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something more that might be men❝tioned, were it not needless to go deep "into the character of a dead man" is all the information we draw from it; information not momentous enough to make us regret the want of more.

The manner in which the character is "made out," though in particular instances fortunate, is not without faults. The hastiness of his steps in mounting "the upland lawn," and the purpose for which he mounts it, are circumstances more associable with the Allegro character, than with the Penseroso. So thought the great discriminator of these characters. His man of cheerfulness is eager to observe the glory of the rising sun; his pensive man's morning is not bright; but "kerchief'd in a comely

I

cloud." So also Thomson, to whose au

I Milton, Penseroso.

thority, on most occasions, he has not scorned to pay some regard :

As, through the falling glooms,
Pensive I stray; or, with the rising dawn,
On Fancy's eagle wing excursive soar.1

In Thomson these actions belong to two descriptions of character. Gray has wrought both into one. If the "steps" must be "hasty," the operation of brushing the dew from the grass will not help him to mend his pace; it is an action tending rather to impede accelerated motion, than to promote it.

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Chance," in the twenty-fifth stanza, used adverbially, though justified by a Latin idiom, is rebuting to an English ear. But the poet was in distress. The necessity of his situation called for the idea twice, within the compass of three lines. A word of two syllables brought

I Summer.

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him relief in the one case; and a word of one syllable in the other. He could not use "haply" twice. Lonely contemplation," is not well said. Who is there that goes into company to contemplate? One is surprised to see a writer, who deals in " trembling hope," living ashes,' "little great," put up so contentedly with "solemn stillness," “lonely contemplation," and "flowers that blow." Gray, speaking of water, has used" ambient tide." He that has dipt much in "ambient tide," will soon emerge to "ambient air:" then we shall

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find him among "feathered songsters;" a set of company rarely now to be met with even in Poetry's horn-book.

"His poring on the brook," is characteristical. But his stretching himself at the foot of a beech, is no more than the lounging Tityrus had done before him. Tityrus' beech is a spreading one, as what beech is not? Of Gray's beech it

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thority, on most occasions, he has not scorned to pay some regard :

As, through the falling glooms,
Pensive I stray; or, with the rising dawn,
On Fancy's eagle wing excursive soar."

In Thomson these actions belong to two descriptions of character. Gray has wrought both into one. If the " steps" must be "hasty," the operation of brushing the dew from the grass will not help him to mend his pace; it is an action tending rather to impede accelerated motion, than to promote it.

66

Chance," in the twenty-fifth stanza, used adverbially, though justified by a Latin idiom, is rebuting to an English ear. But the poet was in distress. The necessity of his situation called for the idea twice, within the compass of three lines. A word of two syllables brought

' Summer.

him relief in the one case; and a word of one syllable in the other. He could

not use

66

66

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haply" twice. Lonely contemplation," is not well said. Who is there that goes into company to contemplate? One is surprised to see a writer, who deals in " trembling hope," living ashes," "little great," put up so contentedly with "solemn stillness," "lonely contemplation," and "flowers that blow." Gray, speaking of water, has used" ambient tide." He that has dipt much in "ambient tide," will soon emerge to" ambient air:" then we shall

find him among "feathered songsters;" a set of company rarely now to be met with even in Poetry's horn-book.

"His poring on the brook," is characteristical. But his stretching himself at the foot of a beech, is no more than the lounging Tityrus had done before him. Tityrus' beech is a spreading one, as what beech is not? Of Gray's beech it

K

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