endless night." Dryden. V. 103. See Pope. account of Dryden, Ep. I. b. ii. ver. 267: "Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The long majestick march, and energy divine." V. 105. "Ethereal race" is a phrase of Pope, v. Hom. Il. xi. 80. With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding III. 3. [pace. Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy, hov'ring o'er, Scatters from her pictur'd urn Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit Var. V. 108. Bright-eyed] Full-plumed. мs. 110 V. 106. 66 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. Gray. "Currum, geminosque jugales Semine ab æthereo, spirantes naribus ignem." Virg. Æn. vii. 280. W. The long-resounding course." Thomson. Winter, 775, Hymn. 85. V. 110. "Words that weep, and tears that speak," Cowley, Prophet, vol. i. p. 113. Gray. "Her words burn as fire," Eccles. ix. 10. Rogers. "Oaths are burning words," Dekker. Satirom. p. 65, 4to. V. 111. We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day ; for Cowley, who had his merit, yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his choruses; above all in the last of Caractacus: "Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread ?" &c. Gray. V. 113. So Elegy, st. xii: "Or wake to extasy the living lyre." And Lucret. ii. 412: "Ac Musæa mele per chordas organicei quæ Mobilibus digitis expergefacta figurant." And Callimach. Hymn. Del. 312. W. V. 114. " They shape his ample pinions swift as darted flame," Young. N. Thoughts. V. 115. Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον, Olymp. ii. 159. Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its Wakes thee now? Tho' he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, That the Theban eagle bear, Sailing with supreme dominion Thro' the azure deep of air: Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Var. V. 118. 115 "Yet when they first were open'd on the day Before his visionary eyes would run." MS. V. 119. Forms] "shapes." Ms. flight, regardless of their noise. Gray. See Spenser. F. Q. V. iv. 42: "Like to an eagle in his kingly pride Soaring thro' his wide empire of the aire To weather his brode sailes." Cowley, (i. 166. ed. Hurd.) in his Translation of Hor. Od. "Lo! how the obsequious wind and swelling air Pope. Temple of Fame, 210, has copied Horace, and yoked four swans to the car of the poet : "Four swans sustain a car of silver bright." See also Berdmore, Specimens of Lit. Resemblance, p. 102. V. 117. Eurip. Med. 1294: iç ailɛpos ßáloç. "Cœli fretum," Ennius apud Non Marcell. 3. 92. Lucret. ii. 151. v. 277: “Aeris in magnum fertur mare." W. Oppian. Κυνηγ. iii. 497 : Μέρος ὑψιπόροισιν ἐπιπλωούσι κελεύθοις. Timon of Athens, act iv. sc. 2. p. 126. ed. Steevens: "Into this sea of air." And Cowley's Poems: "Row thro' the trackless ocean of the air." V. 118. See the observation of D. Stewart, Philosophy of the Human Mind, p. 486: "that Gray, in describing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed with exquisite judgement on that class of our conceptions which are derived from visible objects." And see also his Philosophical Essays, p. 231. There is a passage in Sir W. Temple. Essay on Poetry, vol. iii. p. 402, which has been supposed to have been the origin of this passage. See Gentleman's Mag. vol. lxi. p. 91. With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun : Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, 120 Beneath the Good how far-but far above the Great. Var. V. 122. "Yet never can he fear a vulgar fate." Ms. THE BARD. A PINDARIC ODE. [This Ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death. Gray. (See Barrington on the Statutes, p. 358; Jones's Relics, vol. i. p. 38; Sayer's Essays, p. 20.) I. 1. "RUIN seize thee, ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait; V. 120. Spenser. Hymn: "With much more orient hew." Milt. Par. L. i. 545: "with orient colours." Luke. V. 123. "Still show how much the good outshone the great." K. Philips, fol. p. 133. "I have sometimes thought (says Prof. D. Stewart,) that in the last line of the following passage, Gray had in view the two different effects of words already described; the effect of some, in awakening the powers of conception and imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions, "Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." V. Elem. of the Phil. of the H. Mind, vol. i. p. 507. V. 1. Shakes. Hen. VI. 2nd part, act i. sc. 3: "See, ruthless Queen, a hapless father's tears." Luke. Tho' fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!" Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side V. 4. " 10 V. 2. "Confusion waits." K. John, IV. sc. ult. Rogers. V. 3. "Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky, And fan our people cold." Macbeth, act i. sc. 2. Mocking the air with colours idly spread." King John, act v. sc. 1. Gray. V. 5. The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion. Gray. "With helm and hauberk." Rob. of Gloucester, vol. i. p. 297. "Hauberks and helms are hew'd with many a wound," Dryden. Pal. and Arcite, lib. iii. v. 1879. Fairfax in his Trans. of Tasso, has joined these words in many places: As canto vii. 38: "Now at his helm, now at his hauberk bright." See also p. 193, 199, 299, edition 1624, folio. V. 7. "Within her secret mind," v. Dryden. Æn. iv. Rogers. V. 9. "The crested adder's pride." Dryden. Indian Queen. Gray. V. 11. Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Craigian-eryri: it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built by King Edward the First, says, Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery ;" and Matthew of Westminster, (ad ann. 1283) Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdoniæ fecit erigi castrum forte." Gray. The epithet "shaggy," applied to " Snowdon's side," is highly appropriate, as Leland says that great woods clothed |