in them something of softness, that makes criticism deal censure with reluctance: Along the cool, sequestered vale of life, Yet, even here, the idea, as usual, is presented to us in different aspects. Ambi tion is painted as a hot, and then as á noisy, personage; and to these views of his character are opposed the "cool vale,” and the "noiseless tenor," that are thought fit to be associated with the character of the man of content. Gray never could be brought to see when he had said enough. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. The four stanzas that follow, are to me the most pleasing in the Elegy. The no tions appear to memory, original; though to belief and feeling, imitations. But, great as is their general merit, in some particulars they are faulty. The sacredness of the critic's trust, imposes on him sometimes the exertion of self-denial; obliging him to range for blemishes, where his wishes are to find nought but beauties. "Their In the first of the four, the expression "these bones," where only persons had been spoken of, is awkward. bones," would have been less exceptionable. To "protect from insult," is prosaic; and, if the end of the "memorial" was this protection, there is no necessity that we be put in mind, by the sugges tion of the frailness of that memorial, that the end will not be answered. A memorial, protecting from insult, is a mode of expression approaching to nonsense. If protection be ever the result of its erection, it is only in a secondary way. The twenty-first stanza does not set out happily. "Their name," "their Of the years:" whose name? whose years? they were bones, not persons, that were last mentioned: and a nomenclature of bones, followed with the age of each, engraved over their respective repositories, is too ludicrous a fancy to be allowed sanction in the judgment for a moment. meaning there is no doubt; but of that meaning, the expression is unlucky. In all compositions that are serious, the remotest temptation to what is ludicrous should be resisted. Of this idea, Gray himself seems to have felt the truth, and has alluded to it forcibly in his short strictures on Sterne's Sermons. " They are just," says he, "what sermons should "be: but the preacher often totters on "the verge of risibility, and seems ready I Mason. "to dash his periwig in the faces of his "auditors." Sterne's risibility was buffoonery; and an outrage on taste as well as decency. With this Gray is not chargeable. But, in a case where much caution' is necessary, it is not enough not to have erred with intention. The writer is bound to be watchful. For, even in the funeral procession, Levity is sometimes seen to mix; and stands perked up in a corner of the aisle, with the grin half lined on his face, and prepared to come out full, in a moment, if but the slightest down from the plumage of the hearse, borne towards him by the gentlest breath, should chance to tickle his cheek. Hunc tu Romane caveto. "The unlettered Muse, spelling out "the names of the rustics upon their "tomb-stones," is a good image. It has in it more also of life than Parnell's idea; The flat smooth stones that bear a name, P The "strewing of the holy texts," too, is graphical. That some schooling is necessary to induce resignation to death, in general position, is just; though not requiring the quantity of dilatation he has given it in the two following stanzas. Of the word "moralist," the application is incorrect, and provincial. A moralist is "one who "teaches the duties of life." It is the unlettered Muse that is the moralist, not the rustic; who only takes the lesson which his teacher offers to give. Should we even stretch the compass of the word, so as to make it comprehend both the teacher and the taught, the term would be still improper in this place. The lessons are not in morality, but religion. They are not arguments, but authorities. I do not know that the verse would have suffered much, either in strength or beau |