an intercourse between their towns during the inundation of the Nile (1. 99 to ***). Those persons would naturally have the first turn to commerce, who inhabited a barren coast like the Tyrians, and were persecuted by some neighbouring tyrant; or were drove to take refuge on some shoals, like the Venetian and Hollander: their discovery of some rich island, in the infancy of the world, described. The Tartar hardened to war by his rigorous climate and pastoral life, and by his disputes for water and herbage in a country without land-marks, as also by skirmishes between his rival clans, was consequently fitted to conquer his rich southern neighbours, whom ease and luxury had enervated: yet this is no proof that liberty and valour may not exist in southern climes, since the Syrians and Carthaginians gave noble instances of both; and the Arabians carried their conquests as far as the Tartars. Rome also (for many centuries) repulsed those very nations, which, when she grew weak, at length demolished † her extensive empire. **** The reader will perceive that the Commentary goes further than the text. The reason for which is, that the Editor found it so on the paper from which he formed that comment; and as the thoughts seemed to be those which Gray would have next graced with the harmony of his numbers, he held it best to give them in continuation. There are other maxims on different papers, all apparently relating to the same subject, which are too excellent to be lost; these, therefore, (as the place in which he meant to employ them cannot be ascertained) I shall subjoin to this note, under the title of detached Sentiments: "Man is a creature not capable of cultivating his mind but in society, and in that only where he is not a slave to the necessities of life. "Want is the mother of the inferior arts, but Ease that of the finer; as eloquence, policy, morality, poetry, sculpture, painting, architecture, which are the improvements of the former. "The climate inclines some nations to contemplation and pleasure; others to hardship, action, and war; but not so as to incapacitate the former for courage and discipline, or the latter for civility, politeness, and works of genius. "It is the proper work of education and government united to redress the faults that arise from the soil and air. "The principal drift of education should be to make men think in the northern climates, and act in the southern. "The different steps and degrees of education may be compared to the artificer's operations upon marble; it is one thing to dig it out of the quarry, and another to square it, to give it gloss and lustre, call forth every beautiful spot and vein, shape it into a column, or animate it into a statue. "To a native of free and happy governments his country is always dear: 'He loves his old hereditary trees: ' (COWLEY.) while the subject of a tyrant has no country; he is therefore selfish and base-minded; he has no family, no posterity, no desire of fame; or, if he has, of one that turns not on its proper object. 66 Any nation that wants public spirit, neglects education, ridicules the desire of fame, and even of virtue and reason, must be ill governed. "Commerce changes entirely the fate and genius of nations, by communicating arts and opinions, circulating money, and introducing the materials of luxury; she first opens and polishes the mind, then corrupts and enervates both that and the body. "Those invasions of effeminate southern nations by the warlike northern people, seem (in spite of all the terror, mischief, and ignorance which they brought with them) to be necessary evils; in order to revive the spirit of mankind, softened and broken by the arts of commerce, to restore them to their native liberty and equality, and to give them again the power of supporting danger and hardship; so a comet, with all the horrors that attend it as it passes through our system, brings a supply of warmth and light to the sun, and of moisture to the air. "The doctrine of Epicurus is ever ruinous to society; it had its rise when Greece was declining, and perhaps hastened its dissolution, as also that of Rome; it is now propagated in France and in England, and seems likely to produce the same effect in both. "One principal characteristic of vice in the present age is the contempt of fame. "Many are the uses of good fame to a generous mind: it extends our existence and example into future ages; continues and propagates virtue, which otherwise would be as short-lived as our frame; and prevents the prevalence of vice in a generation more corrupt even than our own. It is impossible to conquer that natural desire we have of being remembered; even criminal ambition and avarice, the most selfish of all passions, would wish to leave a name behind them." Thus, with all the attention that a connoisseur in painting employs in collecting every slight outline as well as finished drawing which led to the completion of some capital picture, I have endeavoured to preserve every fragment of this great poetical design. It surely deserved this care, as it was one of the noblest which Mr. Gray ever attempted; and also, as far as he carried it into execution, the most exquisitely finished. That he carried it no further is, and must ever be, a most sensible loss to the republic of letters. Mason. STANZAS TO MR. BENTLEY. A FRAGMENT. [See Mason's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 148.] These were in compliment to Bentley, who drew a set of designs for Gray's poems, particularly a head-piece to the Long Story. The original drawings are in the library at Strawberry Hill. See H. Walpole's Works, vol. ii. p. 447. IN silent gaze the tuneful choir among, Half pleas'd, half blushing, let the Muse admire, While Bentley leads her sister-art along, And bids the pencil answer to the lyre. See, in their course, each transitory thought Fix'd by his touch a lasting essence take; Each dream, in fancy's airy colouring wrought, To local symmetry and life awake! V. 3. So Pope. Epist. to Jervas, 13: "Smit with the love of sister-arts we came; And met congenial, mingling flame with flame." 5 V. Dryden to Kneller, "Our arts are sisters," "Long time the sister-arts in iron sleep." V. 7. "Thence endless streams of fair ideas flow, Strike on the sketch, or in the picture glow." V. 8. "When life awakes and dawns at every line." Pope. Ep. to Jervas, v. 4. See also Kidd's note to Hor. A. P. v. 66, from Plato. L The tardy rhymes that us'd to linger on, And catch a lustre from his genuine flame. 10 Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy grace, His quick creation, his unerring line; The energy of Pope they might efface, And Dryden's harmony submit to mine. But not to one in this benighted age Is that diviner inspiration giv'n, That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page, The pomp and prodigality of heav'n. 20 As when conspiring in the diamond's blaze, And dazzle with a luxury of light. Enough for me, if to some feeling breast My lines a secret sympathy 'impart ;' And as their pleasing influence 'flows confest,' A sigh of soft reflection 'heaves the heart.' † 25 15 V. 20. "Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, more." The words within the inverted commas were supplied by Mason, a corner of the old manuscript copy being torn: with all due respect to his memory, I do not consider that he has been successful in the selection of the few words which he has added SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER. WRITTEN IN 1761, AND FOUND IN ONE OF HIS POCKET BOOKS. Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, He had not the method of making a fortune: Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd; No very great wit, he believed in a God: A post or a pension he did not desire, 5 But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire. to supply the imperfect lines: my own opinion is, that Gray had in his mind Dryden's Epistle to Kneller, from which he partly took his expressions: under the shelter of that supposition, I shall venture to give another reading: Enough for me, if to some feeling breast A sigh of soft reflection 'dies away.' V. 1. This is similar to a passage in one of Swift's letters to Gay, speaking of poets: "I have been considering why poets have such ill success in making their court. They are too libertine to haunt ante-chambers, too poor to bribe porters, and too proud to cringe to second-hand favourites in a great family." See Pope. Works, xi. 36. ed. Warton. V. 4. "I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers." Pope. Prol. to Satires, ver. 268. V. 6. Squire] At that time Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of St. David's. Dr. S. Squire died 1766, see Nicholl. Poems, vol. vii. p. 231. Bishop Warburton one day met Dean Tucker, who said that he hoped his Lordship liked his situation at Gloucester; on which the sarcastic Bishop replied, that never bishopric was so bedeaned, for that his predecessor Dr. Squire had made religion his trade, |