Antic is the same word as antique. The association between what is old or old-fashioned and what is odd, fantastic, or grotesque is obvious enough. Cf. Milton, Il Pens. 158: "With antick pillars massy-proof." In S. A. 1325 he uses the word as a noun: "Jugglers and dancers, anticks, mummers, mimicks." Shakes. makes it a verb in A. and C. ii. 7: "the wild disguise hath almost Antick'd us all."

31. Cf. Thomson, Spring, 835: "In friskful glee Their frolics play."

32, 33. Cf. Virgil, Æn. v. 580 foll.

35. Gray quotes Homer, Od. ix. 265: [Greek: marmarugas thêeito podôn thaumaze de thumôi]. Cf. Catullus's "fulgentem plantam." See also Thomson, Spring, 158: "the many-twinkling leaves Of aspin tall."

36. Slow-melting strains, etc. Cf. a poem by Barton Booth, published in 1733:

37. Cf. Dryden, Flower and Leaf, 191: "For wheresoe'er she turn'd her face, they bow'd."

39. Cf. Virgil, Æn. i. 405: "Incessu patuit dea." The gods were represented as gliding or sailing along without moving their feet.

 

41. Purple light of love. Cf. Virgil, Æn. i. 590: "lumenque juventae Purpureum." Gray quotes Phrynichus, apud Athenæum:

See also Dryden, Brit. Red. 133: "and her own purple light."

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).

43 foll. See on Eton Coll. 83. Cf. Horace, Od. i. 3, 29-33.

 

46. Fond complaint. Foolish complaint. Cf. Shakes. M. of V. iii. 3:

Milton, S. A. 812: "fond and reasonless," etc. This appears to be the original meaning of the word. In Wiclif's Bible. 1 Cor. i. 27, we have "the thingis that ben fonnyd of the world." In Twelfth Night, ii. 2, the word is used as a verb=dote:

49. Hurd quotes Cowley:

Wakefield cites Milton, Hymn on Nativity, 233 foll.: "The flocking shadows pale," etc. See also P. R. iv. 419-431.

50. Birds of boding cry. Cf. Green's Grotto: "news the 

 Prev. P 54/96 next