"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,

105

Or crazed with Care, or crossed in hopeless Love.

I rather wonder that he rejected this stanza, as it not only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms us peculiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the account of his whole day whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we have only his morning walk, and his noon-tide repose.-MASON. Ver. 101. "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech.] Propter aquæ rivum sub ramis arboris altæ."

:

Lucretius.-WAKEFIELD.

"Near a brook shaded by a lofty tree."

Ver. 103. His listless length at noontide would he stretch.] The following lines are cited in this place by Mr. Mitford:

Scott's Amwell, p. 22. Park's ed.

Ver. 104. And pore upon the brook that babbles by.]

Several thoughts of this stanza are taken from Shakspeare:

"Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook, which brawls along this wood." As You Like It, act ii. sc. 1.-WAKEFIELD. Ver. 107. Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn.] So Spenser:

"One morn I missed him on the customed hill,

Along the heath, and near his favourite tree; 110 Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

"The next, with dirges due in sad array,

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne :

Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay 115 Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

"All as the sheepe, such was the shepheard's looke:
For pale and wanne he was, (alas! the while,)
May seem he loved, or else some care he tooke."

January, Ver. 8.-WAKEFIELD.

Ver. 116. Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.] Between this line and the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought (and in my opinion very justly) that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines, however, are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation:

"There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,

And little footsteps lightly print the ground.”—M.

I find the first traces of this beautiful idea in an Epitaph upon Timon in the Anthologia:

“ Ως επ' εμοι μη δ' ορνις εν ειαρι κουφον ερειδοι

Ίχνος.”

"Nor print the feathered warbler in the spring

His little footstep lightly on my grave."

Whether Gray's Elegy, or Collins's Dirge in Cymbeline, was prior in point of time, I cannot determine. This thought, which is found in both poems, is wrought up unquestionably to much

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth

A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown: Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,

And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompence as largely send:

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greater perfection in the Elegy; though I would not be understood by this preference to disparage the other poem, which breathes a genuine pathos, and is impressed with indubitable marks of an original wildness of imagination and true genius. "To fair Fidele's grassy tomb

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring

Each opening sweet, of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring."

Collins

"The redbreast oft at evening hours
Shall kindly lend his little aid,

With hoary moss and gathered flowers,

To deck the ground where thou art laid."

· Had fortune smiled propitious as his muse”— would have been the only cotemporary capable of attaining the excellence of Mr. Gray. His natural powers, his enthusiasm, and his feelings, seem to have qualified him for all that is sublime and beautiful in poetry.-WAKEFIELD.

Ver. 117. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth.] The classical reader is much indebted to Mr. Mitford for reminding him in this place of that truly pathetic sentence of Pliny, Hist. Nat. ii. 63:-" Nam terra novissime complexa gremio jam a reliquâ natura abnegatos, tum maxime, ut mater operit."

Ver. 121. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere.] The

He gave to misery (all he had) a tear,

He gained from heaven ('twas all he wished) a

friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,)

The bosom of his Father and his God.

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editor of Cowley's Works has observed, that Gray seems to have had his eye on the following lines:

Large was his soul, as large a soul as e'er

Submitted to inform a body here."

Vol. i. p. 119.-Hurd's ed.

Ver. 127. There they alike in trembling hope repose.]

" Paventosa speme." Petr. Son. 114.-GRAY. A writer in the Quarterly Review has observed that Hooker, whose sublimities sometimes touch on the confines of very noble poetry," has defined hope to be a trembling expecta. tion of things far removed."

Ver. 128. The bosom of his Father and his God.] The Epitaph before us has been commented on, and translated into different languages, by various men of eminence, most of them divines. Did it ever occur to any of these, that there was an impropriety in making the bosom of Almighty God an abode for human frailty to repose in?

Unless the author meant by the word bosom, only remembrance, there is surely a very strange inconsistence in the expression.

A LONG STORY.

IN Britain's isle, no matter where,
An ancient pile of building stands :
The Huntingdons and Hattons there

Employed the power of fairy hands

a Mr. Gray's Elegy, previous to its publication, was handed about in MS. and had, amongst other admirers, the Lady Cobham, who resided in the mansion-house at Stoke-Pogeis. The performance inducing her to wish for the Author's acquaintance, Lady Schaub and Miss Speed, then at her house, undertook to introduce her to it. These two ladies waited upon the Author at his aunt's solitary habitation, where he at that time resided, and not finding him at home, they left a card behind them. Mr. Gray, surprised at such a compliment, returned the visit; and as the beginning of this intercourse bore some appearance of romance, he gave the humorous and lively account of it which the Long Story contains.-WAKEFIELD.

This piece was rejected by Mr. Gray in the second edition of his poems being, however, reinstated by his executor, it has retained its place ever since.

Ver. 2. An ancient pile of building stands.] The mansionhouse at Stoke-Pogeis, then in the possession of Viscountess Cobham. The style of building, which we now call Queen Elizabeth's, is here admirably described, both with regard to its beauties and defects; and the third and fourth stanzas delineate the fantastic manners of her time with equal truth and humour. The house formerly belonged to the Earls of Huntingdon and the family of Hatton.--MASON.

Ver. 4. Employed the power of fairy hands.] The reader