Thus far we're safe.

SCENE II.

OTHO, POPPÆA.

отно.

Thanks to the rosy queen
Of amorous thefts: and had her wanton son
Lent us his wings, we could not have beguil'd
With more elusive speed the dazzled sight
Of wakeful jealousy. Be gay securely;
Dispel, my fair, with smiles, the tim'rous cloud
That hangs on thy clear brow. So Helen look'd,

So her white neck reclin'd, so was she borne
By the young Trojan to his gilded bark
With fond reluctance, yielding modesty,
And oft reverted eye, as if she knew not
Whether she fear'd, or wish'd to be pursued.

190

195

Virgilii Ciris. 449.

Manil. Astron. 5, v. 555.

This particular beauty is also given to Helen by Constantine Manasses, in his 'Annales,'

(see Meursii Opera, vol. vii. p. 390):

Δειρὴ μακρὰ καταλευκος, ὅθεν ἐμυθουργήθη

Κυκνογενῆ τὴν εὐόπτον Ελένην χρημάτιζειν.

And so also in the Antehomerica of Tzetzes, ed. Jacobs. p. 115 (though the passage is corrupted):

VOL. I.

"That soft cheek springing to the marble neck,
Which bends aside in vain."

Akenside's Pl. of Imag. b. i. p. 112. ed. Park.

Y

HYMN TO IGNORANCE.

A FRAGMENT.

(See Mason's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 75.)

HAIL, horrors, hail! ye ever gloomy bowers,
Ye gothic fanes, and antiquated towers,
Where rushy Camus' slowly-winding flood
Perpetual draws his humid train of mud:
Glad I revisit thy neglected reign,

Oh take me to thy peaceful shade again.

But chiefly thee, whose influence breathed from high
Augments the native darkness of the sky;

Ah, ignorance! soft salutary power!

Prostrate with filial reverence I adore.

5

10

NOTES.

Ver. 3. Where rushy Camus' slowly-winding flood] "Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum," Miltoni Eleg. i. 11.

Ver. 4. Perpetual draws his humid train of mud] So Milton, Par. Lost, vii. 310:

Thrice hath Hyperion roll'd his annual race,
Since weeping I forsook thy fond embrace.
Oh say, successful dost thou still oppose
Thy leaden ægis 'gainst our ancient foes?
Still stretch, tenacious of thy right divine,
The massy sceptre o'er thy slumb'ring line?
And dews Lethean through the land dispense
To steep in slumbers each benighted sense?
If any spark of wit's delusive ray
Break out, and flash a momentary day,

NOTES.

15

20

Ver. 14. Thy leaden ægis 'gainst our ancient foes]

"To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead."

Pope's Dunciad, i. 28.

And so in the speech of Ignorance in Henry and Minerva,' by I. B. 1729 (one among the poetical pieces bound up by Pope in his library, and now in my possession):

"Myself behind this ample shield of lead,

Will to the field my daring squadrons head."

*In the Dunciad, b. ii. ver. 352,

"Dullness is sacred in a sound divine,"

is from Dryden's prologue to Troilus and Cressida :

"Dullness is decent in the church and state."

And in the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, ver. 261,

"Ah! hopeless, lasting flames; like those that burn
To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn,”

is taken from Hudibras, Part II. cant. i. ver. 309:

"Love in your heart as idly burns

As fire in antique Roman urns,
To warm the dead, and vainly light
Those only, that see nothing by 't."

With damp, cold touch forbid it to aspire,

And huddle up in fogs the dang'rous fire.

Oh say she hears me not, but, careless grown,
Lethargic nods upon her ebon throne.
Goddess! awake, arise, alas my fears!

Can powers immortal feel the force of years?
Not thus of old, with ensigns wide unfurl'd,

She rode triumphant o'er the vanquish'd world;
Fierce nations own'd her unresisted might,
And all was ignorance, and all was night.

Oh! sacred age! Oh! times for ever lost!

(The schoolman's glory, and the churchman's boast.)
For ever gone-yet still to fancy new,
Her rapid wings the transient scene pursue,
And bring the buried ages back to view.

High on her car, behold the grandam ride
Like old Sesostris with barbaric pride;
a team of harness'd monarchs bend

25

30

35

Ver. 22. And huddle up in fogs the dang'rous fire]

"Here Ignorance in steel was arm'd, and there
Cloath'd in a cowl, dissembled fast and pray'r;
Against my sway her pious hand stretch'd out,
And fenc'd with double fogs her idiot rout."

And so in the Dunciad, b. i. ver. 80:

Henry and Minerva.

"All these, and more, the cloud-compelling queen
Beholds thro' fogs that magnify the scene."

Ver. 37. Like old Sesostris with barbaric pride]

"Sesostris-like, such charioteers as these

May drive six harness'd monarchs if they please."

Young's Love of Fame, Sat. V.

THE

ALLIANCE

OF

EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT.

A FRAGMENT.*

(See Mason's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 99.)

ESSAY I.

Πόταγ', ώ γαθέ· τὰν γὰρ ἀοιδὰν

Οὔτι πα εἰς Αἴδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα φυλαξεις.

Theocritus, Id. I. 63.

As sickly plants betray a niggard earth,
Whose barren bosom starves her generous birth,

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 2. Barren] Flinty, Ms.

NOTES.

* In a note to his Roman History, Mr. Gibbon says: "Instead of compiling tables of chronology and natural history, why did not Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic poem of which he has left such an exquisite specimen?" Vol. iii. p. 248. 4to.-Would it not have been more philosophical in Mr. Gibbon to have lamented the situation in which Gray was placed; which was not only not favourable to the cultivation of poetry, but which naturally directed his thoughts to those learned inquiries, that formed the amusement or business of all around him?