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.

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

one; as blind as a comet. Then she grows into the idol Baal; and is not only blind but deaf; and moreover without the sense of smelling: but that does not hinder her face from shining. Next she is transformed into Cause; and her lover into Effect: after which she becomes an infidel again; and her lover is transformed into a priest; in which character he both preaches and prays, to convert her; but all to no purpose :-for, after having run the risk of damnation, he is actually made to suffer death. Yet that does not damp his zeal. He is resolved to make one trial more; and, finding all other arguments fail, proposes the powerful one of miracles; undertaking, if she will first believe on trust, to rise, himself, from the dead, in order to confirm her faith!-Such is the process in this piece; a process, in the contemplation of which Reason feels herself humbled; and Fancy, put to shame; whilst Religion reclaims, indig

nant that her mysteries should suffer profanation, by such absurd and wanton allusions.

1

What now remains of the Elegy, partakes of the nature of an After-piece. In his "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady," the vanity of Pope had tempted him to introduce himself. For this he had some plausible colour; as with this lady (who seems to have been more foolish than unfortunate, and to discover whose family, and private history, curiosity has laboured in vain) he had, or thought it creditable to be thought to have had, some connection, in the way of friendship or love. The example of Pope has, in this instance, been imitated by Gray, who had not the same motive to inspire the design, nor the same ability to regulate its execution. In the

abruptness of the introduction of their own affairs, and the want of art in engrafting them on the general design, there is a considerable similarity. The little that Pope had to say of himself, he thought likely to come best from his own mouth. Gray, who has not said much more of himself, has put what is to be said in the mouth of another. Pope has alluded to his own death ; but Gray, advancing a step farther, has proceeded to the circumstances of his burial, and even given us the epitaph on his stone. this After-piece, rather adhering to the Elegy than uniting with it, criticism thinks it unnecessary that the examination should be minute or long.

Of

XXIV.

That a "kindred spirit" should be more interested in the fate of the writer, than one of a different temperament, is natural; but how this kindred spirit should, in his lonely contemplations, stumble into the same Church-yard in which this Elegy was written, we search in vain for a probable account. One is tempted to suppose Gray to have sometimes figured this Elegy as fixed up in the Country Church-yard, as well as originally penned in it. But this only leads us from one incongruity, to land us immediately in another. Why does the kindred spirit enquire the fate of him, whose fate is commemorated in the Elegy that made him originally known? as is also the very enquiry he is here supposed to make. But I hasten from this part of the piece, afraid of being invol