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And with seraphic flame compassion blends.
At once, delighted, to their charge they fly;
When, lo! a goodly hospital ascends,

In which they bade each lenient aid be nigh,

That could the sick-bed smoothe of that sad company.

LXXIII.

It was a worthy edifying sight,

And gives to human kind peculiar grace,
To see kind hands attending day and night,
With tender ministry, from place to place:
Some prop the head; some, from the pallid face
Wipe off the faint cold dews weak nature sheds;
Some reach the healing draught; the whilst, to chase
The fear supreme, around their soften'd beds

Some holy man by prayer all opening heaven dispreds.
LXXIV.

Attended by a glad acclaiming train

Of those he rescu'd had from gaping hell,
Then turn'd the knight, and to his hall again
Soft-pacing, sought of Peace the mossy cell;
Yet down his cheeks, the gems of pity fell,
To see the helpless wretches that remain❜d,
There left through delves and deserts dire to yell;
Amaz'd, their looks with pale dismay were stain'd,
And spreading wide their hands they meek repentance
feign'd.

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Then, varying to a joyless land of bogs,
The sadden'd country a grey waste appear'd,
Where nought but putrid streams and noisome fogs
For ever hung on drizzly Auster's beard;
Or else the ground by piercing Caurus * sear❜d,
Was jagg'd with frost, or heap'd with glazed snow;
Through these extremes a ceaseless round they steer'd,
By cruel fiends still hurry'd to and fro,

Gaunt Beggary, and Scorn, with many hell-hounds moe.
LXXVII.

The first was with base dunghill rags y'clad,
Tainting the gale, in which they flutter'd light;
Of morbid hue his features sunk and sad:
His hollow eyne shook forth a sickly light:
And o'er his lank jaw-bone, in piteous plight,
His black rough beard was matted rank and vile;
Direful to see! an heart-appalling sight!
Meantime foul scurf and blotches him defile,

And dogs, where'er he went, still barked all the

while.

LXXVIII.

The other was a fell despightful fiend!

Hell holds none worse in baleful bower below;
By pride, and wit, and rage, and rancour keen'd;
Of man alike, if good or bad, the foe:
With nose upturn'd, he always made a shew
As if he smelt some nauseous scent; his eye
Was cold, and keen, like blast from Boreal snow,
And taunts he casten forth most bitterly.

Such were the twain that off drove this ungodly fry.

* The north-east wind.

LXXIX.

Even so through Brentford town, a town of mud,
An herd of brisly swine is prick'd along,

The filthy beasts, that never chew the cud,

Still grunt, and squeak, and sing their troublous

song,

And oft they plunge themselves the mire among;
But ay the ruthless driver goads them on,
And ay of barking dogs the bitter throng
Makes them renew their unmelodious moan;
Ne ever find they rest from their unresting tone.

THE HAPPY MAN.

HE's not the Happy Man, to whom is given
A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven;
Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise,
And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes;
Whose table flows with hospitable cheer,
And all the various bounty of the year;
Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the
Spring,

Whose carved mountains bleat, and forests sing;
For whom the cooling shade in Summer twines,
While his full cellars give their generous wines;
From whose wide fields unbounded Autumn pours
A golden tide into his swelling stores:
Whose Winter laughs; for whom the liberal gales
Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails;
When yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves;
While youth, and health, and vigour string his nerves.
Ev'n not all these, in one rich lot combin'd,
Can make the Happy Man without the mind;
Where Judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys
The chain of Reason with unerring gaze;
Where Fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes,
His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise;
Where social Love exerts her soft commands,
And plays the passions with a tender hand,
Whence every virtue flows in rival strife,
And all the moral harmony of life.

SONG.

HARD is the fate of him who loves,
Yet dares not tell his trembling pain,
But to the sympathetic groves

But to the lonely listening plain.
Oh! when she blesses next your shade,
Oh! when her footsteps next are seen
In flowry tracts along the mead,
In fresher mazes o'er the green,

Ye gentle spirits of the vale,

To whom the tears of love are dear, From dying lilies waft a gale,

And sigh my sorrows in her ear.

O, tell her what she cannot blame,
Though fear my tongue must ever bind;
O, tell her that my virtuous flame
Is as her spotless soul refin'd.
Not her own guardian angel eyes
With chaster tenderness his care,
Not purer her own wishes rise,

Nor holier her own sighs in prayer.

But if, at first, her virgin fear

Should start at love's suspected name, With that of friendship soothe her earTrue love and friendship are the same.

SONG.

FOR ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love,
And when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between, and bid us part?

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish, and wish the soul away;
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone?

But busy, busy, still art thou,
To bind the loveless joyless vow,
The heart from pleasure to delude,
To join the gentle to the rude.

For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
And I absolve thy future care;
All other blessings I resign,

Make but the dear Amanda mine.

ODE.

TELL me, thou soul of her I love,
Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled;
To what delightful world above,
Appointed for the happy dead?

Or dost thou, free, at pleasure roam,
And sometimes share thy lover's woe;
Where, void of thee, his cheerless home
Can now, alas! no comfort know?

Oh! if thou hover'st round my walk, While under every well-known tree, I to thy fancy'd shadow talk,

And every tear is full of thee;
Should then the weary eye of grief,
Beside some sympathetic stream,

In slumber find a short relief,
O visit thou my soothing dream!

ODE.

O NIGHTINGALE, best poet of the grove,
That plaintive strain can ne'er belong to thee,
Blest in the full possession of thy love:

O lend that strain, sweet nightingale, to me!
'Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate:
I love a maid who all my bosom charms,
Yet lose my days without this lovely mate;
Inhuman Fortune keeps her from my arms.

You, happy birds! by Nature's simple laws
Lead your soft lives, sustain'd by Nature's fare;
You dwell wherever roving fancy draws,

And love and song is all your pleasing care:

But we, vain slaves of interest and of pride,
Dare not be blest lest envious tongues should blame:
And hence, in vain I languish for my bride;

O mourn with me, sweet bird, my hapless flame.

HYMN ON SOLITUDE. HAIL, mildly pleasing Solitude, Companion of the wise and good, But, from whose holy, piercing eye, The herd of fools and villains fly.

Oh! how I love with thee to walk; And listen to thy whisper'd talk, Which innocence and truth imparts, And melts the most obdurate hearts.

A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky;
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain.
A lover now, with all the grace
Of that sweet passion in your face;
Then calm'd to friendship, you assume
The gentle-looking Hartford's bloom,
As, with her Musidora, she
(Her Musidora fond of thee)
Amid the long withdrawing vale,
Awakes the rivall'd nightingale.

Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born;
And while meridian fervours beat,
Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;
But chief, when evening scenes decay,
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.

Descending angels bless thy train,
The virtues of the sage, and swain;
Plain Innocence, in white array'd,
Before thee lifts her fearless head:
Religion's beams around thee shine,
And cheer thy glooms with light divine:
About thee sports sweet Liberty;
And rapt Urania sings to thee.

O let me pierce thy secret cell!
And in thy deep recesses dwell;
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When Meditation has her fill,

I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London's spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then shield me in the woods again.

TO THE REV. MR. MURDOCH,

RECTOR OF STRADDISHALL, IN SUFFOLK, 1738. THUS safely low, my friend, thou canst not fall: Here reigns a deep tranquillity o'er all;

No noise, no care, no vanity, no strife;

Men, woods, and fields, all breathe untroubled life.
Then keep each passion down, however dear;
Trust me the tender are the most severe.
Guard, while 'tis thine, thy philosophic ease,
And ask no joy but that of virtuous peace;
That bids defiance to the storms of Fate,
High bliss is only for a higher state.

GRAY'S POETICAL WORKS.

THE LIFE OF THOMAS GRAY.

THOMAS GRAY was born in Cornhill, in the city of London, on the 26th of December, 1716. His father, Philip Gray, was a money-scrivener; but being of an indolent and profuse disposition, he rather diminished than improved his paternal fortune. Our Author received his classical education at Eton school, under Mr. Antrobus, his mother's brother, a man of sound learning and refined taste, who directed his nephew to those pursuits which laid the foundation of his future literary fame.

During his continuance at Eton, he contracted a friendship with Mr. Horace Walpole, well known for his knowledge of the fine arts; and Mr. Richard West, son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, a youth of very promising talents.

When he left Eton school, in 1734, he went to Cambridge, and entered a pensioner at Peterhouse, at the recommendation of his uncle Antrobus, who had been a fellow of that college. It is said, that from his effeminacy and fair complection, he acquired among his fellow students, the appellation of Miss Gray, to which the delicacy of his manners seems not a little to have contributed. Mr. Walpole was at that time a fellow-commoner of King's College, in the same University; a fortunate circumstance, which afforded Gray frequent opportunities of intercourse with his Honourable Friend.

Mr. West went from Eton to Christ Church, Oxford; and in this state of separation, these two votaries of the Muses, whose dispositions were congenial, commenced an epistolary correspondence, part of which is published by Mr. Mason, a gentleman whose character stands high in the republic of letters.

Gray, having imbibed a taste for poetry, did not relish those abstruse studies which generally occupy the minds of students at college; and therefore, as he found very little gratification from academical pursuits, he left Cambridge in 1738, and returned to London, intending to apply himself to the study of the law; but this intention was soon laid aside, upon an invitation given him by Mr. Walpole, to accompany him in his travels abroad; a situation highly preferable, in Gray's opinion, to the dry study of the law.

They set out together for France, and visited most of the places worthy of notice in that country: from thence they proceeded to Italy, where an unfortunate dispute taking place between them, a separation ensued upon their arrival at Florence. Mr. Walpole, afterwards, with great candour and liberality, took upon himself the blame of the quarrel; though, if we consider the matter coolly and impartially, we may be induced to conclude that Gray, from a conscious superiority of ability, might have claimed a deference to his opinion and judgment, which his Honourable Friend was not at that time disposed to admit the rupture, however, was very unpleasant to both parties. Gray pursued his journey to Venice on an economic plan, suitable to the circumscribed state of his finances,

and having continued there some weeks, returned to England in September, 1741. He appears, from his letters published by Mr. Mason, to have paid the minutest attention to every object worthy of notice throughout the course of his travels. His descriptions are lively and picturesque, and bear particular marks of his genius and disposition. We admire the sublimity of his ideas when he ascends the stupendous heights of the Alps, and are charmed with his display of nature, decked in all the beauties of vegetation. Indeed, abundant information, as well as entertainment, may be derived from his casual letters.

In about two months after his arrival in England, he lost his father, who, by an indiscreet profusion, had so impaired his fortune, as not to admit of his son's prosecuting the study of the law with that degree of respectability which the nature of the profession requires, without becoming burthensome to his mother and aunt. To obviate, therefore, their importunities on the subject, he went to Cambridge, and took his bachelor's degree in civil law.

But the inconveniencies and distress attached to a scanty fortune, were not the only ills our poet had to encounter at this time; he had not only lost the friendship of Mr. Walpole abroad, but poor West, the partner of his heart, fell a victim to complicated maladies, brought on by family misfortunes, on the 1st of June, 1742, at Pope's, a village in Hertfordshire, where he went for the benefit of the air.

The excessive degree in which his mind was agitated for the loss of his friend, will best appear from the following beautiful little sonnet:

"In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And redd'ning Phœbus lifts his golden fire:
The birds in vain their am'rous descant join,
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire ;
These ears, alas! for other notes repine;
A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine,
And in my breast th' imperfect joys expire;
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
To warn their little loves the birds complain:
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear;
And weep the more because I weep in vain."

Mr. Gray now seems to have applied his mind very sedulously to poetical composition: his Ode to Spring was written early in June to his friend Mr. West, before he received the melancholy news of his death: how our poet's susceptible mind was affected by that melancholy incident, is evidently demonstrated by the lines quoted above; the impression, indeed, appears to have been too deep to be soon effaced; and the tenor of the subjects which called for the exertions of his poetical talents subsequent to the production of this Ode, corroborates that observation; these were his

Prospect of Eton, and his Ode to Adversity. It is also supposed, and with great probability, that he began his Elegy in a Country Church Yard about the same time. He passed some weeks at Stoke, near Windsor, where his mother and aunt resided, and in that pleasing retirement finished several of his most celebrated poems.

From thence he returned to Cambridge, which from this period was his chief residence during the remainder of his life. The conveniencies with which a college life was attended to a person of his narrow fortune, and studious turn of mind, were more than a compensation for the dislike which, for several reasons, he bore to the place; but he was perfectly reconciled to his situation, on Mr. Mason's being elected a fellow of Pembroke Hall; a circumstance which brought him a companion, who, during life, retained for him the highest degree of friendship and esteem.

In 1742, he was admitted to the degree of bachelor in the civil law, as appears from a letter written to his particular friend, Dr. Wharton, of Old Park, near Durham, formerly fellow of Pembroke-Hail, Cambridge, in which he ridicules, with much point and humour, the follies and foibles, and the dulness and formality, which prevailed in the university.

In order to enrich his mind with the ideas of others, he devoted a considerable portion of his time to the study of the best Greek authors; so that, in the course of six years, there were hardly any writers of eminence in that language whose works he had not only read, but thoroughly digested.

His attention however to the Greek classics did not wholly engross his time; for he found leisure to advert, in a new sarcastical manner, to the ignorance and dulness with which he was surrounded, though situated in the centre of learning. There is only a fragment remaining of what he had written on this subject, from which it may be inferred, that it was intended as an Hymn to Ignorance. The fragment is wholly introductory; yet many of the lines are so pointed in signification, and harmonious in versification, that they will be admitted by the admirers of verse, to display his poetical talents with more brilliancy than appears in many of his lyric productions. Hail, horrors, hail! ye ever gloomy bowers, Ye gothic fanes, and antiquated towers! Where rushy Camus' slowly-winding flood Perpetual draws his humid train of mud:

Glad I revisit thy neglected reign:

Oh, take me to thy peaceful shade again.

But chiefly thee, whose influence, breath'd from high,
Augments the native darkness of the sky;
Ah, Ignorance! soft salutary power!
Prostrate with filial reverence I adore.
Thrice hath Hyperion roll'd his annual race,
Since weeping I forsook thy fond embrace.
Oh, say, successful dost thou still oppose
Thy leaden ægis 'gainst our ancient foes?
Still stretch, tenacious of thy right divine,
The massy sceptre o'er thy slumbering line?
And dews Lethean thro' the land dispense,
To steep in slumbers each benighted sense?
If any spark of wit's delusive ray
Break out, and flash a momentary day,
With damp cold touch forbid it to aspire,
And huddle up in fogs the dangerous fire.
Oh, say,-She hears me not, but, careless grown,
Lethargic nods upon her ebon throne.
Goddess! awake, arise: alas! my fears!
Can powers immortal feel the force of years?
Not thus of old, with ensigns wide unfurl'd,
She rode triumphant o'er the vanquish'd world:

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In 1744, he seems to have given up his attention to the Muses. Mr. Walpole, desirous of preserving what he had already written, as well as perpetuating the merit of their deceased friend West, endeavoured to prevail with Gray, to whom he had previously become reconciled, to publish his own poems, together with those of West; but Gray declined it, conceiving their productions united, would not suffice to fill even a small volume.

In 1747, Gray became acquainted with Mr. Mason, then a scholar of St. John's College, and afterwards Fellow of Pembroke-Hall. Mr. Mason, who was a man of great learning and ingenuity, had written the year before, his "Monody on the death of Pope," and his "Il Bellicoso," and "Il Pacifico;" and Gray revised these pieces at the request of a friend. This laid the foundation of a friendship that terminated but with life: and Mr. Mason, after the death of Gray, testified his regard for him, by superintending the publication of his works.

The same year he wrote a little Ode on the Death of a favourite Cat of Mr. Walpole's, in which humour and instruction are happily blended: but the following year he produced an effort of much more importance; the fragment of an Essay on the Alliance of Education and Government. Its tendency was to demonstrate the necessary concurrence of both to form great and useful men. It opens with the two following similes. The exordium is rather uncommon; but he seems to have adopted it as a kind of clue to the subject he meant to pursue in the subsequent part of the poem.

As sickly plants betray a niggard earth,
Whose barren bosom starves her gen'rous birth,
Nor genial warmth nor genial juice retains,
Their roots to feed and fill their verdant veins ;
And as in climes, where Winter holds his reign,
The soil, tho' fertile, will not teem in vain,
Forbids her gems to swell, her shades to rise,
Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies;
So draw mankind in vain the vital airs,
Unform'd, unfriended, by those kindly cares
That health and vigour to the soul impart,
Spread the young thought and warm the op'ning heart;
So fond instruction on the growing pow'rs
Of Nature idly lavishes her stores,
If equal Justice, with unclouded face,
Smile not indulgent on the rising race,
And scatter with a free, tho' frugal hand,
Light golden show'rs of plenty o'er the land:
But Tyranny has fix'd her empire there,
To check their tender hopes with chilling fear,
And blast the blooming promise of the year.
This spacious animated scene survey,
From where the rolling orb, that gives the day,
His sable sons with nearer course surrounds
To either pole and life's remotest bounds:
How rude soe'er th' exterior form we find,
Howe'er opinion tinge the varied mind,
Alike to all the kind, impartial Heav'n
The sparks of truth and happiness has giv❜n;
With sense to feel, with mem❜ry to retain,

They follow pleasure, and they fly from pain;
Their judgment mends the plan their fancy draws,
Th' event presages and explores the cause;
The soft returns of gratitude they know,
By fraud elude, by force repel the foe;
While mutual wishes mutual woes endear,
The social smile and sympathetic tear.

Say, then, thro' ages by what fate confin'd
To different climes seem different souls assign'd?
Here measur'd laws, and philosophic ease
Fix and improve the polish'd arts of peace;
Their Industry and Gain their vigils keep,
Command the winds and tame th' unwilling deep;.
Here force and hardy deeds of blood prevail,
There languid Pleasure sighs in ev'ry gale.
Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar

Has Scythia breath'd the living cloud of war;
And where the deluge barst with sweepy sway,
Their arms, their kings, their gods, were roll'd away:
As oft have issu❜d, host impelling host,
The blue-ey'd myriads from the Baltic coast:
The prostrate South to the destroyer yields
Her boasted titles, and her golden fields:
With grim delight the brood of Winter view
A brighter day, and heav'ns of azure hue,
Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose,
And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows,
Proud of the yoke, and pliant to the rod,
Why yet does Asia dread a monarch's nod,
While European freedom still withstands.

Th' encroaching tide that drowns her less'ning lands,
And sees far off, with an indignant groan,
Her native plains and empires once her own?
Can op❜ner skies and sons of fiercer flame
O'erpower the fire that animates our frame;
As lamps, that shed at eve a cheerful ray,
Fade and expire beneath the eye of day?
Need we the influence of the northern star
To string our nerves and steal our hearts to war.
And where the face of Nature laughs around,
Must sick'ning virtue fly the tainted ground?
Unmanly thought! what seasons can control,
What fancy'd zone can circumscribe the soul,
Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs,
By Reason's light, or Resolution's wings,
Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes
O'er Lybia's deserts, and thro' Zembla's snows?
She bids each slumb'ring energy awake,
Another touch, another temper take,
Suspends th' inferior laws that rule our clay;
The stubborn elements confess her sway;
Their little wants their low desires refine,
And raise the mortal to a height divine.
Not but the human fabric from the birth
Imbibes a flavour of its parent earth;
As various tracts enforce a various toil,
The manners speak the idiom of their soil.
An iron race the mountain-cliffs maintain,
Foes to the gentler genius of the plain;
For where unweary'd sinews must be found
With side-long plough to quell the flinty ground,
To turn the torrent's swift descending flood,
To brave the savage rushing from the wood,
What wonder if, to patient valour train❜d,
They guard with spirit what by strength they gain'd?
And while their rocky ramparts round they see,
The rough abode of Want and Liberty,
(As lawless force from confidence will grow)
Insult the plenty of the vales below.

What wonder in the sultry climes, that spread
Where Nile redundant o'er his summer-bed,
From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,
And broods o'er Egypt, with his wat'ry wings,

If, with advent❜rous oar and ready sail,
The dusky people drive before the gale,
Or on frail floats to neighb'ring cities ride,
That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide?

It is much to be lamented that our author did not finish what he had so successfully, begun, as the fragment is deemed superior to every thing in the same style of writing which our language can boast.

In 1750, he put the finishing stroke to his Elegy written in a Country Church-yard, which was communicated first to his friend Mr. Walpole, and by him to many persons of rank and distinction. This beautiful production introduced the author to the favour of Lady Cobham, and gave occasion to a singular composition, called A Long Story: in which various effusions of wit and humour are very happily interspersed.

The Elegy having found its way into the "Magagazine of Magazines," the author wrote to Mr. Walpole, requesting he would put it into the hands of Mr. Dodsley, and order him to print it immediately, in order to rescue it from the disgrace it might have incurred by its appearance in a magazine. The Elegy was the most popular of all our author's productions; it ran through eleven editions, and was translated into Latin by Anstey and Roberts; and in the same year a version of it was published by Lloyd. Mr. Bentley, an eminent artist of that time, wishing to decorate this elegant composition with every ornament of which it is so highly deserving, drew for it a set of designs, as he also did for the rest of Gray's productions, for which the artist was liberally repaid by the author in some beautiful stanzas; but unfortunately no perfect copy of them remains.

It appears, by a letter of Dr. Wharton, that Gray finished his Ode on the Progress of Poetry early in 1755. The Bard also was begun about the same time; and the following beautiful fragment on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude, the next year. The merit of the two former pieces was not immediately perceived, nor generally acknowledged. Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Lloyd and Colman wrote, in concert, two Odes, to "Oblivion" and "Obscurity," in which they were ridiculed with much ingenuity.

"Now the golden morn aloft

Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermil cheek, and whisper soft,
She woos the tardy spring;

Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o'er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.
"New-born flocks, in rust dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wint❜ry trance,
The birds his presence greet:
But chief the sky-lark warbles high
His trembling, thrilling ecstacy;
And, less'ning from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.
"Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The herd stood drooping by:
Their raptures now, that wildly flow,
No yesterday nor morrow know;
'Tis man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.

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