[O] 

[O]

"O how canst thou renounce the boundless store

Of charms which Nature to her votary yields!

The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,

The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;

All that the genial ray of morning gilds,

And all that echoes to the song of even,

All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,

And all the dread magnificence of heaven,

O, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!"

 "I have often wished," says Beattie, in a note on Gray's letter, "to alter this same word [garniture], but have not yet been able to hit upon a better." 

[P] See p. xv.

[P]

[Q] At a subsequent period, after the king had granted him a pension, he received two offers of church preferment in England—the one from Mr. Pitt, of Dorsetshire, of a living in that county worth £150 per annum, the other from Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Winchester, of a living in Hants, valued at £500 a year—neither of which he would accept. In the letter wherein he declines the second noble offer, he thus expresses himself: 

[Q]

 "I wrote the 'Essays on Truth' with the certain prospect of raising many enemies, with very faint hopes of attracting the public attention, and without any views of advancing my fortune. I published it, however, because I thought it might probably do a little good, by bringing to nought, or, at least, lessening the reputation of that wretched system of sceptical philosophy, which had made a most alarming progress, and done incredible mischief to 

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