Bound in thy adamantine chain, The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. 5 NOTES. Ver. 2. Thou tamer of the human breast] "Then he, great tamer of all human hearts," Pope's Dunciad, i. 163. Ver. 3. Iron scourge] So Fletcher, Purpl. Isl. ix. 28: " Affliction's iron flail.” Ibid. Tort'ring hour] In Mr. Wakefield's note, he remarks an impropriety in the poet joining to a material image, the "torturing hour." If there be an impropriety in this, it must rest with Milton, from whom Gray borrowed the verse: But this mode of speech is indeed authorized by ancient and modern poets. In Virgil's description of the lightning which the Cyclopes wrought for Jupiter, Æn. viii. 429 : "Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosæ Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri: In Par. Lost, x. 297, as the original punctuation stood: "Bound with Gorgonian rigor not to move, And with Asphaltic slime."* The Latin authors of the later ages, and Ovid (see Metamorph. iv. ver. 500) indeed in better times, abound with this kind of expression, carried much beyond the limits of grave and judicious style. It must be remarked, however, that there is no attempt at point, or conceit, either in Gray or Milton; it occurs again in the Alliance of Education and Government:"Her boasted titles and her golden fields." Ver. 5. Bound in thy adamantine chain] Αδαμαντίνων δεσμῶν ἐν ἀῤῥήκτοις πέδαις· Æsch. Prom. vi. W., from whom Milton, Par. Lost, i. 48: "In adamantine chains, and penal fire." And the expression occurs also in the Works of Spenser, Drummond, Fletcher, and Drayton See Todd's note on Milton. "In adamantine chains shall Death be bound," Pope's Messiah, ver. 47; and lastly, Manilius in his Astron. lib. i. 921. Ver. 7. And purple tyrants vainly groan] "Till some new tyrant lifts his purple * I ought to remark that this punctuation is now altered in most of the editions. The new reading was proposed by Dr. Pearce. When first thy sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, design'd, And bade to form her infant mind. Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore 10 With patience many a year she bore: What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, 15 And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe. The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe; By vain Prosperity receiv'd, To her they vow their truth, and are again believ❜d. NOTES. hand," Pope's Two Choruses, ver. 23. Wakefield cites Horace, Book I. Ode xxxv. 12: Purpurei metuunt tyranni.” Ver. 8. 66 With pangs unfelt before] From Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 703: Strange horrour seize thee, and pangs unfelt before." Ver. 10. Virtue his darling] "So, che quando hai mandato su la Terra la VIRTU tua figluiola, le hai data per guida la SVENTURA," Lettere di Jacopo Ortis. p. 68. Ver. 1S. Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore] An expression similar to this occurs in Sir P. Sydney's Arcadia, vol. iii. p. 100: "Ill fortune, my awful governess." Whitehead has copied Gray in his Elegy, IV. written at Rome in 1756, vol. iv. p. 211, the year after this poem appeared: "Stern War, the rugged nurse of virtuous Rome;" and T. Warton in his poem On the Birth of the Prince of Wales: " Her simple institutes and rigid lore." Ver. 20. And leave us leisure to be good] See Hurd's Cowley, vol. i. p. 136: « If we for HAPPINESS COULD LEISURE find," and the note of the editor. "And know I have not yet the leisure to be good," Oldham's Ode, stanz. v. vol. i. p. 83. Ver. 22. The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe] See Troilus and Cressida, act iii. sc. 3. p. 364: "The common people swarm like summer flies, Henry VI. Part iii. act 2. sc. 9. Timon of Athens, act iii. sc. 7. "Such summer-birds are men! But the exact expression is to be found in the poems of Herbert: "fall and flow, like leaves, about me, or like summer-friends, flies of estates and sunshine," Herbert's Temple, p. 296. Gray seems to have had Horace in his mind, Book I. Ode xxxv. 25. "At vulgus infidum, et meretrix retro, Perjura cedit; diffugiunt cadis Cum fæce siccatis amici, Ferre jugum pariter dolosi," and in the next stanza we are reminded of " Te Spes, et albo rarà Fides colit, &c." Wisdom in sable garb array'd] "O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue," Ver. 25. Il Penser. 16. W. Ver. 28. And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye that loves the ground] "With a sad leaden downward cast, Thou fix them on the earth as fast." Il Penser. 43. W. Dryden's Cimon and Iphig. ver. 57. "And stupid eyes that ever loved the ground.” Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia, ver. 30: "Melancholy lifts her head." And in Pericles Prince of Tyre, act. i. sc. 2: "The sad companion, dull-eyed Mel ncholy." And so we read "leaden Contemplation" in Love's Labour's Lost, p. 123. act iv. sc. 3. In Beaumont's Passionate Madman: With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand! Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: 40 Oldham's Ode on Ben Jonson, p. 71, vol. ii. Ver. 32. And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear] So Whitehead in his Atys, p. 67: "If soft-ey'd Pity takes her rise from thence, If hence we learn to feel another's pain, And from our own inisfortunes grow humane." Ver. 35. Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad] So Ovid. Metam. IV. 801: "Gorgoneum turpes crinem mutavit in hydros. Nunc quoque, ut attonitos formidine terreat hostes." Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound my heart. What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. NOTES. 4.5 And Val. Flac. vi. 175: "Horrentem colubris, vultuque tremendam Gorgoneo." Ver. 48. What others are to feel, and know myself a Man] This line has been borrowed by Whitehead in his Creusa, 122: "To feel for others' woes, and bear my own With manly resignation." And in the concluding stanza of his Enthusiast, p. 161: "If not thy bliss, thy excellence Thou yet hast learn'd to scan; At least thy wants, thy weakness know, And see them all uniting show, That man was made for man." Both poets were indebted to Terence, Heautontim, act i. ver. 25. VOL. I. E |