which, though either vulgar ignorance or common sense at first univerfally rejected them, many have been fince perfuaded to think themselves delighted. I am one of thofe that are willing to be pleased, and therefore would gladly find the meaning of the first ftanza of the " Progrefs of Poetry."

Gray feems in his rapture to confound the images of "spreading found and running water." A "stream "of mufick," may be allowed; but where does “mufick,” however "fmooth and ftrong," after having vifited the "verdant vales, rowl down the

fteep amain," fo as that "rocks and nodding groves "rebellow to the roar?" If this be faid of Mufick, it is nonsense; if it be faid of Water, it is nothing to the purpose.

The second stanza, exhibiting Mars's car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of further notice. Criticifm difdains to chafe a fchool-boy to his commonplaces.

To the third it may likewife be objected, that it is drawn from mythology, though fuch as may be more eafily affimilated to real life. Idalia's "velvet green" has fomething of cant. An epithet or metaphor drawn from Nature ennobles Art: an epithet or metaphor drawn from Art degrades Nature. Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded. "Many-twink

ling" was formerly cenfured as not analogical; we may faymany-spotted," but scarcely "many-fpot"ting." This ftanza, however, has fomething

pleafing.

Of the fecond ternary of stanzas, the firft endeavours to tell fomething, and would have told it, had it not been croffed by Hyperion: the fecond defcribes

7

fcribes well enough the univerfal prevalence of Poetry; but I am afraid that the conclufion will not rife from the premifes. The caverns of the North and the plains of Chili are not the refidences of "Glory "and generous Shame." But that Poetry and Virtue go always together is an opinion fo pleafing, that I can forgive him who refolves to think it true.

The third ftanza founds big with "Delphi," and "Egean," and Iliffus," and " Meander," and "hal"lowed fountains," and "folemn found;" but in all Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrous fplendour which we wish away. His pofition is at last falfe: in the time of Dante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of Poetry, Italy was over-run by "ty"rant power" and "coward vice;" nor was our ftate much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts.

Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of Shakspeare. What is faid of that mighty genius is true; but it is not faid happily: the real effects of this poetical power are put out of fight by the pomp of machinery. Where truth is fufficient to fill the mind, fiction is worse than ufelefs; the counterfeit debafes the genuine.

His account of Milton's blindness, if we suppose it caused by study in the formation of his poem, a suppofition furely allowable, is poetically true, and happily imagined. But the car of Dryden, with his two courfers, has nothing in it peculiar; it is a car in which any other rider may be placed.

"The Bard" appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti and others have remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. Algarotti thinks it fuperior

to its original; and, if preference depends only on the imagery and animation of the two poems, his judge. ment is right. There is in "The Bard" more force, more thought, and more variety. But to copy is less than to invent, and the copy has been unhappily produced at a wrong time. The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; but its revival dif gufts us with apparent aud unconquerable falfehood, Incredulus odi.

To felect a fingular event, and fwell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions, has little difficulty; for he that forfakes the probable may always find the marvellous. And it has little ufe; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as we find fomething to be imitated or declined. I do not fee that "The Bard" promotes any truth, moral or political.

His ftanzas are too long, efpecially his epodes; the ode is finished before the ear has learned its meafures, and confequently before it can receive pleasure from their confonance and recurrence.

Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It is in the power of any man to rush abruptly upon his fubject, that has read the ballad of Johnny Armstrong,

Is there ever a man in all Scotland-

The initial refemblances, or alliterations, "ruin, ruthless, helm or hauberk," are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at fublimity.

In the fecond ftanza the Bard is well defcribed; but in the third we have the puerilities of obfolete mythology. When we are told that "Cadwallo "hufh'd the ftormy main," and that "Modred "made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd "head," attention recoils from the repetition of a tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard with fcorn.

The weaving of the winding-heet he borrowed, as he owns, from the northern Bards; but their texture, however, was very properly the work of female powers, as the act of fpinning the thread of life in another mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weavers of flaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and incongruous. They are then called upon to "Weave the warp, and weave the

woof," perhaps with no great propriety; for it is by croffing the woof with the warp that men weave the web or piece; and the first line was dearly bought by the admiffion of its wretched correfpondent, "Give "ample room and verge enough." He has, however, no other line as bad.

The third ftanza of the fecond ternary is commended, I think, beyond its merit. The perfonification is indiftinct. Thirst and Hunger are not alike; and their features, to make the imagery perfect, fhould have been difcriminated. We are told, in the

"I have a foul, that like an ample shield
"Can take in all; and erge enough for more."

Dryden's Sebaftian.

fame

fame flanza, how "towers are fed." But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be obferved that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example; but fuicide is always to be had, without expence of thought.

These odes are marked by glittering accumulations of ungraceful ornaments; they ftrike, rather than pleafe; the images are magnified by affectation; the language is laboured into harfbnefs. The mind of the writer feems to work with unnatural violence. "Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of ftrutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of eafe and nature.

To fay that he has no beauties, would be unjuft: a man like him, of great learning and great industry, could not but produce fomething valuable. When he pleases leaft, it can only be faid that a good defign was ill directed.

His tranflations of Northern and Welih Poetry deferve praife; the imagery is preferved, perhaps often improved; but the language is unlike the language of other pets.

In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the common sense of readers, uncorrupted with literary prejudices, after all the refinements of fubtilty and the dogmatifm of learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honours. The "Church-yard" abounds with images which find a mirrour in every mind, and with fentiments to which every bofom returns an echo. The four ftanzas, beginning "Yet even these bones,"

are