III. They fee't too well, who at my fires repine, Nay, th' un-concern'd themselves do prove Nor does the cause in thy face clearer fhine, IV. Fair infidel! by what unjuft decree, V. I, by thy unbelief am, guiltlefs, flain. What an heterogeneous mass is here! what a chaos of jarring elements! Frigida pugnantia calidis, bumentia ficcis. This fad Miftrefs is, firft, 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 Then he becomes the idol Baal; and is not only blind but deaf; and without the as a comet. fense of smelling: face from foining. but that does not hinder ber Next fhe is transformed into 6 Caufe; Caufe; and her lover into Effect: after which the 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 rifk of damnation, he is actually put to death: yet that does not damp his zeal. He is refolved to make one trial more; and, finding all other arguments fail, propofes the great one of miracles; undertaking, if the will first believe on truft, to rife, himself, from the dead, in order to confirm her faith.Such is the procefs in this piece; a procefs, in the contemplation of which Reafon feels herfelf humbled; and Fancy, put to fhame; whilft Religion reclaims indignant, that her myfteries fhould fuffer profanation by fuch abfurd and wanton allufions. 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 fome plaufible colour; as with this Lady (who seems to have been more foolish than unfortunate, and to dif cover whofe family and private history Curiofity has laboured in vain) he had, or thought it creditable to be thought to have had, some connexion in the way of friendship or love. The example of Pope has, in this inftance, been imitated by Gray, who had not the fame motive to infpire the defign, nor the fame ability to regulate the execution. In the abruptnefs of the introduction of their own affairs, and the want of art in engrafting them on the general defign, there is a confiderable fimilarity. The little Pope had to say of himself, he thought likely to come beft from his own mouth. Gray, who has not faid much more of himself, has put what is to be faid 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 ftone. Of this After-piece, rather adhering to the Elegy than uniting with it, Criticism thinks it unneceffary that the examination fhould be minute or long. XXIV. That a "kindred fpirit" fhould be more interested in the fate of the writer, than one of a different temperament, is natural; but how this kindred spirit fhould, in his lonely contem contemplations, ftumble into the fame Churchyard in which this Elegy was written, we search in vain for a probable account. One is tempted to fuppofe Gray to have fometimes figured this Elegy as fixed up in the Country Churchyard, 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, whofe fate is commemorated in the Elegy that made him originally known; as is alfo the very enquiry he is here supposed to make. But I haften from this part of the Piece, afraid of being involved in its entanglements, and apprehensive of the confufion of ideas that it feems to threaten to him who fhall dwell on it long.. That Gray, in a work fo ferious, should have intended to amufe himself, or his Reader, with picturing the talkativeness of the Ruftic Character, or the excursiveness of Narrative Age, I am not willing to believe. But certain it is, that the "hoary-headed fwain" tells the "kindred spirit" more than was asked of him; and, instead of fimply relating the fate of the writer, enters fomewhat diffusely into his character. Here, again, the manners are violated; and the ruftic is made to tell his tale, in language the most chafte and polished, and style the most poetical that the Elegy contains. Gray feems, by a kind of perverfeness of application, to have finished L 2 finished off this' paffage with all the care of which he was master, and to have given it out of his hand with a consciousness of success, that brings back to memory the self-complacency of Bayes, after one of his most ranting paffages, in which he thinks he has brought out every excellence to which even bis powers were adequate" That is as well as I can do." That Gray fhould have formed a wish to exert himself with more than ordinary earneftnefs on a fubject fo near to him, is not to be wondered at. But he forgets that the enthufiafm and fancy which might be allowable in a defcription of his character, when that de fcription came from himself, are inadmiffible in the mouth of another, and that other a ftranger, and a clown. But this is one of the most strongly marked peculiarities of his poetical temperament. He is always more attentive to the grandeur and magnificence of his building, than to the propriety of its fite. He is ever meditating a great ftructure; taking it for granted, that it may stand in all places alike, From all quarters he fatigues himself in collecting ponderous and bulky materials, which he encourages himself to pile up till they fhall have reached the Empyreum; without confidering the incongruities in the defign, or the obftacles that may ruin its execution: like the commemorated projectors of a tower that was |