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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
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray,

Var. V. 118.

115

"Yet when they first were open'd on the day Before his visionary eyes would run." мs.

V. 119. Forms]" shapes." мs.

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.
IV. ii. calls Pindar" the Theban swan :"

"Lo! how the obsequious wind and swelling air
The Theban swan does upward bear."

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!
Bright-eyed Fancy, hov'ring o'er,
Scatters from her pictur'd urn

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,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,

Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail

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

He wound with toilsome march his long array. Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance: "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiv'ring lance.

I. 2.

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er cold Conway's foaming flood,
Robed in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair

15

the different parts of the mountain in his time: see Itin. v. 45. Dyer. Ruins of Rome, p. 137:

"as Britannia's oaks

On Merlin's mount, or Snowdon's rugged sides,
Stand in the clouds."

Lycidas, 54," Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high," v. Par.
L. vi. 645. "By the shaggy tops," &c. Todd's note.

V. 12. "In long array," Dryden. E. xi. Rogers. V. 13. Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward. Gray. V. 14. Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. Gray. They both were Lord Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the king in this expedition. Gray.

"Hastam quassatque trementem,"

Virg. Æn. xii. 94. Luke. V. 15. Hom. Il. Υ. ver. 151 : Επ' ὀφρύσι καλλικολώνης. And Mosch. Id. ii. 48: 'ET' oppvos aiyiaλoło. Ap. Rhod. i. ver. 178. St. Luke, iv. 29. And Virg. Georg. i. 108: "Ecce supercilio clivosi tramitis." W. A huge aspiring rock, whose surly brow," Daniel. Civ. Wars, p. 58. Above the foamy flood," v. Dyer. R. of Rome.

V. 16. 66

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Luke.

V. 17. "Perpetuo mærore, et nigra veste senescant," Juvenal. Sat. x. 245. W. Also Propert. Eleg. IV. vii. 28: "Atram quis lacrymis incaluisse togam." Senec. H. Fur. 694, "aterque luctus sequitur."

V. 19. The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision

Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

66

Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave, Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! O'er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they

wave,

20

25

Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe; Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings, both believed to be originals, one at Florence, the other in the Duke o Orleans' collection at Paris. Gray.

Luke.

V. 20. "Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.” Par. L. i. ver. 535. W. See Todd's note. "The meteors of a troubled heaven," Shakesp. K. Henry IV. pt. i. act i. sc. 1. Todd mentions a passage very similar to the one in the "The circumference of his snowy beard like the streaming rays of a meteor appeared," Persian Tales of Inatulla, vol. ii. p. 41. This image is often used metaphorically, as Stat. Theb. iii. 332. And see Manil. Astron. i. 836.

text:

Ford, in his Perkin Warbeck, p. 25, ed. Weber:
66-- since the beard

Of this wild comet conjur'd into France."
V. 23. "The woods and desart caves.' Lycidas.

V. 26. "The stream that down the distant rocks hoarse murmuring fell." Thomson. Luke.

V. 27. See some observations on the poetical and proper use of "vocal," as used by Gray in this place, in Huntingford. Apolog. for the Monostr. p. 31.

V. 28. Hoel is called high-born, being the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince of North Wales, by Finnog, an Irish damsel. He was one of his father's generals in his wars against the English, Flemings, and Normans, in South Wales; and was a famous bard, as his poems that are extant testify. See Evan. Spec. p. 26, 4to.; and Jones. Relics, vol. ii. p. 36, where he is called the " Princely

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