head."

Dr. Johnson, in his hypercritical comments on this Ode, says: "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." To which Mitford replies by asking, "Are we by this rule to judge the following passage in the twentieth chapter of Rasselas? 'As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: "Answer," said she, "great Father of Waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint."'"

 

23. Margent green. Cf. Comus, 232: "By slow Mæander's margent green."

24. Cf. Pope, Essay on Man, iii. 233: "To Virtue, in the paths of Pleasure, trod."

26. Thy glassy wave. Cf. Comus, 861: "Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave."

 

27. The captive linnet. The adjective is redundant and "proleptic," as the bird must be "enthralled" before it can be called "captive."

28. In the MS. this line reads, "To chase the hoop's illusive speed," which seems to us better than the revised form in the text.

30. Cf. Pope, Dunciad, iv. 592: "The senator at cricket urge the ball."

37. Cf. Cowley, Ode to Hobbes, iv. 7: "Till unknown regions it descries."

40. A fearful joy. Wakefield quotes Matt. xxviii. 8 and Psalms ii. 11. Cf. Virgil, Æn. i. 513:

See also Lear, v. 3: "'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief."

44. Cf. Pope, Eloisa, 209: "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind;" and Essay on Man, iv. 168: "The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy."

 

45. Buxom. Used here in its modern sense. It originally meant pliant, flexible, yielding (from A. S. búgan, to bow); then, gay, frolicsome, lively; and at last it became associated with the 

 Prev. P 47/96 next