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CONCORDANCE

Cook, A. S.: A Concordance to the English Poems of Thomas Gray (Boston and New York, Houghton, 1908).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Northrup, C. S.: A Bibliography of Thomas Gray (Yale Univ. Press, in preparation).

CRITICAL NOTES

.

Gray's poetry shows a distinct gain over his contemporaries in the number of poetic forms which he uses. The introduction of new poetic forms and new meters constituted one of the noticeable changes taking place in English poetry. "Although Gray's biographers and critics have very seldom spoken of it, the most interesting thing in a study of his poetry is his steady progress in the direction of Romanticism. Beginning as a classicist and disciple of Dryden, he ended in thorough-going Romanticism. His early poems contain nothing Romantic; his Elegy has something of the Romantic mood, but shows many conventional touches; in the Pindaric Odes the Romantic feeling asserts itself boldly; and he ends in enthusiastic study of Norse and Celtic poetry and mythology. Such a steady growth in the mind of the greatest poet of the time shows not only what he learned from the age, but what he taught it. Gray is a much more important factor in the Romantic Movement than seems to be commonly supposed."-Phelps, in The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement (1893).

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The original title of this poem was Noontide; it is based upon Horace's Spring's Lesson (Odes, I, 4).

"His ode On Spring has something poetical, both in the language and the thought; but the language is too luxuriant, and the thoughts have nothing new. There has of late arisen a practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the termination of participles, such as the cultured plain, the daisied bank; but I was sorry to see in the lines of a scholar like Gray, the honied spring. The morality is natural, but too stale; the conclusion is pretty."-Samuel Johnson, in "Gray," The Lives of the English Poets (1779-81).

1. In classic mythology the Hours are represented as accompanying Venus and as bringing the changes of the season. The epithet rosy-bosom'd is borrowed from Milton (Comus, 986).

21. The pseudo-classic habit of personificacation is distinctly noticeable in this poem and others of Gray.

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE This poem was written shortly after the death of Richard West, Gray's intimate friend. Two other friends of college days, Ashton and

Walpole, were estranged from Gray at the time.

"The Prospect of Eton College suggests nothing to Gray which every beholder does not equally think and feel. His supplication to father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself."-Samuel Johnson, in "Gray," The Lives of the English Poets (177981).

6. Windsor Castle is on the opposite side of the Thames from Eton College.

58a. 29. In such phrases as this Gray shows the eighteenth century pseudo-classic manner.

59.

79. In a note Gray refers to Dryden's Palamon and Arcite, 2, 582:

And Madness laughing in his ireful mood.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY

This poem was the model of Wordsworth's Ode to Duty (p. 296). It was itself modeled on Horace's Ode to Fortune.

7. The phrase purple tyrants Gray borrowed from Horace (Odes, I, 35, 12). Purple refers to the robes worn by kings.

8. See Milton's Paradise Lost, 2, 703: Strange horror seize thee and pangs unfelt before.

45-46. See note above on Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH

YARD

"As you have brought me into a little sort of distress, you must assist me, I believe, to get out of it as well as I can. Yesterday I had the misfortune of receiving a letter from certain gentlemen (as their bookseller expresses it), who have taken the Magazine of Magazines into their hands. They tell me that an ingenious poem, called Reflections in a Country Churchyard, has been communicated to them, which they are printing forthwith; that they are informed that the excellent author of it is I by name, and that they beg not only his indulgence, but the honor of his correspondence, etc. As I am not at all disposed to be either so indulgent, or so correspondent, as they desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honor they would inflict upon me; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character; he must correct the press himself, and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; and the title must be,-'Elegy, Written in a Country Churchyard.' If he would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better.

If you behold the Magazine of Magazines in the light that I do, you will not refuse to give yourself this trouble on my account, which you have taken of your own accord before now. If Dodsley do not do this immediately, he may as well let it alone."-Gray's Letter to Walpole, Feb. 11, 1751.

"The Church-Yard abounds with images 61. which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas beginning 'Yet even these bones' are to me original: I have never seen the notions in any other place; yet he that reads them here persuades himself that he has always felt them. Had Gray written often thus, it had been vain to blame, and useless to praise him."-Samuel Johnson, in "Gray," The Lives of the English Poets (1779-81).

"Of all short poems-or indeed of all poems whatsoever-in the English language, which has been, for a century and a quarter past, the one most universally, persistently, and incessantly reproduced and quoted from? I suppose, beyond rivalry and almost beyond comparison, The Elegy in a Country Churchyard of Thomas Gray. Such is the glory which has waited upon scant productiveness and relative mediocrity-though undoubtedly nobly balanced and admirably grown and finished mediocrity-in the poetic art. The flute has overpowered the organ, the riding-horse has outstripped Pegasus, and the crescent moon has eclipsed the sun."-W. M. Rossetti, in Lives of Famous Poets (1878).

9-16. If a definite scene is in Gray's mind, it is probably that of the church and graveyard at Stoke Poges.

60. 55-56.

These lines should be compared with the following from Ambrose Philip's The Fable of Thule (1748), 38-40:

In forests did the lonely beauty shine,
Like woodland flowers, which paint the desert
glades,

And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades.
57-60. In an early manuscript version of
the poem, the names used in this stanza are
Cato, Tully, and Cæsar. The changes are sig
nificant of Gray's growing Romanticism.
71-72. A reference to the custom, still com-
mon in Gray's time, of writing complimentary
verses to noted persons to secure their patron-
age. After these lines, in an early manuscript
version, the following stanzas are found:
The thoughtless world to majesty may bow,
Exalt the brave, and idolize success
But more to innocence their safety owe

Than pow'r and genius e'er conspired to
bless.

And thou, who, mindful of th' unhonored dead,
Dost in these notes their artless tale relate,
By night and lonely contemplation led
To linger in the gloomy walks of Fate,

Hark! how the sacred calm, that broods
around,

Bids ev'ry fierce tumultuous passion cease, In still small accents whisp'ring from the ground

A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

No more, with reason and thyself at strife,
Give anxious cares and endless wishes
room;

But through the cool sequestered vale of life
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom.

81. A number of gravestones at Stoke Poges contain misspellings.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY

This and the following poem are known as Gray's Pindaric Odes, perhaps the best ever written in the English language. They conform closely to the structure and manner of Pindar. See note on Collins's Ode on the Poetical Character (p. 1245a). The Progress of Poesy was announced by Gray in a letter to Walpole (undated; No. 97 in Tovey's ed.) in which he said that he might send very soon to Dodsley, his publisher, "an ode to his own tooth, a high Pindaric upon stilts, which one must be a better scholar than he is to understand a line of, and the very best scholars will understand but a little matter here and there." Gray's expectation was fulfilled. When this poem and The Bard were published, few persons read them with appreciation. In a letter to Mason (undated; No. 148 in Tovey's ed.), Gray says: "I would not have put another note to save the souls of all the owls in London. It is extremely well as it is-nobody understands me, and I am perfectly satisfied. Even The Critical Review (Mr. Franklin, I am told), that is rapt and surprised and shudders at me, yet mistakes the Eolian lyre for the harp of Æolus, which, indeed, as he observes, is a very bad instrument to dance to. If you hear anything (though it is not very likely, for I know my day is over), you will tell me. Lord Lyttleton1 and Mr. Shenstone admire me, but wish I had been a little clearer."

In reply to Richard Hurd's letter of thanks for a present of these two odes, Gray wrote as follows (Aug. 25, 1757):

"I do not know why you should thank me for what you had a right and title to; but attribute it to the excess of your politeness; and the more so, because almost no one else has made me the same compliment. As your acquaintance in the University (you say) do me the honor to admire, it would be ungenerous in me not to give them notice, that they are doing a very unfashionable thing; for all people of condition are agreed not to admire, nor even to understand. One very great man, writing to an acquaintance of his and mine, says that he had read them seven or eight times; and that now, when he next sees him, he shall not have above thirty questions to ask. Another (a peer) believes that the last stanza of the second ode relates to King Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell. Even my friends tell me they do not succeed, and write me moving topics of consolation on that

1 George Lyttleton (1709-73), an English author and politician.

2 William Shenstone (1714-63), an English poet. See p. 40.

head.

In short, I have heard of nobody but an actor1 and a doctor of divinity that profess their esteem for them. Oh yes, a lady of quality (a friend of Mason's), who is a great reader. She knew there was a compliment to Dryden, but never suspected there was anything said about Shakespeare or Milton, till it was explained to her; and wishes that there had been titles prefixed to tell what they were about."

"[The] Progress of Poesy, in reach, variety, and loftiness of poise, overfiies all other English lyrics like an eagle. In spite of the dulness of contemporary ears, preoccupied with the continuous hum of the popular hurdy-gurdy, it was the prevailing blast of Gray's trumpet that more than anything else called man back to the legitimate standard."Lowell, in "Pope," My Study Windows (1871). 61. I. 1. "The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions."-Gray's note.

I. 2. "Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul."-Gray's note. 62. I. 3. "Power of harmony to produce all the

graces of motion in the body."-Gray's note. II. 1. "To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends day by its cheerful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night."-Gray's note.

II. 2. "Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. (See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh Fragments, the Lapland and American songs.)"-Gray's note. 62. II. 3. "Progress of poetry from Greece to Chaucer Italy, and from Italy to England. was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Tho. Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them; but this School expired soon after the one arose on the Restoration, and a new French model, which has subsisted ever since." -Gray's note.

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tres and predictions, has little difficulty: for he that forsakes the probable may always find the marvellous. And it has little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as we find something to be imitated or declined. I do not see that The Bard promotes any truth, moral or political. His stanzas are too long, especially his epodes; the ode is finished before the ear has learned its measures, and consequently before it can receive pleasures from their consonance and recurrence. In the second stanza the bard is well described; but in the third we have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that 'Cadwallo hush'd the stormy 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 scorn. These odes are marked by glittering accumulation of ungraceful ornaments; they strike, rather than please; the images are magnified by affectation; the language is labored into harshness. The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. 'Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and nature."-Samuel Johnson, in "Gray," The Lives of the English Poets (1779-81).

"Mr. Fox, supposing the bard sung his song but once over, does not wonder if Edward the First did not understand him. This last criticism is rather unhappy, for though it had been sung a hundred times under his window, it was absolutely impossible King Edward should understand him; but that is no reason for Mr. Fox, who lives almost 500 years after him. It is very well; the next thing I print shall be in Welch,-that's all.”— Gray, in Letter to Mason (undated; No. 148 in Tovey's ed.).

19-20. "The image was taken from a wellknown picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are two of these pictures (both believed original), one at Florence, the other at Paris."—Gray's note.

28. Hoel was a prince and poet of NorthWales. See note on The Death of Hoel, p. 1266b. Soft Llewellyn's lay.-A lay about the gentle Llewellyn, a Welsh prince.

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1 Macbeth, IV, 1, 20.

out, and he wanted to have them copied and reduced to a smaller scale for a new edition. I dissuaded him from so silly an expense, and desired he would put in no ornaments at all. The Long Story was to be totally omitted, as its only use (that of explaining the prints) was gone but to supply the place of it in bulk, lest my works should be mistaken for the works of a flea, or a pismire, I promised to send him an equal weight of poetry or prose: so, since my return hither, I put up about two ounces of stuff, viz. The Fatal Sisters, The Descent of Odin (of both which you have copies), a bit of something from the Welch, and certain little notes, partly from 67. justice (to acknowledge the debt, where I had borrowed anything), partly from ill temper, just to tell the gentle reader that Edward I was not Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor. This is literally all; and with all this, I shall be but a shrimp of an author."-Gray, in Letter to Walpole, Feb. 25, 1768.

The Long Story is a poem by Gray, written in a playful mood.

In a prefatory notice to The Fatal Sisters, Gray states that the poem is "an ode from the Norse tongue, in the Orcades of Thormodus Torfæus, Hafniæ, 1697, folio; and also in Bartholinus." Professor Kittredge has pointed out that the poem is really a free rendering of a Latin translation which accompanied the Norse text in the editions Gray refers to, and that Gray's knowledge of Old Norse was very slight. See Professor Kittredge's "Gray's Knowledge of Old Norse," printed as an Appendix to the Introduction in the Athenæum Press ed. of Gray's Works. The Latin version is printed in the same text. The Norse poem, with a prose translation, may be found also in Corpus Pocticum Boreale, I, 281-83.

"In the eleventh century, Sigurd, earl of the Orkney Islands, went with a fleet of ships and a considerable body of troops into Ireland, to the assistance of Sictryg with the Silken Beard, who was then making war on his father-in-law, Brian, king of Dublin. The earl and all his forces were cut to pieces, and Sictryg was in danger of a total defeat; but the enemy had a greater loss by the death of Brian their king, who fell in the action. On Christmas day (the day of the battle), a native of Caithness in Scotland, of the name of Darrud, saw at a distance a number of persons on horseback riding full speed towards a hill, and seeming to enter into it. Curiosity led him to follow them, till looking through an opening in the rocks, he sa w twelve gigantic figures resembling women. They were all employed about a loom, and as they wove, they sung the following dreadful song, which when they had finished, they tore the web into twelve pieces, and (each taking her portion) galloped six to the north, and as many to the south. These were the Val

68.

kyriur, female divinities, Parca Militares, servants of Odin (or Woden) in the Gothic mythology. Their name signifies Chusers of the Slain. They were mounted on swift horses, with drawn swords in their hands; and in the throng of battle selected such as were destined to slaughter, and conducted them to Valhalla, the hall of Odin, or paradise of the brave; where they attended the banquet, and served the departed heroes with horns of mead and ale. Their numbers are not agreed upon, some authors representing them as six, some as four."-Gray's Preface.

THE DESCENT OF ODIN

"An ode from the Norse tongue, in Bartholinus, De causis contemnendæ mortis, Hafniæ, 1689, quarto."-Gray. The Norse poem is in the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poetry made probably in the thirteenth century. Gray's poem is a free rendering of the Latin translation which Bartholin prints with the Norse text.

In this poem, Odin, the supreme deity in Scandinavian mythology, descends to the lower world to learn from an ancient prophetess what danger threatened Balder, his favorite son. Balder had dreamed that his life was in danger, and Frigga, his mother, had made all things swear not to hurt Balder; but she had omitted the mistletoe, thinking it too insignificant to be dangerous. 55-56. Hoder was Balder's blind brother, Through the influence of the evil being Loki, Hoder unconsciously slew Balder with the mistletoe.

63-70. Vale, the son of Odin and Rinda, when only one night old slew Hoder.

75. The virgins were probably the Scandinavian Norns, or Sisters of Destiny. See The Fatal Sisters (p. 66) and Gray's Preface, above.

THE TRIUMPHS OF OWEN

This and the three following poems are fragments taken from Evans's Specimens of the Antient Welsh Bards, a collection of Welsh poems with English prose translations, followed by a Dissertatio de Bardis, published in 1764. The Triumphs of Owen, which is based on a prose version, commemorates a battle in which Owen, King of North-Wales, resisted the combined attack of Irish, Danish, and Norman fleets, about 1160.

THE DEATH OF HOEL

This and the two following poems are extracts from the Gododin, a relic of sixth century Welsh poetry, included in Evans's Specimens. (See note on The Triumphs of Owen.) Gray used the Latin versions given by Evans in the Dissertatio de Bardis. These are printed in the Athenæum Press ed, of Gray's Works. The Death of Hoel is supposed to celebrate a battle between the Strathclyde Britons and the Northumbrian Saxons. Hoel was a prince and poet of North-Wales,

69.

73.

GRAY'S LETTERS

"Everyone knows the letters of Gray, and remembers the lucid simplicity and directness, mingled with the fastidious sentiment of a scholar, of his description of such scenes as the Chartreuse. That is a well-known description, but those in his journal of a "Tour in the North' have been neglected, and they are especially interesting since they go over much of the country in which Wordsworth They are also dwelt, and of which he wrote. the first conscious effort-and in this he is a worthy forerunner of Wordsworth-to describe natural scenery with the writer's eye upon the scene described, and to describe it in simple and direct phrase, in distinction to the fine writing that was then practiced. And Gray did this intentionally in the light prose journal he kept, and threw by for a time the refined carefulness and the insistence on human emotion which he thought necessary in In his prose poetic description of Nature. we have then, though not in his poetry, Nature loved for her own sake."-Stopford Brooke, in "From Pope to Cowper," Theology in the English Poets (1874).

The persons addressed in the letters printed in the text were Gray's mother and Gray's school and college friends. William Mason was his biographer.

b. 21.

JOURNAL IN THE LAKES

Employment to the mirror-Gray usually carried with him on his tours a planoconvex mirror, about four inches in diameter, which served the purpose of a camera-obscura. 27. The Doctor.-Dr. Thomas Wharton, Gray's friend, for whose amusement the Journal was composed.

55-56. The jaws of Borrodale.-See Wordsworth's Yew-Trees (p. 290). 74a. 30-31. Lodoor waterfall.-See Southey's The Cataract of Lodore (p. 410).

b. 27-28. Cf. Milton's Samson Agonistes, 86

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Veitch, J.: The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border (London, Macmillan, 1877, 1878). Walker, H.: Three Centuries of Scottish Literature, 2 vols. (Glasgow, MacLehose, 1893). Wilson, J. G.: The Poets and Poetry of Scotland, 2 vols. (Glasgow, Blackie, 1876; New York, Harper).

CRITICAL NOTES

"Amid the generally vague verbiage of his [Hamilton's] descriptions, one effort of his genius stands out in vividness of human coloring, in depth and simplicity of feeling, and even to some extent in powerful and characteristic touches of scenery. This is a poem which owes its inspiration to the Yarrow. In fact it was suggested by

It breathes the older poem of The Dowie Dens. the soul of the place, and it is so permeated by the spirit of its history and traditions, that when all the other writings of the author have fallen into oblivion, there will still be a nook in memory and a place in men's hearts for The Braes of Yarrow."-Veitch in The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border (1878).

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THE BRAES OF YARROW

Yarrow is a beautiful river in Selkirkshire, Scotland; it is celebrated in many ballads and songs. See Wordsworth's Yarrow Unvisited (p. 293). Yarrow Visited (p. 308), and Yarrow Revisited (p. 312). Hamilton's poem is a dialogue spoken by three persons, designated "A," "B," and "C."

ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER (1804-1873), p. 1150

EDITIONS

Poetical Works, ed. by J. G. Godwin (London, Paul, 1879).

Poetical Works, ed., with a Preface and Bibliog

raphy, by Alfred Wallis (London, Lane, 1899). Cornish Ballads, and other Poems, ed. by C. E. Byles (London and New York, Lane, 1904).

BIOGRAPHY

Baring-Gould, S.: Robert Stephen Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow (London, Paul, 1876, 1886). Life and Letters of R. S. Hawker Byles, C. E. : (London and New York, Lane, 1905). Memorials of the Rev. R. S. Hawker, ed. by F. G. Lee (London, Chatto, 1876).

CRITICISM

Dial, The, "A Famous Cornish Character," May 1, 1905 (38:308).

Kelley, B. M.: "Hawker of Morwenstow." The
Catholic World, July, 1916 (103:487).
More, P. E.: "The Vicar of Morwenstow," Shel-
burne Essays, Fourth Series (New York and
London, Putnam, 1906).

Noble, J. A.: "Hawker of Morwenstow," The
Sonnet in England (London, Mathews, 1893).

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