"ful homage, which you regard not, shall

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gain me immortal fame. The flame, "which you repay not with kindred

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flame, shall spread its contagion over many hearts. hearts. As a living principle, it "shall pervade my verse. I see it, in

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Fancy's eye, shooting its sparks into "future ages; and (when the two fair "orbs that inspired it are closed, and the

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tongue that sung their praises is cold)

SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE!"

Versified thus:

AH! how within me glows the subtle flame!

To all but one fair infidel confess'd.

She, only dear, supreme in worth and fame,
She only, doubts her empire in my breast:
Thou rich in beauty!—yet, in faith how poor!
Speaks not my fever'd eye the wasting grief?
-But for my luckless star, ere now, full sure,
Some drops from Pity's fount had brought relief.
Yet glows not, meedless quite, the warm desire ;-

But, when our dust has filled the fatal urn,

Long, in my verse, shall live the genial fire,
Which warm'd thy bosom cold to no return.—

Wide shall its sparks the kindred flame inspire;
And other Lauras melt ;-and other Petrarchs mourn!

So much for this celebrated sentiment,

in the Elegy written in a Country Churchyard; a sentiment which it is heresy not to support, and sluggishness not to feel: and so much for the passage of Petrarch, on which Gray supposed he had built it. If one line, in which there is a little of point, be excepted, the sonnet of which it makes the close, is as simple as ever was sung. A tuneful lover consoles himself for the hardness of his mistress's heart, by anticipating the enthusiasm with which posterity will read the verses, in which he has sung her praise. Here is no voice of Nature crying from the grave of the dead; here are no inurned ashes glowing with posthumous fires. It is not the ashes of Petrarch and Laura that glow, but posterity that glows, when Petrarch and Laura are no more.*

"Fredda una lingua, et due begli occhi chiusi." 2 I subjoin the Sonnet at length, as Petrarch gave it. I observe CASTELVETRO has explained the passage as the

On this sonnet of Petrarch, mishap seems to have been entailed.

Cowley,

to whom Petrarch was an inexhaustible

mine, struck upon it, in one of his days of digging. He knew it, by its general appearance, to be ore, and set himself accordingly to smelt it; but so clumsily did he perform the operation, and so

author of the Criticism apprehends it. "CHE quos;" in reference to "mille." The misconception of this reference, and an inattention to the absolute construetion, in the verse, "Fredda una lingua, e duo begli occhi chiusi," seem to have given rise to the English poet's mistake.-EDITOR.

LASSO, Ch'i' ardo; ed altri non mel crede:
Sì crede ogni uom, se non sola colei
Ch'è sovr' ogni altra, e ch' i' sola vorrei :
Ella non par che'l creda, e sì sel vede :

Infinita bellezza, e poca fede,

Non vedete voi'l cor negli occhi miei?
Se non fosse mia stella, i' pur devrei
Al fonte di pietà trovar mercede.
Quest' arder mio, di che vi cal sì poco,

E i vostri onori in mie rime diffusi

Ne porian' infiammar fors ancor mille:

Ch'i' veggio nel pensier, dolce mio foco,

Fredda una lingua, e duo begli occhi chiusi.
Rimaner dopo noi pien` di faville.

much heterogeneous metal did he suffer to run into it, that the most skilled assayers will scarcely know to what specimen to refer it. It is wrought up into one of the pieces of The Mistress, and is here given to the reader, both as being a curiosity in itself, and as illustrating the part of Cowley's poetical character, hinted in these strictures on Gray, and stated, elsewhere, at length.

HER UNBELIEF.

I..

"Tis a strange kind of unbelief in you,

That you your vict'ries should not spy:

Vict'ries begotten by your eye.

That your bright beams, as those of comets do,
Should kill; but not know how, or who.

II.

That, truly, you my idol may appear,
Whilst all the people smell, and see,

The od'rous flames I offer thee,

Thou sitt'st, and do'st not see, nor smell, nor hear,

Thy constant, zealous, worshipper!

III.

They see't too well, who at my fires repine;
Nay, th' unconcern'd themselves do prove
Quick-ey'd enough to spy my love.

Nor does the cause in thy face clearer shine,
Than the effect appears in mine.

IV.

Fair infidel! by what unjust decree,
Must I, who, with such restless care,
Would make this truth to thee appear,-
Must I, who preach, and pray for't, be
Damn'd, by thy incredulity?

V.

I, by thy unbelief, am, guiltless, slain:
O have but faith; and then, that you
That faith may know for to be true,
It shall itself b' a miracle maintain;
And raise me from the dead again.-&c.

1

What an heterogeneous mass is here! what a chaos of jarring elements! Frigida pugnantia calidis, humentia siccis! This strange mistress is, first, an infidel; then she is a gainer of battles; which battles are begot; and their father is her eye. That eye, however, is a blind