The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power,

And all that Beauty, all that Wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of Time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,'

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,3

1 A writer in the ninth volume of the Quarterly Review cites the following passage from Bishop Hall's Contemplations, as a singular instance of accidental resemblance: "There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth, many a fair pearl in the bosom of the sea, that never was *een, nor never shall be." So Milton in his Comus speaks of the

"Sea-girt Isles,

That, like to rich and various gems, inlay

The unadorned bosom of the deep."

2 "What son of Freedom is not in raptures with this tribute of praise to such an exalted charac ter, in immortal verse? This honorable testimony and the noble detestation of arbitrary power, with which it is accompanied, might possibly be one cause of Dr. Johnson's animosity against our poet. Upon this topic the critic's feelings, we know, were irritability itself and 'tremblingly alive all o'er.' "— Wakefield.

a These two verses are specimens of sublimity of the purest kind, like the simple grandeur of He brew poetry; depending solely on the thought, unassisted by epithets and the artificial decorations of expression.

1

The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture1 deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name,

their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.2
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonor'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn:
"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;

Now drooping, woful wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with Care, or cross'd in hopeless Love.

I-Gray's Elegy, is there an image more striking than his 'shapeless sculpture "Lord Byron. 11. the first edition it stood,

'Awake and faithful to her wonted fires,'

and I think rather better. He means to say, in plain prose, that we wish to be remembered by our friends after our death, in the same manner as when alive we wished to be remembered by them in our absence: this would be expressed clearer, if the metaphorical term 'fires' was rejected, and the

line run thus:

'Awake and faithful to her first desires.'

I do not put this alteration down for the idle vanity of aiming to amend the passage, but purely to explain it."—Mason,

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favorite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

"The next, with dirges due in sad array,

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne :-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."1

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth

A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own,
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to misery (all he had) a tear,

He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)

The bosom of his Father and his God.2

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.3

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,4
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;

1 "Between this line and the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought (and in my opinion very justly) that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines, however, are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation.”—Mason.

"There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."

This epitaph has been commented on, and translated into different languages, by various men of eminence, most of them divines. Did it never occur to any of these, that there was an impropriety in making the "bosom” of Almighty God an abode for human frailty to repose in? Unless, therefore, the author meant by the word "bosom" only remembrance, there is certainly a great inconsistency in the expression.

"Gray has, in his ode on Eton College, whether we consider the sweetness of the versification or its delicious train of plaintive tenderness, rivalled every lyric effort of ancient or of modern date."-Drake's Literary Hours, ii. 84.

4 These spires and towers are addressed by the poet without any use or intention; for nothing is afterwards asserted of them, and they are introduced only to be dismissed in silence, and without further notice. The Towers of London, in the second epode of the "Bard," are not apostrophized with so little meaning.

• King Henry the Sixth, founder of the College. So in the Bard, ii. 3:—

"And spare the meek usurper's holy head." Shakspeare, in Richard the Third, twice applies the same epithet; and in the Installation Ode our author's expression, murdered saint, is applicable enough (notwithstanding Henry was never actually canonized) to the monarch who, as has been well said, would have adorned a cloister, though he disgraced a crown.

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!3

Ah, fields beloved in vain!

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye blow

A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing;

My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent green,
The paths of pleasure trace;
Who foremost now delight to cleave,
With pliant arm, thy glassy wave?

The captive linnet which enthiral?
What idle progeny succeed

To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

1

1 "That is, the turf of whose lawn, the shade of whose grove, the flowers of whose mead. So in Shakspeare:-The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword; that is, 'The courtier's eye, the soldier's sword, the scholar's tongue.' This singularity often occurs in Mr. Pope.”— Wakefield.

2 Mr. Wakefield has a complaint against this compound epithet. The silver-shedding tears of Shakspeare, Two Gent. of Ver. Act. iii. sc. 1, and the silver-quivering rills of Pope, might perhaps have reconciled him to it, if he had recollected them. Both these expressions, as well as one from Dart's "Westminster Abbey,"

"Where Thames in silver-currents winds his way,"

are cited in this place by Mr. Mitford.

3 Mr. Wakefield here quotes from the "Odyssey," O. 397. And it may be remarked, that the anelents were by no means unacquainted with that species of pathos which is derived from the melancholy delight of early remembrance. The feeling which induces us to dress up the past in a fancied superiority of enjoyment, is natural and universal; nor can the indulgence of it be pernicious, 80 ong as it does not interfere with the necessary energies of the present hour.

"And bees their honey redolent of spring."

Dryden's Pythag. System.

As Gray refers this expression to Dryden, it is probable that he was not acquainted with any ear Her authority. Dr. Johnson is highly offended at it, as passing beyond the utmost limits of our language, and of common apprehension. The critic, perhaps, never in his life partook of the feelings here described, or possibly he would not have objected to the expression.

5 The ill-natured criticism of Dr. Johnson on this line cannot be refuted better than it has been by Mr. Mitford. "His supplication to Father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop, or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames had no better means of knowing than himself."-Are we by this rule of criticism to judge the following passage in the twentieth chapter of Rasselast "As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: Answer, said she, great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the hivocation of the daughter of tny native aing. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course. § single habitation, from when thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint.”

While some, on earnest business bent,

Their murmuring labors ply

'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty:

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,'
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer, of vigor born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:

Yet see how all around them wait?

The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murtherous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,3
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear.

And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the wretch from high
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

1 "This is at once poetical and just: and yet there seems to be an impropriety in the next verse:Less pleasing when possest:

for though the object of hope may truly be said to be less pleasing in possession than in the fancy; yet Hope in person cannot possibly be possessed."- Wakefield.

2 "This representation of the ministers of Fate, and the two succeeding stanzas, which exhibit the variety of human passions, with their several attributes, blends moral instruction with all the ani mation and sublimity of poetry."-Wakefield.

"I do not know that any poet, ancient or modern, has given so complete a picture of the pasmons In so short a compare."- Wakefield.