are several mistakes. The first paragraph under viz. "Spenser, Col. Clout, from the School of and Petrarch, translated from Tasso," is unintelliWe have no English poem by Alabaster. Golding, =, translated nothing from the Italian. Sir John and Drayton wrote nearly as soon as Donne. CaT. Carey, are the same persons; and Thomas the person meant, had published nothing when wrote his first poem. There is no poet of the name 1. The person meant, I suspect, was Tho. Randal, away the name of Randolph the poet was often in the last century; and Pope might not have at Randolph, whom he mentioned before, and Tho. were the same person. [Malone.]*

se observations by Mr. Malone, I shall add, that es not seem to be any just ground for placing in the school of Provence. Mr. Tyrwhitt says, Chaucer's language, I have not observed, in any of ngs, a single phrase or word, which has the least ce of having been fetched by him from the south oire. With respect to the manner and matter of positions, till some clear instance of imitation be 1, I shall be slow to believe, that in either he ever e poets of Provence, with whose works, I apprehad very little, if any, acquaintance." [Cant. ref. p. xxxv.] Even T. Warton, in his EmendaAdditions to his second volume [p. 458], says: never affirmed that Chaucer imitated the Prords; although it is by no means improbable that have known their tales." Secondly, Davenant ton can never be placed in the school of Donne.t

Hall.-See Llewellyn's Poems, P. A.5. Randall. Cartwright-See Dryden's Art of Poetry, i. 242, in his Rustic Strains.' See Pref. Poems to Chartæ Scriptæ. Tom. Randall! 4to. 1645. s Essay, 4to. p. 2. T. Randall. See Faithf. 'oems, 1699, p. 1. Randall, and Davenant. Marpelt Marley, see Peele's Works, ed. Dyce, ii. 140. aps Pope alluded to Suckling's verses to Dave

1 hast redeem'd us, Will:-and future Times

1 not account unto the age's crimes

th of fierce Wit. Since the great Lord of it
NE parted hence: no man has ever writ
ear him, in his own way.-

and

Drayton should be ranked with Spenser; where indeed
Pope, in his conversation with Spence, placed him
Davenant is a poet who approaches nearer to Shakspeare,
in the beauty of his descriptions, the tenderness of his
thoughts, the seriousness of his feeling, and the wildness
of his fancy. Cartwright did not imitate Donne:* and
Cleveland is a writer of a very peculiar style, which he
formed for himself. "The obtrusion of new words on his
hearers (says Dryden) is what the world has blamed in
our satirist Cleveland. To express a thing hard, and un-
naturally, is his new way of elocution. There is this dif-

ference between his Satires and Donne's, that the one gives
us deep thoughts in common language, through rough ca-
dence; the other gives us common thoughts in abstruse
words." Essay on Dramatic Poesy, p. 63, 64.
Catalogue in Mathias's Gray, vol. ii. p. 8.]

Gas I had rangement and would

mith του τ de press

On the

15 it can to these

tion. 0 0s, and poetry, f

[See this

Letter from T. Gray, to Thomas Warton, in the possession of
Al. Chalmers, Esq. See his Life of T. Warton,

Their h

desired me,

in your

v. British Poets, vol. xviii. p. 80.

Sir, Our friend, Dr. Hurd, having long ago name to communicate any fragments or sketches of a design, I once had, to give a History of English Poetry,† you may well think me rude or negligent, when you see me hesitating for so many months, before I comply with your request; and yet, believe me, few of your friends have been better pleased than I, to find this subject, (surely neither unentertaining, nor unuseful,) had fallen into hands so likely to do it justice. Few have felt a higher esteem for your talents, your taste, and industry. In truth, the only cause of my delay, has been a sort of diffidence, that would not let me send you anything, so short, so slight, and so imperfect as the few materials I had begun to collect, or the observa

* Dryden first called Donne metaphysical. See Warton's Pope, vol. iv. p. 252.

See a letter from Thos. Warton to Garrick, June 28, 1769, in which he says Gray had once an intention of this sort, (of writing the History of English Poetry), but he dropt it, as you may see by an Advt. to his Norway Odes. See Garrick's Corres. vol. i. 355.

Englan

I made on them. A sketch of the division or arof the subject, however, I venture to transcribe; wish to know, whether it corresponds in any thing own plan, for I am told your first volume is in

INTRODUCTION.

Poetry of the Gallic or Celtic nations, as far back e traced. On that of the Goths, its introduction islands by the Saxons and Danes, and its durathe origin of rhyme among the Franks, the SaxProvençaux. Some account of the Latin rhyming m its early origin, down to the fifteenth century.

PART I.

School of Provence, which rose about the year was soon followed by the French and Italians. ic poetry, or romances in verse, allegories, fabvientes, comedies, farces, canzoni, sonnetts, baldrigals, sestines, &c. Of their imitators, the nd of the first Italian School, commonly called n, about the year 1200, brought to perfection by trarch, Boccace, and others. State of poetry in rom the Conquest, 1066, or rather from Henry d's time, 1154, to the reign of Edward the 27.

tracing it borrowed from the second Italian school.-Drayton, Fairfax, Phineas Fletcher, Golding, Phaer, &c. This school ends in Milton. A third Italian school, full of conceit, began in Queen Elizabeth's reign, continued under James, and Charles the First, by Donne, Crashaw, Cleveland; carried to its height by Cowley, and ending perhaps in Sprat.

PART V.

School of France, introduced after the Restoration.Waller, Dryden, Addison, Prior, and Pope,-which has continued to our own times.

You will observe that my idea was in some measure
taken from a scribbled paper of Pope, of which I believe
you have a copy. You will also see, I had excluded Dra-
matic poetry entirely; which if you had taken in, it would
at least double the bulk and labour of your book.
I am, sir, with great esteem,

Your most humble and obedient servant,
THOMAS GRAY.

The

was

lev

See

Asi

Ses

Tol.

Pembroke Hall, April 15, 1770.

Note. There is a most objectionable Classification of the Poets in Dr. J. Warton's Essay on Pope. v. Ded. V. 1.

p 12.