5. Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare.

This and the five flowing lines which follow are sweetly introduced by the short and unequal measures that precede them: the whole stanza is indeed a master-piece of rhythm, and charms the ear by its well-varied cadence, as much as the imagery which it contains ravishes the fancy. "There is" (says our author, in one of his manuscript papers) "a tout ensemble of sound, as well 66 as of sense, in poetical composition, always necessary to its "perfection. What is gone before still dwells upon the ear, and "insensibly harmonizes with the present line, as in that suc❝cession of fleeting notes which is called Melody." Nothing can better exemplify the truth of this fine observation than his own poetry.

6. The bloom of young desire and purple light of love. Ep. i. l. 17.

IMITATION.

Λάμποι δ' ἐπὶ πορφυρέηση

Παρίτησι φῶς ἔρωτος.

Phrynichus apud Athenæum. G.

7. Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of

war.

IMITATION.

Stanza 2. l. 11 and 12.

Or seen the morning's well-appointed star,

Come marching up the eastern hills afar.

8. In climes beyond the solar road.

Cowley, G.

Antist. ii. l. 1.

IMITATION.

Extra anni solisque vias

Tutta lontana dal camin del sole.

Virgil.

Petrarch Canzon ii. G.

9. Far from the sun and summer-gale.

46

Stanza 3. l. 1.

An ingenious person, who sent Mr. Gray his remarks anonymously on this and the following Ode, soon after they were published, gives this stanza and the following a very just and wellexpressed eulogy: "A Poet is perhaps never more conciliating "than when he praises favourite predecessors in his art. Milton " is not more the pride than Shakespeare the love of their country: It is, therefore, equally judicious to diffuse a tenderness " and a grace through the praise of Shakespeare, as to extol in a strain more elevated and sonorous the boundless soarings of "Milton's epic imagination." The critic has here well noted the beauty of contrast which results from the two descriptions; yet it is further to be observed, to the honor of our Poet's judgment, that the tenderness and grace in the former does not prevent it from strongly characterizing the three capital perfections of Shakespeare's genius; and when he describes his power of exciting terror (a species of the sublime) he ceases to be diffuse, and becomes, as he ought to be, concise and energetical.

10. He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time.

IMITATION.

Flammantia mænia mundi.

Antist. iii. 1. 4.

Lucretius. G.

11. The living throne, the sapphire-blaze.

Antist. iii. 1. 5.

IMITATION.

For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels, and above the firmament that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone--this was the appearance of the glory of the Lord.

Ezekiel i. 20, 26, 28. G.

12. Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

Antist. iii. I. 8.

IMITATION.

ὀφθαλμῶν μὲν ἄμερσε· δίδου δ ̓ ἡδειαν ἀοιδήν.

Homer Od. G.

This has been condemned as a false thought, and more worthy of an Italian Poet than of Mr. Gray. Count Algarotti, we have found in his letter to Mr. How, praises it highly; but as he was an Italian Critic, his judgment, in this point, will not, perhaps by many, be thought to overbalance the objection. The truth is, that this fiction of the cause of Milton's blindness is not beyond the bounds of poetical credibility, any more than the fiction which precedes it concerning the birth of Shakespeare; and therefore would be equally admissible, had it not the peculiar misfortune to encounter a fact too well known: on this account the judgment revolts against it. Milton himself has told us, in a strain of heart-felt exultation, (see his Sonnet to Cyriac Skynner) that he lost his eye-sight

overply'd

IN LIBERTY'S DEFENCE, his noble task;

Whereof all Europe rings from side to side;

And, when we know this to have been the true cause, we cannot admit a fictitious one, however sublimely conceived, or happily expressed. If, therefore, so lofty and unrivalled a description. will not atone for this acknowledged defect, in relation to mat

ter of fact, all that the impartial critic can do, is to point out the reason, and to apologize for the Poet, who was necessitated by his subject to consider Milton only in his poetical capacity.

Since the above note was published, Mr. Brand, of East-Dereham, in Norfolk, has favoured me with a letter, in which he informs me of a very similar hyperbole extant in a MS. Commentary upon Plato's Phædon, written by Hermias, a christian philosopher, of the second century, and which is printed in Bayle's Dictionary (Art. Achilles). It contains the following anecdote of Homer:----"That keeping some sheep near the tomb of Achilles, "he obtained, by his offerings and supplications, a sight of that "Hero; who appeared to him surrounded with so much glory that "Homer could not bear the splendor of it, and that he was not "only dazzled, but blinded by the sight." The ingenious gentleman makes no doubt but Mr. Gray took his thought from this passage, and applauds him for the manner in which he has improved upon it: he also thinks in general, "that a deviation from "historical truth, though it may cast a shade over the middling "beauties of poetry, produces no bad effect where the magnifi"cence and brilliancy of the images entirely fill the imagination;" and with regard to this passage in particular, he intimates, "that “ as the cause of Milton's blindness is not so well known as the thing itself, the licence of poetical invention may allow him to "assign a cause different from the real fact." However this may be, the very exact resemblance, which the two thoughts bear to one another, will, I hope, vindicate Mr. Gray's from being a modern concetto in the taste of the Italian school, às it has been deemed to be by some critics. But this resemblance will do more; (and it is on this account chiefly that I produce, and thank the gentleman for communicating it) it will prove the extreme uncertainty of deciding upon poetical imitations; for I am fully persuaded that Mr. Gray had never seen, or at least attended to, this Greek fragment. How scrupulous he was in borrowing even an epithet from another poet, many of his notes on this very Ode fully prove. And as to the passage in question, he would certainly have cited it, for the sake of vindicating his own taste by classical

66

authority, especially when the thought had been so much controverted.

13. With necks in thunder cloath'd, and long-resound

ing pace.

IMITATION.

Antist. iii. l. 12.

Hast thou cloathed his neck with thunder?

Job.

This verse, and the foregoing, are meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's Rhymes. G.

14. Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of their noise. G.

16. The Critic, above quoted, concludes his remarks on this Ode, which he had written after his observations on the Bard, in a manner which accounts, in my opinion, for the superior pleasure that it has given to him, and also to the generality of readers. "I quit," says he, "this Ode with the strongest conviction of "its abundant merit; though I took it up, (for this last attentive 66 perusal) persuaded that it was not a little inferior to the other. "They are not the treasures of imagination only that have so