"No more I weep, They do not sleep, I see them sit, This is a very unusual metre in odes of a serious kind; though it is not without authority.* Except in this one variation, the verse of The Bard is of the same kind as that of The Progress of Poetry and The Installation Ode; the latter of which is the only irregular ode ever written by Gray.+ * See Sherborne's Transl. of Seneca's Troades, p. 17, Chorus: "And 'mongst the pious ghosts makes quest, No less is he, whoe'er he be, Who falling in War's bloody strife, See Dryden's Horace, Ode xxix. b. 3. "The Sun is in the Lion mounted high, The Syrian Star basks from afar, And with his sultry breath infects the sky." See Warton's H. of E. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 78, for an earlier specimen. + It is well known that Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia was finely set to music by Handel; and Mr. Mason says, " Mr. Smith, a worthy pupil of Handel, intended to have set Mr. Gray's ode, 'The Bard,' to music; and Mr. Gray, whose musical feelings were exquisite, with a knowledge of the art, gave him an idea for the overture, which seemed equally proper and striking." Pope knew nothing of music; and asked Dr. Arbuthnot, whether Handel really deserved the applause he met with. The same critic whom I lately had occasion to mention, says, "that in reviewing the examples he had given, it appeared, contrary to expectation, that in passing from the strongest resemblances, to those that are fainter, every step affords additional pleasure. Renewing the experiment again and again, he says, I feel no wavering, but the greatest pleasure constantly from the faintest resemblances; and yet how can this be? for if the pleasure lie in the imitation, must not the strongest resemblances afford the greatest pleasure? From this vexing dilemma, I am happily relieved by reflecting on a doctrine established in the chapter of Resemblance and Contrast, that the pleasure of resemblance is the greatest when it is least expected, and when the objects compared are in their capital circumstances widely different."* It appears to me that Lord Kames's observation on the different effects produced by the stronger and fainter resemblances of the sound to the image is correct; but I think that the cause See Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism, vol. ii. p. 92. The observations by Lord Kames, on the pleasure of resemblance, are rather generally and loosely laid down. The truth is, that which imitates, may agree too closely with, or differ too widely from the object of imitation, to produce the proper degree of pleasure. A painted statue, would resemble real life too closely, and therefore be liable to the first objection. "Nimius in veritate, et similitudinis, quam pulchritudinis amantior.” On the other hand, the produce of the needle, and the loom, and also what is called of the inferior pleasure he received in reading such lines as the following, which he quotes from Pope's Homer, Od. xi. 736, is to be attributed to another source: With many a weary step, and many a groan, And, Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone." When the tide rushes from her trembling caves, Topiary-work in gardens, is subject to the latter: as the coarseness of their materials cannot by any art be brought to a sufficient nicety for the purpose of imitation: Painting, or colours spread on a flat surface, seem to occupy the place between the two extremes. *In a letter from A. Hill to Pope, May 11, 1738, vol. i. p. 248-266, he mentions his design of writing a Treatise -on Propriety in the Thought and Expression of Poetry, with a limitation to three distinct requisites-Adaption, Simplicity, and Closeness. In noticing a want, common even in good writers, of appropriating their words to their distinct and particular tendency; in mentioning this inaccuracy of language, "This loose Surtout dress now in fashion," he quotes Pope's lines, “Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,” &c. as the chief point here in view, was the structure or sound of your verse, with purpose to make it, in your own fine expression, an Echo to the Sense, the minutest exactness of choice in the words seems to have been of double demand and necessity." He then gives his own rifacciamento: Soft breathes the whisp'ring verse-if Zephyr plays, Runs the stream smooth ?-still smoother glides the lays. When high-swoln surges sweep the sounding shore, Roll the rough verse, hoarse, like the Torrent's roar, In these, and lines similar to these,* I should observe, that the design of producing a direct imitation of sound or motion, which is beyond the power of language to perfect, has betrayed the poet into such a structure of verse, as (if not contrary to that which is common, and which the ear has by habit associated with certain metrical rules) is at least strange and unusual; forming a strong and disagreeable contrast to the general harmony of the poem; and instead of being subservient to the melody, and the regular and pleasurable flow of the metre, has in a great measure tended to destroy them. The partial success of the imitation is too When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, Shoots o'er th' unbending corn, nor shakes th' unconscious grain." This he calls" a verbal exactness of Propriety," by which mountains not only stand out to the Eye, but are felt, and, as it were, walked over by the fancy. * See Cowley's Note on Davideis, Book I. + Du Bos, in his Reflexions sur la Poësie, vol. i. c. xi. and xxxv. says, that it is difficult in French verses to imitate the sound which the sense describes, to any great degree; the language not being copious in its mimetic powers compared with the Latin and other languages. Accordingly we find this imitation much more practised by the Italian poets, whose copious and sonorous language easily admits it. Instances of it, however, are easily found in the French poets, particularly in the older writers. Dr. Beattie gives an instance from Ronsard: see his Essay on Poetry and Music, p. 571. * broadly and plainly obtruded on our notice; and does not endeavour to conceal its art, but to display its dexterity. That pleasure, which must exist with all other; the gentle and equal emotion arising from the structure of the verse and return of the rhyme; ought to reduce all the stronger features, to harmonize the bold and passionate descriptions, and to beget a temperance even in the very torrent of passion. In fact, the poet, by an error not at all unusual in the arts, has made a partial and very subservient beauty usurp the place of the primary and leading laws in the structure of versification. This cause being overlooked by the critic, is the more remarkable, as he has not been unaware of its power; having mentioned it on another occasion, though not exactly as I have now applied it. The following well-known passage in The Fleece of Dyer, is in many respects beautiful, and conceived in the true spirit of poetry, for which reason I have selected it in preference to other, and more striking examples. Perhaps the poet has attempted to paint his image with too bold a relief, to force it too distinctly on the mind of the reader; and by his anxiety, that not the minutest touch should escape the eye, he has sacrificed some of the pleasurable emotion, arising from the melody of his versification: Ubicunque ars ostentatur, Veritas abesse videtur," Quinctil. Inst. Orat. x. 3. “Desinit Ars esse, si appareat,” Id. iv. 2. |