Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Two coursers of ethereal race, 105 With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace. III. 3. Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er, Scatters from her pictur'd urn Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. 110 Ver. 102. Closed his eyes in endless night.] Οφθαλμων μεν αμερσε· διδου δ' ήδειαν αοιδην.” Homer, Od. e. v. 64.-GRAY. Mr. Mitford says that the blindness of Homer was accounted for in the same poetical way by the ancients. It was, they say, the phantom of his hero, Achilles, called up by his own desire, which took away his sight by its overwhelming bright ness. The account of Milton's blindness, if we suppose it caused by study in the formation of his poem, a supposition surely allowable, is poetically true and happily imagined.-JOHNSON. Ver. 106. With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resound ing pace.] JOB. "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder." This verse and the foregoing are meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes.-GRAY. Mr. Mitford quotes the following account of Dryden from Pope : "Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine." Ver. 110. Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.] "Words that weep, and tears that speak." COWLEY.-GRAY. But ah! 'tis heard no more Oh! Lyre divine, what daring spirit Ver. 111. But ah! 'tis heard no more.] 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: "Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread?" &c.-GRAY. Ver. 114. -Ample pinion.] This image of Pinder is principally derived from a passage in Horace, in which he contrasts himself with the Theban bard; a passage, which for elegance of thought, beauty of expression, and melody of verse, is not excelled by any part of his lyric compositions. "Multa dircæum levat aura cygnum Tendit, Antoni, quoties in altos Nubium fractus. Ego apis matinæ More modoque, Grata carpentis thyma per laborem Ver. 115. That the Theban eagle bear.] WAKEFIELD. Olymp. ii. 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. Mr. Mitford quotes Like to an eagle in his kingly pride Soaring through his wide empire of the aire." Spenser's Faerie Queene, v. iv. 42. Through the azure deep of air : Ver. 117. Through the azure deep of air.] Lucret. ii. 151. v. 277.-Wakefield. The critic quoted (p. 39.) concludes his remarks on this Ode, which he had written after his observations on the Bard, in a manner which accounts, in my opinion, for the superior pleasure that it has given to him, and also to the generality of readers. "I quit," says he, "this Ode with the strongest conviction of its abundant merit; though I took it up, (for this last attentive perusal,) persuaded that it was not a little inferior to the other. They are not the treasures of imagination only that have so copiously enriched it: it speaks, but surely less feelingly than the Bard, (still my favourite,) to the heart. Can we in truth be equally interested for the fabulous exploded gods of other nations, (celebrated in the first half of this Ode,) as by the story of our own Edwards and Henrys, or allusions to it? Can a description, the most perfect language ever attained to, of tyranny expelling the Muses from Parnassus, seize the mind equally with the horrors of Berkley Castle, with the apostrophe to the tower? ' And spare the meek usurper's holy head!' "I do not mean, however, wholly to decry fabulous subjects or allusions, nor more than to suggest the preference due to historical ones, where happily the poet's fertile imagination supplies him with a plentiful choice of both kinds, and he finds himself capable of treating both, according to their respective natures, with equal advantage.” It will not surely be improper at the conclusion of this Ode, so peculiarly admirable for the musical flow of its numbers, to mention one circumstance relative to English lyric poetry in general, and much to its honour, which has lately been communicated to me by an ingenious friend. It is this::-"That it can fully, at least when in the hands of such a master, support Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun : 120 its harmony without the assistance of music. For there is great reason to believe, that in the Greek Ode, of which we are taught to think so highly, the power of numbers was little perceived without the effectual aid of a musical accompaniment. And we have in proof of this supposition the express testimonies of Cicero and Quintilian. The first, in his Orator, (a finished performance, and of which he speaks himself in the highest terms, Ep. Fam. vi. 18.) makes the following observation: "Sed in versibus res est apertior: quamquam etiam a modis quibusdam, cantu remoto, soluta esse videatur oratio, maximeque id in optimo quoque eorum poëtarum, qui Avpixo a Græcis nominantur: quos cum cantu spoliaveris, nuda pæne remanet oratio."-Orator, No. 183. He gives a farther instance from the poets of his own country, which I do not here cite as any additional proof of the point in question, but as the clearest illustration of his meaning in the foregoing quotation. "Quorum similia sunt quædam etiam apud nostros: velut illa in Thyeste, Quemnam te esse dicam? qui tardâ in senectute: Et quæ sequuntur: quæ, nisi cum tibicen accessit, orationi sunt solutæ simillima."-Ibid. The second testimony, that of Quintilian, is also full to our present purpose. "Poëtas certe legendos Oratori futuro concesserint: num igitur hi sine Mucice? at si quis tam cæcus animi est, ut de aliis dubitet; illos certe, qui carmina ad lyram composuerunt.”—Quintilianus, lib. i. cap. 17. Here we see, that, whatever might be the case with some other kinds of poetry, in the Ode the want of an accompanying lyre could not be dispensed with. Thus then, if we rely on these classical authorities, stood the Greek Ode; claiming, in the exhibition of a beauty so essential to its perfection, the kind assistance of an inferior art: while the lyrics of Mr. Gray, with the richness of imagery and the glow of expression, breathe also the various modulations of an intrinsic and independent melody. For this singular advantage, so little known or considered, Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the Good how far-but far above the Great. we are certainly indebted to rhyme; and, whatever opinion may be formed of its use in other kinds of poetry, we may conclude from hence that it is a necessary support to the harmony of our Ode. |
