O'er Idalia's velvet-green The rosy-crowned Loves are seen With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures, Now pursuing, now retreating, Now in circling troops they meet: To brisk notes in cadence beating, Var. V. 30. Sport] Sports. MS. V. 34. In cadence] The cadence. MS. 30 Fletcher, P. Island, c. ix. s. iii. and Lycidas, 32. Luke. V. 27. "At length a fair and spacious green he spide, Like calmest waters, plain; like velvet, soft." Fairfax. Tasso, xiii. 38. "She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet-green." Young. Love of Fame, Sat. v. p. 128. This expression, it is well known, has met with reprehension from Dr. Johnson; who appears by his criticism to have supposed it first introduced by Gray. It was numbered, however, among the absurd expressions of Pope, by the authors of the Alexandriad, (some of the heroes of the Dunciad,) see p. 288. It occurs in a list of epithets and nouns which Pope had used, and which these authors held up to ridicule. "I'll charm the air to give a sound, While you perform your antic round." V. 30. Macb. act. iv. sc. 1. W. V. 31. "In friskful glee, their frolics play, Thoms. Spring. Luke. V. 32. Wakefield refers to Callimachi Hymn. Dian. 3. and Hom. II. 2. 593. V. 35. Μαρμαρυγὰς θηεῖτο ποδῶν· θαύμαζε δὲ δυμῷ. Hom. Od. O. ver. 265. Gray. "Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves Of aspin tall.” Thoms. Spring, 157. W. 1 Shakespeare has, "Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds," Hen. V. act i. sc. 2. Glance their many-twinkling feet. 95 Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare: Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay. With arms sublime, that float upon the air, In gliding state she wins her easy way: O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move 40 The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love. V. 36. Compare the following stanza of a poem by Barton Booth, in his Life, written in 1718, published 1733: "Now to a slow and melting air she moves, So like in air, in shape, in mien, Swimming round, or sidelong glancing, Strange force of motion that subdues the soul." And Apuleii. Metam. Lib. x. p. 349. ed. Delph. V. 37. "For wheresoe'er she turn'd her face, they bow'd." Dryden. Flower and Leaf, v. 191. V. 39. Incessu patuit Dea," Virg. Æn. i. 405. And see Heyne's quotation from Eustathius. "On all sides round environ'd, wins his way." Par. Lost, ii. 1016. V. 41. Λάμπει δ' ἐπὶ πορφυρέησί Παρείησι φῶς ἔρωτος. Phrynicus apud Athenæum. Gray. -lumenque juventæ Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflårat honores." Virg. Æn. i. 594. W. Add Ovid. Amor. ii. 1. 38: "Purpureus quæ mihi dictat Amor." And ix. 34: "Notaque purpureus tela resumit Amor." And Art. Amor. i. 232. Fast. vi. 252. "purpureà luce." Dryden. Brit. Rediviva, p. 93: "Breath'd Honour on his eyes, and his own purple light." Pope. Hor. Od. iv. 1. " Smiling loves and young desires." Rogers. II. 1. Man's feeble race what ills await! Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate! 45 The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse? ✓ Night and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, 50 He gives to range the dreary sky; V. 42. To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day, by its cheerful presence, to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night. Gray. V. 46. "His fond complaints," Addison. Cato, A. 1, 6. V. 49. Wakefield refers to Milton. Hymn to the Nativity, xxvi. and Par. Reg. iv. 419. But a passage in Cowley is pointed out by his last editor, Dr. Hurd, as alluded to by Gray, vol. i. p. 195: "Night and her ugly subjects thou dost fright, And Sleep, the lazy owl of night; Asham'd and fearful to appear, They skreen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere." Thomson. Spring, "Sickly damps." V. 50. "Love not so much the doleful knell Green. Grotto, 126. "Obscœnique Canes, importunæque Volucres Virg. Georg. i. v. 470. "He withers at the heart, and looks as wan Dryden. Pal. and Arcite. B. 1. V. 52. "Or seen the morning's well-appointed star Cowley. Gray. The couplet from Cowley has been wrongly quoted by Gray, and so continued by his different editors. It occurs in Brutus, an Ode, stan. iv. p. 171. vol. 1. Hurd's ed.: Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war. Var. V. 52. "Till fierce Hyperion from afar Pours on their scatter'd rear, his glitt'ring shafts of war, o'er scatter'd "One would have thought 't had heard the morning crow, Or seen her well-appointed star Come marching up the eastern hills afar." In Gray's Letter to Dr. Wharton, containing a Journal of his Tour to the Lakes, he says: "While I was here, a little shower fell; red clouds came marching up the hills from the east," &c. Mason's ed. 4. p. 175, and Warton's Note on Milton, p. 304. V. 53. In Mant's edition of Warton (vol. ii. p. 41), and in Steevens's note on Hamlet (act i. sc. 2), it is remarked that all the English poets are guilty of the same false quantity, with regard to this word, except Akenside, as quoted by Mant, Hymn to the Naiads, 46; and the author of Fuimus Troes' by Steevens. See Dodsley. Old Plays, vii. p. 500. The assertions, however, of these learned editors are not correct; as will appear from the following quotations: "That Hyperion far beyond his bed Doth see our lions ramp, our roses spread." Drummond (of Hawthornd.) Wand. Muses, p. 180. "Then Hyperion's son, pure fount of day, Did to his children the strange tale reveal." West. Pindar, Ol. viii. 22, p. 63. Gray has used this word again with the same quantity: Hymn to Ignorance, v. 12: "Thrice hath Hyperion roll'd his annual race."1 V. 53. "Non radii solis, neque lucida tela diei," Lucret. 1 The old English Poets (as Jortin remarks) did not regard quantity. Spenser has Iōle, Pylades, Caphǎreus, Rhotean, Amphyon. Gascoyne in his "Ultimum Vale: ""Kinde Erato, II. 2. In climes beyond the solar road, 54 Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, Var. V. 57. Buried natives, shivering' in the Marg. MS. Chill abode, 'dull' in the Marg. MS. 60 i. 148. vi. 39. Ausonii Mosell. 269: "Luciferique pavent letalia tela diei." W. Add Eurip. Phoen. 171. ed. Porson. Εώοις ὅμοια φλεγέθων V. 54. 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.] "Extra anni solisque vias- Virg. Æn. vi. 795. "Tutta lontana dal camin del sole. Petr. Canz. 2. Gray. "Out of the solar walk, and heaven's high way," Dryden. Threnod. August. st. 12. "Inter solisque vias, Arctosque latentes," Manil. i. 450. Pope also has this expression: "Far as the solar walk and milky way," Essay on Man, ch. i. 102. Stat. Sylv. iv. 3. 156. "Ultra sidera, flammeumque solem." Ἠελίοιο κελεύθους. Dionys. Geogr. v. 17. V. 56. "The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn." Milton. Hymn to Nativ. st. xx. W. and wanton Thalia." Turberville in the "Ventrous Lover," stanz. i: "If so Leander durst, from Abydon to Sest, To swim to Hero, whom he chose his friend above the rest." Lord Sterline in his "Third Hour," st. xiii. p. 50: "Then Pleiades, Arcturus, Orion, all." Id. p. 87: "Which carrying Orion safely to the shore." But Orion has all the syllables doubtful. See Erythræi, Ind. Virg. art. Orion. Chaucer and Surrey have Cithĕron. |