Page images
PDF
EPUB

ter, and merits at large. The different kinds in which he excelled. Gower, Occleve, Lydgate, Hawes, Gawen Douglas, Lyndesay, Bellenden, Dunbar, &c.

PART III.

Second Italian School, of Ariosto, Tasso, &c., an improvement on the first, occasioned by the revival of letters, the end of the fifteenth century. The Lyric Poetry of this and the former age, introduced from Italy by Lord Surrey, Sir T. Wyat, Bryan Lord Vaulx, &c. in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

PART IV.

Spenser, his character. Subject of his poem, allegoric and romantic, of Provençal invention: but his manner of tracing it borrowed from the second Italian school. Drayton, Fairfax, Phineas Fletcher, Golding, Phaer, &c. This school ends in Milton. A third Italian school, full of conceit, began in Queen Elizabeth's reign, continued under James, and Charles the First, by Donne, Crashaw, Cleveland; carried to its height by Cowley, and ending perhaps in Sprat.

PART V.

School of France, introduced after the Restoration, — Waller, Dryden, Addison, Prior, and Pope, which has continued to our own times.

You will observe that my idea was in some measure taken from a scribbled paper of Pope, of which I believe you have a copy. You will also see, I had excluded Dramatic poetry entirely; which if you had taken in, it would at least double the bulk and labour of your book.

I am, sir, with great esteem,

Your most humble and obedient servant,
THOMAS GRAY.

Pembroke Hall,

April 15, 1770.

Note.

There is a most objectionable Classification of the

Poets in Dr. J. Warton's Essay on Pope. v. Ded. V. 1. p. 12.

POEMS.

ODES.

I. ON THE SPRING.

[The original manuscript title given by Gray to this Ode, was Noontide.' It appeared for the first time in Dodsley's Collection, vol. ii. p. 271, under the title of 'Ode.' See Meleager's Ode to Spring, and Jones. Comm. Poes. Asiaticæ. p. 411. This Ode is formed on Horace's Ode ad Sestium, i. iv. Translated into Latin in Musa Etonens. Vol. ii. p. 60.]

Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!

NOTES

Ver. 1. "The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours." Milton. Comus, v. 984. W. Thoms. Spring, 1007. V. 2. So Homer. Hymn. ad Vener. ii. 5:

τὴν δὲ χρυσάμπυκες ὥραι

Δέξαντ' ἀσπασίως περὶ δ' ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἔσσαν.

The Hours also are joined with Venus in the Hymn. ad Apollin. v. 194. And Hesiod places them in her train :

ἄμφι δὲ τήνγε

Ωραι καλλίκομοι στέφον ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσι. Erg. ver. 75.
V. 3. "At that soft season when descending showers

Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flowers." Pope. Temple of Fame, b. i. v. 1. W.-In some editions, "expected" is printed for "expecting." "The flowers that in its womb expecting lie." Dryden. Astræa Redux. Rogers.

V. 4. Apuleius. Nuptiis Cupid. et Psyc. vi. p. 427, ed. Oudendorp: " Hora, rosis, et cæteris floribus purpurabant

The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,

Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink

With me the Muse shall sit, and think

5

10

15

omnia." Also in the Pervigil. Vener. v. 13: "Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floribus." Pope has the same expression in his Past. i. 28: "And lavish Nature paints the purple year." "Gales that wake the purple year." Mallet. Zephyr.

V. 5. Martial. Epig. i. 54: " Sic ubi multisona fervet sacer Atthide lucus." Also in the Epitaphium Athenaidos apud Fabrettum, p. 702: "Cum te, nate, fleo, planctus dabit Attica Aedon." And "Attica volucris." Propert. II. xvi. 6,Ovid. Halieut. v. 110: "Attica avis vernâ sub tempestate queratus." Add Senecæ Herc. Et. v. 200. And Milton. Par. R. iv. 245: "The Attic bird trills her thick-warbled notes." The expression " pours her throat" is from Pope. Essay on Man, iii. 33: "Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat?" So Ovid. Trist. iii. 12. 8. 66 Indocilique loquax gutture vernat avis." V. 7.

V. 10.

"The hollow Cuckoo sings The symphony of Spring.".

Thoms. Spring. Luke.

"Fresh gales and gentle airs

Whisper'd it to the woods." Par. L. viii. 515.

v. Comus. v. 989. and P. L. iv. 327.

V. 12. Milton. Par. L. iv. 246:

"Cool Zephyr." Luke.

"The unpierc'd shade

« PreviousContinue »