Together dart their intermingled rays,
And dazzle with a luxury of light.

Enough for me, if to some feeling breast
My lines a secret sympathy 'impart ;'
And as their pleasing influence 'flows confest,'
A sigh of soft reflection 'heaves the heart.'†

25

SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.

WRITTEN IN 1761, AND FOUND IN ONE OF HIS

POCKET-BOOKS.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune; He had not the method of making a fortune : Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat

odd;

which he has added to supply the imperfect lines: my own opinion is, that Gray had in his mind Dryden's Epistle to Kneller, from which he partly took his expressions: under the shelter of that supposition, I shall venture to give another reading:

Enough for me, if to some feeling breast
My lines a secret sympathy convey;'
And as their pleasing influence is exprest,'
A sigh of soft reflection dies away.'

V. 1. This is similar to a passage in one of Swift's letters to Gay, speaking of poets: "I have been considering why poets have such ill success in making their court. They are too libertine to haunt ante-chambers, too poor to bribe porters, and too proud to cringe to second-hand favourites in a great family." See Pope. Works, xi. 36. ed. Warton.

No very great wit, he believed in a God:

A post or a pension he did not desire,

But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.

5

AMATORY LINES.

The following Lines by Gray first appeared in Warton's edition of Pope, vol. i. p. 285.

WITH beauty, with pleasure surrounded, to languish

Το

weep without knowing the cause of my anguish : To start from short slumbers, and wish for the morning

To close my dull eyes when I see it returning ;

V. 4. "I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers." Pope. Prol. to Satires, ver. 268.

V. 6. Squire] At that time Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of St. David's. Dr. S. Squire died 1766, see Nicholl. Poems, vol. vii. p. 231. Bishop Warburton one day met Dean Tucker, who said that he hoped his Lordship liked his situation at Gloucester, on which the sarcastic Bishop replied, that never bishoprick was so bedeaned, for that his predecessor Dr. Squire had made religion his trade, and that he Dr. Tucker had made trade his religion. See Cradock. Mem. iv. 335.

Perhaps these lines of Gray gave a hint to Goldsmith for his Character of Burke in the Retaliation :'

'Tho' equal to all things, for all things unfit, Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit; For a patriot too cool, for a drudge, disobedient, And too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient.' * As Dr. Warton has here favoured us with some manuscript lines by Gray, it will be a species of poetical justice

Sighs sudden and frequent, looks ever dejectedWords that steal from my tongue, by no meaning

connected!

[me ? Ah! say, fellow-swains, how these symptoms befell They smile, but reply not-Sure Delia will tell me!

SONG.*

THYRSIS, when we parted, swore

Ere the spring he would return

Var. V. 1. Thyrsis, when we parted] In Mr. Park's edition, for "when we parted," it is printed "when he left me.' And for "Ere the spring," " In the spring."

to give the reader some lines from a manuscript of Dr. Warton, which he intended to insert in his Ode to Fancy, and which are placed within the inverted commas: In converse while methinks I rove With Spenser through a fairy grove, 'Or seem by powerful Dante led To the dark chambers of the dead,

Or to the

silent

gloomy

towers where pine

The sons of famish'd Ugoline;

Or by the Tuscan wizard's power
Am wafted to Alcina's bower'
Till suddenly, &c.

And after the couplet

On which thou lov'st to sit at eve,
Musing o'er thy darling's grave-

Add, from the MS.

To whom came trooping at thy call
Thy spirits from their airy hall,

From sea and earth, from heaven and hell,

Stern Hecate, and sweet Ariel.'

Written at the request of Miss Speed, to an old air of

Ah! what means yon violet flower!

And the bud that decks the thorn!
'Twas the lark that upward sprung!
'Twas the nightingale that sung!

Idle notes! untimely green!
Why this unavailing haste?
Western gales and skies serene

Speak not always winter past.
Cease, my doubts, my fears to move,

Spare the honour of my love.

5

10

[This Song is in this edition printed from the copy as it appears in H. Walpole's Letters to the Countess of Ailesbury. See his Works, vol. v. p. 561.]

Var. V. 3. Yon violet flower] In Mr. Park's edition “the opening flower."

V. 5. 'Twas the lark] In Mr. Park's edition, this and the following line are transposed.

V. 8. Why this] In Mr. Park's edition, "why such." V. 9. Western, &c.] In Mr. Park's edition, these lines are printed thus:

"Gentle gales and sky serene

Prove not always winter past."

Geminiani:-the thought from the French. This and the preceding Poem were presented by Miss Speed, then Countess de Viry, to the Rev. Mr. Leman, of Suffolk, while on a visit at her castle in Savoy, where she died in 1783. Admiral Sir T. Duckworth, whose father was vicar of Stoke from 1756 to 1794, remembers Gray and Miss Speed at that place. Gray left Stoke about the year 1758, on the death of his aunt Mrs. Rogers: when his acquaintance with Miss Speed probably closed.