yard, published in 1750. It is said that the poet revised and corrected this poem for eight years before giving it to the public. It ran rapidly through eleven editions, and it has been translated more than fifty times, into German, Italian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Portuguese. By some the two odes, The Progress of Poesy and The Bards, are considered his best poems, but neither of these is so popular as the Elegy. Gray was the author also of many excellent letters, written while he was traveling among the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland. Having been long afflicted with the gout, he died of this disease in his fifty-sixth year, and was, at his own request, buried by the side of his mother, to whom he had always been most tenderly attached. CRITICISM BY MACKINTOSH. GRAY was a poet of a far higher order than Goldsmith, and of an almost opposite kind of merit. Of all English poets, he was the most finished artist. He attained the highest kind of splendor of which poetical style seems capable. . . . . Almost all Gray's poetry was lyrical-that species which, issuing from the mind in the highest state of excitement, requires an intensity of feeling which, for a long composition, the genius of no poet could support. Those who complained of its brevity and rapidity only confessed their own inability to follow the movements of poetical inspiration. Of the two grand attributes of the ode, Dryden had displayed the enthusiasm, Gray exhibited the magnif icence. He is also the only modern English writer whose Latin verses deserve general notice, but we must lament that such difficult trifles had diverted his genius from its natural objects. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 1. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 2 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 5 3. Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, NOTES.-1. The curfew. In olden | 11. bower, from Anglo-Saxon bur, 3. The plowman, etc. Rewrite this line in as many ways as you can. 5. glimmering landscape. What figure? Analyze the sentence. 6. Dispose of stillness. What figure in the line? 7, 8. What kind of elements do these lines form? 8. Point out the figures in the line, 9 Dispose of Save. ivy-mantled. What figure? 9-12. What kind of clause? 10. What figure in the line? 11, Of such as. Parse such and as. wandering, etc. What is the office of this phrase? 12. reign is here used in the sense of realm. 10 4. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 5. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! ANALYSIS.-13-16. Beneath, etc. This is a periodic sentence. Re write in prose order. 13. Parse the word shade. 14. What does the line modify? 15. Each. Dispose of. Name modifiers of laid. What figures in the line? 16. What figure in the line? 17. The breezy call, etc. What figure? 18. The swallow twittering. What figure? 19. Point out the figure in the line? 20. Subject of shall rouse? 21. blazing hearth shall burn. What figure? 22. evening care. Name the figure. 23. children. Notice that this is a double plural. The old form was childer, to which has been added the Anglo-Saxon plural ending en, thus making the word childeren, since changed to children. 23, 24. Explain the force of the infinitives in these lines. 25. Point out the figure in the line. 26. furrow and stubborn glebe. Explain the figures. has broke. Why this form? 27. a-field. Explain. 28. bowed the woods, etc. What figure? 8. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 9. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 10 Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, 11. Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? ANALYSIS.-29. What figure on Ambition? In what mode is mock! Name the objects of mock. 30. What is the effect of ly in such words as homely? 31. Grandeur. What figure on this word? toil and smile. Criticise the rhyme. 33-35. What is the subject of the sentence? Many editions give the word awaits "await," on the supposition that lines 33 and 34 constitute the subject. 34. Name the figures in the line. 35. inevitable hour. What is the meaning? 36. but. Grammatical construction? What does the word modify? 37. ye proud. Grammatical construction? 38. Point out and name figures in the line. Name the modifiers of raise. 39, 40. These lines refer to Westminster Abbey, because of its being the burial-place of Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden, and others. 39. The meaning of fretted? Meaning of vault? 41. storied, painted with stories, usually from Scripture. To what custom does this refer? storied urn. animated bust. Is "animated" a good word in referring here to a marble bust? 42. Point out the figure in the line. Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death? 12. Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 13. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, 14. Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: 15. Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast NOTES.-50. unroll. Volumes of | 57. Hampden. John Hampden ANALYSIS.-43. Honor's voice. What figure? provoke, meaning, in its etymological sense, "to call forth." silent dust. What figure? 44 Point out the figure in the line. 46. Meaning of the line? Point out the figure. 47. Dispose of the words Hands and that. 47 48. Meaning of each line? Figure in each? 19 50. Point out the figures. 51 Chill Penury. What figure? 62. froze.... current. Meaning and figure? 53. Dispose of Full and many a. 55. to blush unseen. Grammatical construction? 45 50 55 |