Yet ev❜n these bones from infult to protect With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Their name, their years, fpelt by th' unletter'd Mufe, And many a holy text around she strews, For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, On fome fond breast the parting foul relies, Awake and faithful to her wonted fires. Thus (fays Mr. Mafon) it ftood in the first and fome following "editions, and I think rather better; for the authority of Petrarch ❝ does For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead • There "does not deftroy the appearance of quaintnefs in the other the "thought however is rather obfcurely expreffed in both readings. He <6 means to say, in plain profe, that we wish to be remembered by our "friends after our death, in the fame manner as when alive we wished "to be remembered by them in our abfence: this would be expreffed "clearer, if the metaphorical term fires was rejected, and the line run "thus: "Awake and faithful to her firft defires." In Chaucer's Reve's Prologue, v. 3880, Yet in our afhen cold is fire yrekin. There is, fays Mr. Tyrwhitt, fo great a resemblance between this line and the above, that I fhould certainly have confidered the latter as an imitation, if Mr. Gray had not referred us to the fonnet of Petrarch as his original. VARIATION. e On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn. After which, in the first manuscript, followed this ftanza: There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, • That wreathes its old fantastic roots fo high, His listlefs length at noon-tide would he stretch, < And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in fcorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove: 'Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, 'Or craz❜d with care, or crofs'd in hopeless love. • One morn I miss'd him on the custom❜d hill, 6 Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree : • Another came; nor yet beside the rill, • Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he; 'The next with dirges due in fad array, Slow through the church-way path we faw him borne, Approach and read (for thou canft read) the lay, 'Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn f. Him have we seen the greenwood fide along, While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done, With wistful eyes purfue the fetting fun. The "I rather wonder (fays Mr. Mason) that he rejected this stanza, as "it not only has the fame fort of Doric delicacy which charms us pe"culiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the account of "his whole day. whereas, this evening fcene being omitted, we have "only his morning walk and his noontide repose." f Between this line and the epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inferted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in fome of the first editions, but The EPITAPH. ERE refis his head upon the lap of Earth, HE A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown; Large was his bounty, and his foul fincere, He gave He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all be wifh'd) a friend. No farther feek his merits to disclose, Or draw his fralities from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) & The bofom of his Father, and his God. but afterwards omitted; because he thought that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines however are, in themselves, exquifitely fine, and demand preservation. There fcatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, g IMITATION. paventofa fpeme. Petrarch, fon. 114. G. HYMN HYMN to ADVERSITYh. D By the Same. AUGHTER of Jove, relentless Pow'r, Thon Tamer of the human breast, Whofe iron fcourge and tort'ring hour The proud are taught to taste of pain, With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy Sire to fend on earth Virtue, his darling Child, defign'd, To thee he gave the heav'nly Birth, And bade to form her infant mind. Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore What forrow was, thou bad'ft her know, And from her own fhe learn'd to melt at others' woe. An imitation, as Dr. Johnfon obferves, of the 35th Ode of the first book of Horace, beginning, O Diva, gratum quæ regis Antium; but Mr. Gray has excelled his original, by the variety of his fentiments, and by their moral application. 2 Scared |