And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of
rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn.

V. 30. "The senator at cricket urge the ball."

Pope. Dun. iv. 592.

40

45

50

V. 37. This line is taken from Cowley. Pindarique Ode to Hobbes, iv. 7. p. 223: "Till unknown regions it descries."

V. 40. "Magnaque post lachrymas etiamnum gaudia pallent." Stat. Theb. i. 620. For other expressions of this nature, see Wakefield's note. Add Sil. Ital. xvi. 432, "lætoque pavore." Luke.

66 His sleep

Was airy light, from pure digestion bred,
And temperate vapours bland.❞

V. 44. "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind." Pope. Eloisa, ver. 209. Add Essay on Man, iv. 167, "The soul's calm sunshine."

V. 47. "In either cheeke depeyncten lively cheere," Spenser. Hobbinol's Dittie, ver. 33. W. See Milton. Ps. lxxxiv. 5. "With joy and gladsome cheer." Luke.

V. 49. "The temperate sleeps, and spirits light as air." Pope. Im. of Horace, I. 73; Hor. Od. ii. xi. 7. "facilemque " and Par. L. v. 3:

somnum:

Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:

Yet see, how all around 'em wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, shew them where in ambush stand, To seize their prey, the murth'rous band! Ah, tell them, they are men !

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that sculks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,

"While round, stern ministers of fate,
Pain, and Disease, and Sorrow wait."

55

60

V. 51. "E'en now, regardless of his doom,
Applauding honour haunts his tomb."

Collins. Ode on the Death of Col. Ross, 4th stanza of his first manuscript.

V. 55. These two lines resemble two in Broome. Ode on Melancholy, p. 28:

65

And Otway. Alcib. act v. sc. 2. p. 84: "Then enter, ye grim ministers of fate."

V. 66. "But gnawing Jealousy out of their sight,
Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bite."

V. 61. "The fury Passions from that flood began." See Pope. Essay on Man, iii. 167.

•

V. 63. "Exsanguisque Metus," Stat. Theb. vii. 49. And from him Milton, Quint. Novemb. 148: "Exsanguisque Horror." Pers. Sat. iii. v. 115, "Timor albus."

Spenser. F. Q. vi. 23.

That inly gnaws the secret heart; And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil'd,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,

70

75

80

V. 68. "With praise enough for Envy to look wan.” Milton. Son. to Lawes, xiii. 6. W. Par. L. i. 601, "Care sate on his faded cheek." Luke.

V. 69. Gray has here imitated Shakespeare. Richard III. act i. sc. 1: "Grim-visag'd War," and Com. of Err. act v. sc. 1: "A moody and dull melancholy kinsman to grim and comfortless Despair." Yarrington (Two Trag. in one) "Grimvisag'd Despair." Todd.

V. 76. "Affected Kindness with an alter'd face," Dryden. Hind. and Panth. part iii.

V. 79. "Madness laughing in his ireful mood," Dryden. Pal. and Arc. (b. ii. p. 43. ed. Aik.) Gray. And so K. Hen. VI. p. 1. act iv. sc. 2: "But rather moody mad." And act iii. sc. 1: "Moody fury." Chaucer. Knyghte's Tale, 1152.

V. 81. "Declin'd into the vale of years," Othello, act iii. sc. 3. Compare also Virg. Æn. vi. 275.

The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their queen:

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

.

85

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, 95

90

V. 84. See T. Warton's Milt. p. 432, 434, 511.

V. 90. "His slow-consuming fires." Honour.

V. 83. "Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain," Pope. Essay on Man, ii. 118. Dryden, State of Innoc. act v. sc. 1: "With all the numerous family of Death." Claudian uses language not dissimilar: Cons. Honor. vi. 323: "Inferno stridentes agmine Morbi." And Juv. Sat. x. 218: "Circumsedit agmine facto Morborum omne genus." Hor. Od. 1. iii. 30, "Nova febrium terris incubuit cohors."

Shenstone. Love and

V. 95. We meet with the same thought in Milton. Com. ver. 359.

"Peace, brother; be not over-exquisite

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;

W.

For grant they be so, while they rest unknown, What need a man forestall his date of grief?" V. 98. Soph. Ajax, v. 555: *Εν τῷ Φρονεῖν γαρ μηδεν, dioTos Bios. W. See Kidd's note to Hor. Ep. xi. 2. 140. V. 99. See Prior, (Ep. to Hon. C. Montague, st. ix.)

"From ignorance our comfort flows,

The only wretched are the wise."— Luke.

Add Davenant. Just Italian, p. 32, "Since knowledge is but

Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more;
where ignorance is bliss,

'Tis folly to be wise.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY.*

-Zñva

Τὸν φρονεῖν Βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
σαντα, τῷ πάθει μαθῷν
θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.

ESCH. AGAM. Ver. 181.

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,

[This Ode, suggested by Dionysius' Ode to Nemesis. v. Aratus. ed. Oxford, p. 51, translated by S. Meyrick, in Bell's Fug. Poetry, vol. xviii. p. 161.]

100

66

Ignorance is safe;

I then slept happily; if knowledge mend me not,
Thou hast committed a most cruel sin
To wake me into judgment."

sorrow's spy, it is not safe to know." And Dodsley. Old Plays, xi. p. 119:

*This Hymn first appeared in Dodsley. Col. vol. iv. together with the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard; " and not, as Mason says, with the three foregoing Odes, which were published in the second volume. In Mason's edition it is called an Ode; but the title is now restored, as it was given by the author. The motto from Eschylus is not in Dodsley.

V. 1. "ATη, who may be called the goddess of Adversity, is