APPENDIX E.

(See page xxix. n.)

he curfew tolls the knell of parting day.'

rton would read "The curfew tolls!-the knell of day." The curfew-bell is the general expression of poets; the word 'toll' is not the appropriate verb; ot a slow bell tolling for the dead; hence, urfew was ronge-lyghts were set up in haste.' kespeare, 'None since the curfew rung,'-and 'the bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.' But there is error; a confusion of time. The curfew tolls, and ghman returns from work. Now the ploughman two or three hours before the curfew rings; and nmering landscape' has long ceased to fade before W. The parting day' is also incorrect; the day ; finished. But if the word curfew' is taken or the evening-bell,' then also is the time incord a knell is not tolled for the parting, but for the

'Molest her ancient solitary reign.'

This line would have been better without ancient; but Gray had the antiqua regna' of the Latin poets in his mind, and the deserta regna.' Besides, to molest a reign,' is a very ungraceful and most unusual expression; and only endured for the rhyme's sake.

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap.' This is redundant.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn.'

If the hearth blazes, of course it must burn; but blazing hearth' Gray had from Thomson, and 'burn' was added for the rhyme, return.'

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.'

Here the epithet lowly, as applied to bed, occasions an ambiguity, as to whether the poet meant the bed on which they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid, which is in poetry called a low or lowly bed. Of course the former is designed; but Mr. Lloyd, in his Latin translation, mistook it for the latter. There can be no greater fault in composition than a doubtful meaning,—vitanda in primis ambiguitas.

'Or busy housewife ply her evening care.'

To ply a care, is an expression that is not proper to our language, and was probably formed for the rhyme-' share.”

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund, did they drive their team afield;
How bent the woods beneath their sturdy stroke.'
This stanza is made up of various pieces inlaid. 'Stubborn
glebe,' is from Gay; drive afield,' from Milton; sturdy
stroke,' from Spenser. Such is too much the system of
Gray's compositions, and therefore such the cause of his im-
perfections. Purity of language, accuracy of thought, and
even similarity of rhyme-all give way to the introduction
of certain poetical expressions; in fact, the beautiful jewel,
when brought, does not fit into the new setting, or socket.
Such is the difference between the flower stuck into the
ground, and those that grow from it.

Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
The shor and simple annals of the poor.'

t knowledge to their eyes her ample page, ich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll,' &c. essary to go back six stanzas to find the subject to e relative their refers; i. e.

e short and simple annals of the POOR.'

h with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll,'

= expression is taken from Sir Thomas Browne's Medici- Rich with the spoils of Nature.'

ill Penury repress'd their noble rage.'

of the word 'rage' for desire, if not introduced by s too much used by him

just thy skill, so regular thy rage.

And,

'Be justly warm'd by your own native rage.'

"Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast.'

It should be who,' instead of that.'

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land.'

This is from Tickell

To scatter blessings on the British land.'

From insult to protect.' Sculpture deck'd,' is not an allowable rhyme; and what is the force or meaning of the word still erected nigh?'

Their lot forbade,-
-nor circumscrib'd alone,

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd—
Forbade to wade thro' slaughter to a throne,
Or shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrines of luxury and pride

With incense kindled at the muse's flame."
Who does not feel how flat and superfluous is the latter
stanza, after the fine concluding couplet of the ormer? the
two stanzas ought to have been remodelled; part of the se-
cond thrown into the first, and then the whole should con-
clude with the greatest crime, the grandest imagery, and the
finished picture,—

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
Or shut the gates of mercy on mankind.'

There should the description close; all after that must be
weak and superfluous.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray.'

There is an ambiguity in this couplet, which indeed gives a
sense exactly contrary to that intended; to avoid which,
one must break the grammatical construction. The first
line is from Drummond :- Far from the madding world-
ling's hoarse discords.'

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day.'
'Precincts,' a lifeless and prosaic word; and unsuited to
the epithet warm.' How superior is Tasso-

E lascio mesta l'aure suave della vita."'
And many a holy text around he strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.'

drops' is from Ovid-' piæ lacrymæ ;' Closing from Pope's Elegy; Voice of Nature,' from the gia; and the last line from Chaucer

et in our ashes cold is fire yreken.'

many different quarries are the stones brought to s elaborate mosaic pavement. From this stanza the composition drops into a lower key; the language is and is not in harmony with the splendid and elaboion of the former part. Mr. Mason says it has a licacy.

here at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

listless limbs at noontide would he stretch.'

perfect rhymes are not allowable in short and finished And so, in the following stanza, we saw him beneath yon aged thorn.' And in the xx and xxi here are four lines in the rhymes of similar sound, sigh,' supply,' ' die.'

w drooping woful-wan, like one forlorn.'

wan' is not a legitimate compound, and must be nto two separate words, for such they are, when from the handcuffs of the hyphen. Hurd has given lazy-pacing,' and 'barren-spirited,' and hted,' as compound epithets, in his notes on Hot of Poetry !!

or up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.'

ald, flat, prosaic line.

ir Science frown'd not on his humble birth.'

sonifications are not in.the taste of our old and best out grow up in modern times. Dodsley's Specifull of them. So little did the printer know about has not even printed science with a capital letter, correct, as well as beautifully poetical:

em tu, Melpomene, semel

centem placido lumine videris.'