Select Poems Of Thomas Gray Part 24

"Praeceps aerii specula de montis in undas Deferar; extremum hoc munus morientis habeto."

As we have given Johnson's criticism on _The Progress of Poesy_, we append his comments on this "Sister Ode:"

"'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 superior to its original; and, if preference depends only on the imagery and animation of the two poems, his judgment 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 disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood. _Incredulus odi_.

"To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres 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 pleasure from their consonance 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 subject, that has read the ballad of 'Johnny Armstrong,'

'Is there ever a man in all Scotland--'

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

"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-topt head,' attention recoils from the repet.i.tion of a tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard with scorn.

"The _weaving_ of the _winding-sheet_ 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 spinning the thread of life is another mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weavers of slaughtered 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 crossing the _woof_ with the _warp_ that men weave the _web_ or piece; and the first line was dearly bought by the admission of its wretched correspondent, 'Give ample room and verge enough.' He has, however, no other line as bad.

"The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, beyond its merit. The personification is indistinct. _Thirst_ and _Hunger_ are not alike; and their features, to make the imagery perfect, should have been discriminated. We are told, in the same stanza, how 'towers are fed.' But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example; but suicide is always to be had, without expense of thought."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEAD OF OLYMPIAN JOVE.]

HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

This poem first appeared in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. iv., together with the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." In Mason's and Wakefield's editions it is called an "Ode," but the t.i.tle given by the author is as above.

The motto from aeschylus is not in Dodsley, but appears in the first edition of the poems (1768) in the form given in the text. The best modern editions of aeschylus have the reading, [Greek: ton (some, toi) pathei mathos]. Keck translates the pa.s.sage into German thus:

"Ihn der uns zur Sinnigkeit leitet, ihn der fest den Satz Stellet, 'Lehre durch das Leid.'"

Plumptre puts it into English as follows:

"Yea, Zeus, who leadeth men in wisdom's way, And fixeth fast the law Wisdom by pain to gain."

Cf. Mrs. Browning's _Vision of Poets_:

"Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death."

1. Mitford remarks: "[Greek: Ate], who may be called the G.o.ddess of Adversity, is said by Homer to be the daughter of Jupiter (_Il._ [Greek: t.] 91: [Greek: presba Dios thugater Ate, he pantas aatai).

Perhaps, however, Gray only alluded to the pa.s.sage of aeschylus which he quoted, and which describes Affliction as sent by Jupiter for the benefit of man." The latter is the more probable explanation.

2. Mitford quotes Pope, _Dunciad_, i. 163: "Then he: 'Great tamer of all human art.'"

3. _Torturing hour_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ ii. 90:

"The va.s.sals of his anger, when the scourge Inexorable, and the torturing hour, Calls us to penance."

5. _Adamantine chains_. Wakefield quotes aeschylus, _Prom. Vinct._ vi.: [Greek: Adamantinon desmon en arrektois pedais]. Cf. Milton, _P.

L._ i. 48: "In adamantine chains and penal fire;" and Pope, _Messiah_, 47: "In adamantine chains shall Death be bound."

7. _Purple tyrants_. Cf. Pope, _Two Choruses to Tragedy of Brutus_: "Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand." Wakefield cites Horace, _Od._ i. 35, 12: "Purpurei metuunt tyranni."

8. _With pangs unfelt before_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ ii. 703: "Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."

9-12. Cf. Bacon, _Essays_, v. (ed. 1625): "Certainly, Vertue is like pretious Odours, most fragrant when they are incensed [that is, burned], or crushed:[1] For _Prosperity_ doth best discover Vice;[2]

But _Adversity_ doth best discover Vertue."

[Footnote 1: So in his _Apophthegms_, 253, Bacon says: "Mr. Bettenham said: that virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that give not their sweet smell till they be broken or crushed."]

[Footnote 2: Cf. Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, ii. 1: "It is the bright day that brings forth the adder."]

Cf. also Thomson:

"If Misfortune comes, she brings along The bravest virtues. And so many great Ill.u.s.trious spirits have convers'd with woe, Have in her school been taught, as are enough To consecrate distress, and make ambition E'en wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune."

16. Cf. Virgil, _aen._ i. 630: "Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco."

18. _Folly's idle brood_. Cf. the opening lines of _Il Penseroso_:

"Hence, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly, without father bred!"

20. Mitford quotes Oldham, _Ode_: "And know I have not yet the leisure to be good."

22. _The summer friend_. Cf. Geo. Herbert, _Temple_: "like summer friends, flies of estates and sunshine;" Quarles, _Sion's Elegies_, xix.: "Ah, summer friendship with the summer ends;" Ma.s.singer, _Maid of Honour_: "O summer friendship." See also Shakespeare, _T. of A._ iii. 6:

"_2d Lord_. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship.

"_Timon_ [_aside_]. Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds are men;"

and _T. and C._ iii. 3:

"For men, like b.u.t.terflies, Shew not their mealy wings but to the summer."

Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind Horace, _Od._ i. 35, 25:

"At vulgus infidum et meretrix retro Perjura cedit; diffugiunt cadis c.u.m faece siccatis amici Ferre jugum pariter dolosi."

25. _In sable garb_. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens._ 16: "O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue."