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As my business then lay

there," said he, " that was my reason for fixing on Wakefield as the field of action." CRADOCK's Mem. vol. 4, p. 286.

Oct. 24, 1761. "MR. GLOVER has pub- | Wakefield. lished his long-hoarded Medea, as an introduction to the House of Commons; it had been more proper to usher him from school to the University. There are a few good lines, not much conduct, and a quantity of iambics and trochaics, that scarce speak English, and yet have no rhyme to keep one another in countenance. If his chariot is stopt at Temple Bar, I suppose he will take it for the Straits of Thermopyla, and be delivered of his first speech before its time."-H. WALPOLE, vol. 2, p. 311.

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In reviewing his "Beauties of English Poetry," (2 vols. 6s.), "Monthly Review," vol. 36, p. 491, his preface is called unaccountable and uncouth, and his introductory observations on the several poems, "still more wrong-headed, more singular, more affected, and more absurd." Thomson, in the opinion of this mighty critic, is a verbose and affected poet, and Shenstone's "Pastoral Ballads," have neither learning nor simplicity; but his "Schoolmistress" is one of those happinesses in which a poet excels himself! Gay's burlesque pastorals are in the manner of Theocritus. Who that reads criticisms can forbear crying out with the Shepherd in Virgil,

"Quid facient Domini, audent cum talia fures ?"

Cradock used to offer Goldsmith every aid in his power as to his works, i. e. in suggesting amendments.

“As to my ‘Hermit,'” said Goldsmith, "that poem, Cradock, cannot be amended."

GOLDSMITH makes Miss Richland argue "that severity in criticisms is necessary," and says, "It was our first adopting the severity of French taste, that has brought them in turn to taste us."-Good-natured Man.

DEDICATION of "She Stoops to Conquer," to Johnson.

"I have particularly reason to thank you for your partiality to this performance. The undertaking a comedy not merely sentimental, was very dangerous, and Mr. Colman, who saw this piece in its various stages, always thought it so."

Gray.

On the publication of his "Fatal Sisters," "Descent of Odin," and "Triumph of Odin," the "Monthly Review, (1768), vol. 38, p. 408, says " These turn chiefly on the dark diableries of the Gothic times; and if to be mysterious and to be sublime be the same thing, these deep-wrought performances must undoubtedly be deemed so. For our parts we shall for ever regret the departure of Mr. Gray s muse from that elegantly moral simplicity she assumed in the "Country Churchyard."

MASON's edition. "The whole collection

is, for a writer of Mr. Gray's poetical pow-
ers and propensities, singularly small. His
muse, though certainly the most enthusiastic
admirer of Nature, has gathered a mere
nosegay from her breast, –
‚—an assemblage,
indeed, of uncommon and highly-flavoured
flowers; but it is in a wilderness of this
kind that we wish to range at large."-
Monthly Review, vol. 52, p. 377

Ibid. vol. 53, p. 102. His Elegy said here

He had occasion "to pay a journey to to be imitated from one by Gay. Here is

a former dictum contradicted then. "It is observable, that sublimity of genius has been generally attended with a strong affection for the demonry of the ancient northern fable. Milton was particularly fond of it. It was the study of his youth, and the dream of his age. This passion seems natural. There is something sublime in the Celtic mythology,―in the idea of ancient hardyhood, and the feats of former times, that is peculiarly adapted to a natural grandeur of imagination. In the mythology of the Greeks every thing seems little, seems puerile in comparison. Hence Mr. Gray's strong attachment to every thing that breathed of the former. The hall of Odin was heaven itself to him (!!), and Ossian 'the very dæmon of poetry.''

1775.

"Not long since," says CRADOCK, (vol. 1, p. 184), "I received a very kind message from the Rev. Mr. Bright of Skeffington Hall, in Leicestershire, to inform me that he had wished to deposit with me all the remaining papers and documents of Mr. Gray, as bequeathed to him by Mr. Stonhewer; but that he found they had all been carried to Rome inadvertently by a learned editor!"

GRAY made a little book (of his own travels, I suppose), with delineations of woods, rivers, and remarkable buildings on each side of the road."-CRADOCK, vol. 2,

p. 131.

"THE next best thing, after instructing the world profitably, is to amuse it innocently. England has lost that man (Gray) who of all others in it was best qualified for both these purposes; but who from early chagrin and disappointment had imbibed a disinclination to employ his talents beyond the sphere of self-satisfaction and improvement."- Mason to Beattie.-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 206.

"MR. DILLON writes me word, that Mason says he is tempted to throw his Life of Mr. Gray (which is now finished, or nearly so), into the fire, so much is he dissatisfied with the late decision on literary property."BEATTIE, vol. 1, p. 346.

"Times," Wednesday, 23d Dec. 1835.— Ar a sale of autographs, " Gray's assignment of his two Odes, the 'Progress of Poetry,' and the 'Bard,' for forty guineas. 29 June, 1757. Mr. Wilks, M.P., purchased this for eight guineas. (Mason relates that Gray was "too high-minded to receive remuneration for his productions.)"

GRAY and Walpole wrote from Italy a little in the style of Erskine and Boswell.

"I AGREE with you (George Montagu), most absolutely in your opinion about Gray. He is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, from living reclusively, and from a little too much dignity, he never converses easily. All his words are measured and chosen, and formed

BEATTIE gives a very amiable account of into sentences. His writings are admirable; him.-Life of Beattie, vol. 1, p. 65.

THE notes to the two Pindaries, first printed in the Glasgow edition, Beattie thought more copious than were necessary. "But I understand," he says, "he is not a little chagrined at the complaints which have been made of their obscurity, and he tells me that he wrote these notes out of spite."-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 104.

he himself is not agreeable."-H. WALPOLE. Letters, vol. 1, p. 194.

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merit in having travelled one's eyes over so many reams of paper, than in having carried one's legs over so many acres of ground ?”—Ibid.

“My Lady Ailesbury has been much diverted, and so will you too. Gray is in their neighbourhood. My Lady Carlisle says, he is extremely like me in his manner. They went a party to dine on a cold loaf (?), and passed the day. Lady Ailesbury protests he never opened his lips but once, and then only said, 'Yes, my lady, I believe so."" -Ibid. vol. 2, p. 159.

"GRAY has translated two noble incan

tations from the Lord knows who, a Danish Gray, who lived the Lord knows when. They are to be enchased in a history of English bards, which Mason and he are writing; but of which the former has not written a word yet, and of which the latter, if he rides Pegasus at his usual footpace, will finish the first page two years hence."-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 239.

"GRAY has added to his Poems three

ancient Odes from Norway and Wales. The subjects of the two first are grand and picturesque, and there is his genuine vein in them; but they are not interesting, and do not, like his other poems, touch any passion. Our human feelings, which he masters at will in his former pieces, are here not affected. Who can care through what horrors a Runic savage arrived at all the joys and glories they could conceive, the supreme felicity of boozing ale out of the skull of an enemy in Odin's Hall? Oh, yes! just now, perhaps, these Odes would be toasted at many a contested election."Ibid. vol. 3, p. 234.

Aug. 13, 1771. "I HAVE, I own, been much shocked at reading Gray's death in the papers. In an hour that makes one forget any subject of complaint, especially towards one with whom I lived in friendship from thirteen years old."—Ibid. vol. 3, p. 381.

"GRAY never wrote any thing easily but things of humour. Humour was his natural and original turn; and though from his childhood he was grave and reserved, his genius led him to see things ludicrously and satirically; and though his health and dis. satisfaction gave him low spirits, his melancholy turn was much more affected than his pleasantry in writing."-Ibid. vol. 4, p. 14.

"Ir may so happen, that a writer, from a happy circumstance, may acquire a reputation as just as it is instantaneous. This was the case with the late Mr. Gray, who, by his happening to be conversant in fashionable company, gained a complete century in point of reputation. For though fashionable writers are most justly set in opposition to good, the very epithet implying that their works will not last, yet fashion is now and then in the right, as well as other fools."-PINKERTON. Letters of Literature, p. 103.

"I EVEN admire Mr. Gray's plan of wearing mustachios for a considerable time, to show that he despised every possibility of ridicule."-PINKERTON, Lett. of Lit. p. 264.

66

Lionel and Clarissa.

'Lady Mary. I have been telling him of the poem my late brother, Lord Jessamy, made on the mouse that was drowned.

Col. Oldboy. Ay, a fine subject for a poem; a mouse that was drowned in a —.

Lady M. Hush, my dear Colonel, don't mention it! To be sure the circumstance was vastly indelicate; but for the number of lines the poem was as charming a morsel;-I heard the Earl of Punley say, who understands Latin, that it was equal to any thing in Catullus."

Young.

WHAT Mrs. Carter (to Mrs. M. vol. 1, p. 72), says of Rousseau is more applicable to

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In the Natural Son, Jack Hustings brings a brace of trout, the first he had taken that season, and presently he asks whether birds are plenty, and says, "I'll come and brush the stubbles for thee in a week or two's time."

Strange Conceit.

SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE (Essays, 79) has as odd a conceit as that of Quarles and Hugo. "It is strange," he says, "that the Jew should not from the triangular architecture of his own heart conclude the Trinity of the Godhead, whose temple it was appointed to be."

Metre.

OVID wrote Getic verses in Latin measure.-Pont. iv. xiii. 19.1

And from a like feeling the monks wrote Latin rhymes.

BISHOP KEN'S Poems DEDICATION.-He seems to have regarded his successor's fate as judicial-which I am sorry to see.

"The dolorous remnant of his days."
P. 3. Philhymno he calls himself.
State earthquakes.

5. "Before the pheasant cocks began their crows."

30. The Virgin Mary

DEDICATION of the Brothers to the Duke "Swadling him by the light of his own rays!"

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192. Poetry the language of man before the fall.

193. The Patriarchs made sacred pastorals and sonnets.

197. How the Curetes overnoised his cry. 200. Poets in heaven.

234. "Unappeasable as hell." 1

274. "Oft with his tears he ballasted his boat."

God who always tenders hearts contrite. 276. "Men fierce as fiends they wor

shipped."

God has the caput mortuum of his age."

Edmund, p. 339.

"Soon as morn rising on its wings of light Takes o'er the world its instantaneous flight."

I think he had Chamberlain's lines in his mind,

"The sun on light's dilated wings had fled To wake the western villagers from bed." Edmund, 291.

66

Hilda, who kept death always in her eye,

He always writes massacre-the French In sickness nothing had to do but die. pronunciation.

Vol. 2.

P. 5. “Where Beelzebub sits broiling on his throne."

"On Asafætida the whole was built."

14. "Despair no disappointment ever
knows,

No fear, surprize, or danger undergoes:
Despair feels no ambition, no disgrace.
What every saint of resignation boasts,
Despair is all that to infernal ghosts,
Jehovah conquers
all things but despair."

17. Mammon in a gold cage.
20. Dragon, and the remoras, and the sy-

rens.

23. Catching torpedoes.

The storm.

69. The author's prophecy concerning himself by the name of Kennes.

76. Lines which Parnell has certainly imitated in the Hermit.

90-1. Satan disguising himself. 98. "Satan riding a snake," and

"Turning the brute's own sting to spur

flight."

Lucifer's palace.

its

With a sweet patience she endured her pain."

293-4. Hilda's death passionate, and at the same time most fantastic.2

Maggi's verse may be applied to Ken's devotional poems.

"Belle d'affetti più che di pensieri." Tom. 2, p. 26.

And these also,

"Più che gl'ingegni alteri
Ama i cuori divoti, e nè suoi canti
Val per esser Poeta essere Amanti."
Ibid.

Matthew Stevenson.

AUTHOR of Norfolk Drollery, or a Compleat Collection of the newest Songs, Jovial Poems, and Catches, &c. 1673. So says Nichols-but this title seems rather to designate a collection.

Robert Wolseley.

YOUNGER Son of Sir Charles Wolseley of Staffordshire. The father was one of Cromwell's lords, and the son took an active and

129-30. Edmund released by natural honourable part in the Revolution. He

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