"He once or twice had penn'd a sonnet; He ne'er was for a conj'rer taken.” The ghostly prudes with hagged face My lady rose, and with a grace— She smil❜d, and bid him come to dinner. "Jesu-Maria! Madam Bridget, Why, what can the Viscountess mean?" (Cried the square-hoods in woful fidget) "The times are alter'd quite and clean! "Decorum's turn'd to mere civility; Her air and all her manners show it. Commend me to her affability! Speak to a commoner and a poet!" [Here five hundred stanzas are lost.] And so God save our noble king, And guard us from long-winded lubbers, That to eternity would sing, And keep my lady from her rubbers. } 125 180 135 140 ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUDE. Left unfinished by Mr. Gray. With additions by Mr. Mason, distinguished by inverted commas. Weakly green its budding sprays." Warton's 1st of April, i. 180. See Mr. Mant's note upon the passage. 10 "O'er the broad downs a novel race, Frisk the lambs with faltering pace." T. Warton, i. 185. Ver. 17. Rise, my soul! on wings of fire] Mr. Mason informs us, that he has heard Gray say, that Mr. Gresset's 'Epitre à ma Sour' gave him the first idea of this Ode; and whoever, he says, compares it with the French Poem, will find some slight traits of resemblance, but chiefly in the author's seventh stanza. The following lines seem to have been in Gray's remembrance at this place: "Mon ame, trop long tems flétrie Va de nouveau s'épanouir; Et loin de toute rêverie Voltiger avec le Zéphire, Occupé tout entier du soin du plaisir d'être," &c. |