Milton, P. L. vii. 12:

98. The flaming bounds, etc. Gray quotes Lucretius, i. 74: "Flammantia moenia mundi." Cf. also Horace, Epist. i. 14, 9: "amat spatiis obstantia rumpere claustra."

99. Gray quotes Ezekiel i. 20, 26, 28. See also Milton, At a Solemn Music, 7: "Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne;" Il Pens. 53: "the fiery-wheeled throne;" P. L. vi. 758:

and id. vi. 771:

101. Blasted with excess of light. Cf. P. L. iii. 380: "Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear."

102. Cf. Virgil, Æn. x. 746: "in aeternam clauduntur lumina noctem," which Dryden translates, "And closed her lids at last in endless night." Gray quotes Homer, Od. viii. 64:

103. Gray, according to Mason, "admired Dryden almost beyond bounds."3

CONTENTS

105. "Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes" (Gray). Cf. Pope, Imit. of Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 267:

106. Gray quotes Job xxxix. 19: "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?"

108. Bright-eyed. The MS. has "full-plumed."

110. Gray quotes Cowley, Prophet: "Words that weep, and tears that speak."

Dugald Stewart remarks upon this line: "I have sometimes thought that Gray had in view the two different effects of words already described; the effect of some in awakening the powers of conception and imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions."

111. "We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his choruses; above all in the last of Caractacus:

113. Wakes thee now. Cf. Elegy, 48: "Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre."

115. "[Greek: Dios pros ornicha theion]. Olymp. ii. 159. Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of their noise" (Gray).

Cf. Spenser, F. Q. v. 4, 42:

 Prev. P 58/96 next