at all. Parnell's thought, with less conceit, has in it more of interest, and much more of piety. "Death's but a path that must be trod, In a series of stanzas that follow, the author sets himself to expostulate with the proud; and undertakes to prove the absurdity of the contempt which he supposes them ready to pour on the "unhonoured dead," for their want of more superb monuments, from a regular succession of common places: 1. It was no "fault" of theirs that they had not such monuments. 2. They would have stood them in little stead, had they had them. 3. Worth and Genius may have existed without them. 4. It was the injustice of fortune that made them want them. 5. The account was balanced for them another way. Night-Piece. -all which topics are handled with tolerable plausibility, and at decent length. X. It is in the tenth stanza, that this train of thought commences. But the introduction is not clear of incumbrance. 66 Impute not to these the fault," is an affected and inadequate expression for "don't treat them with scorn." The two last lines are the most majestic in the whole Elegy. But they contain an appeal to feelings, which none but those who are so happy as to have been bred up in a veneration for the solemn forms and service of the National Church, can expect to possess. The palate of a sectary, accustomed to the reception of E slender foods, will nauseate the full meal set before him in these lines; Where, through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Of this last line, however, criticism must remark, that either the composition of the thought is faulty, or the arrangement of the expression is inverted. It is not the anthem that swells the note, but the agglomeration of notes that swells the anthem. I am content to suppose this to have been his meaning; communicated in a mode of arrangement, unpleasing to an English reader in his own language, but of which he admits the propriety in Latin compositions. I have seen this line most correctly transferred into that language in many different modes, all of them meritorious, in a selection from Exercises written by the Boys of the first form in Merchant Taylor's School, and sent to me, with a view, of which I will not gratify my vanity with the publication; though justice requires that of the worthy master I should solace the labours, by recording the unwearied diligence, and by bearing testimony to those abilities that are sedulously exerted in forming the rising hopes of another age. XI. Fault has already been found with Gray for conforming to the affected use of participles in place of adjectives. "Honied spring;" madding crowd, &c." "Storied urn," is of the same family, and even more exceptionable, because liable to misapprehension. The intended meaning of the epithet is, " having stories figured upon it." it." In the Pense at all. Parnell's thought, with less conceit, has in it more of interest, and much more of piety. "Death's but a path that must be trod, In a series of stanzas that follow, the author sets himself to expostulate with the proud; and undertakes to prove the absurdity of the contempt which he supposes them ready to pour on the "unhonoured dead," for their want of more superb monuments, from a regular succession of common places : 1. It was no "fault" of theirs that they had not such monuments. 2. They would have stood them in little stead, had they had them. 3. Worth and Genius may have existed without them. 4. It was the injustice of fortune that made them want them. 5. The account was balanced for them another way. |