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That inly gnaws the secret heart ;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil'd,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

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V. 68. "With praise enough for Envy to look wan.” Milton. Son. to Lawes, xiii. 6. W. Par. L. i. 601, " Care sate on his faded cheek." Luke.

V. 69. Gray has here imitated Shakespeare. Richard III. act i. sc. 1: "Grim-visag'd War." and Com. of Err. act v. sc. 1: "A moody and dull melancholy kinsman to grim and comfortless Despair." Yarrington (Two Trag, in one) "Grim-visag'd despair." Todd.

V. 76. "Affected Kindness with an alter'd face," Dryden. Hind. and Panth. part iii.

V. 79. "Madness laughing in his ireful mood:" Dryden. Pal. and Arc. (b. ii. p. 43. ed. Aik.) Gray. And so K. Hen. VI. p. 1. act iv. sc. 2: "But rather moody mad." And act iii. sc. 1: "Moody fury." Chaucer. Knyghte's Tale, 1152.

V. 81. "Declin'd into the vale of years," Othello, act iii. sc. 3. Compare also Virg. Æn. vi. 275.

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen :

This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 85 That every labouring sinew strains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,

That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff'rings: all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,

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V. 83. "Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain,” Pope. Essay on Man, ii. 118. Dryden. State of Innoc. act v. sc. i: "With all the numerous family of Death." Claudian uses language not dissimilar: Cons. Honor. vi. 323: "Inferno stridentes agmine Morbi." And Juv. Sat. x. 218: "Circumsedit agmine facto Morborum omne genus." Hor. Od. 1. iii. 30, “ Nova febrium terris incubuit cohors."

V. 84. See T. Warton's Milt. p. 432, 434, 511.

V. 90. "His slow-consuming fires." Shenstone. Love and Honour.

V. 95. We meet with the same thought in Milton. Com. ver. 359:

"Peace, brother; be not over-exquisite

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;

For grant they be so, while they rest unknown, What need a man forestall his date of grief?" W. V. 98. Soph. Ajax, v. 555 : Εν τῷ Φρονεῖν γαρ μηδεν, otoros Bios. W. See Kidd's note to Hor. Ep. xi. 2. 140. V. 99. See Prior, (Ep. to Hon. C. Montague, st. ix.) "From ignorance our comfort flows,

The only wretched are the wise."— Luke.

Add Davenant. Just Italian, p. 32, "Since knowledge is but

Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more ;—where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

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HYMN TO ADVERSITY.*

-Zĥva

Τὸν φρονεῖν Βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
σαντα, τῷ πάθει μαθών
Θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.

ESCH. AGAM. ver. 181.

[This Ode, suggested by Dionysius' Ode to Nemesis. v. Aratus. ed Oxford, p. 51, translated by S. Meyrick, in Bell's Fug. Poetry, vol. xviii. p. 161.]

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,

sorrow's spy, it is not safe to know." And Dodsley. Old Plays, xi. p. 119:

-"Ignorance is safe;

I then slept happily; if knowledge mend me not,
Thou hast committed a most cruel sin

To wake me into judgment."

* This Hymn first appeared in Dodsley. Col. vol. iv. together with the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard;" and not, as Mason says, with the three foregoing Odes, which were published in the second volume. In Mason's edition it is called an Ode; but the title is now restored, as it was given by the author. The motto from Eschylus is not in Dodsley.

V. 1. "Arn, who may be called the goddess of Adversity,

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Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour

The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth

Virtue, his darling child, design'd,

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is said by Homer to be the daughter of Jupiter: I1. T. 91. Πρέσβα διὸς θυγάτηρ ̓́Ατη, ἣ πάντας ἀᾶται. Perhaps, however, Gray only alluded to the passage of schylus which he quoted, and which describes Affliction as sent by Jupiter for the benefit of man. Potter in his translation has had an eye on Gray. See his Transl. p. 19.

V. 2. "Then he, great tamer of all human art," Pope. Dun. i. 163.

V. 3. "Affliction's iron flail." Fletcher. Purp. Isl. ix. 28. Ibid. In Wakefield's note, he remarks an impropriety in the poet joining to a material image, the "torturing hour." If there be an impropriety in this, it must rest with Milton, from whom Gray borrowed the verse:

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when the scourge

Inexorably, and the torturing hour,
Calls us to penance."

Par. Lost, ii. 90.

But this mode of speech is authorized by ancient and modern poets. In Virgil's description of the lightning which the Cyclopes wrought for Jupiter, Æn. viii. 429.

Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosæ
Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri:
Fulgores nunc horrificos, sonitumque, metumque
Miscebant," &c.

In Par. Lost, x. 297, as the original punctuation stood :
"Bound with Gorgonian rigor not to move,
And with Asphaltic slime." I

This punctuation is now altered in most of the editions. The new reading was proposed by Dr. Pearce.

To thee he gave the heav'nly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:

What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

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And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe;

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V. 5. Αδαμαντίνων δεσμῶν ἐν ἀῤῥήκτοις πέδαις· Esch. Prom. vi. W., from whom Milton. Par. L. i. 48: "In adamantine chains, and penal fire." And the expression occurs also in the Works of Spenser, Drummond, Fletcher, and Drayton. See Todd's note on Milton. 'In adamantine chains shall Death be bound," Pope. Messiah, ver. 47; and lastly, Manil. Astron. lib. i. 921. And Boisson. on Philost. Heroic, p. 405.

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V. 7. "Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand," Pope. Two Choruses, ver. 23. Wakefield cites Horace, lib. i. od. xxxv. 12: " Purpurei metuunt tyranni." Add Tasso. Gier. Lib. c. vii. Luke.

V. 8. " Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before." Par. L. ii. 703.

V. 13. An expression similar to this occurs in Sidney. Arcadia, vol. iii. p. 100: Ill fortune, my awful governess."

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V. 16. "Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco." Luke. V. 20. C6 If we for HAPPINESS COULD LEISURE find," Hurd's Cowley, vol. i. p. 136: and the note of the editor. And know I have not yet the leisure to be good," Oldham. Ode, st. v. vol. i. p. 83.

V. 22.

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-For men, like butterflies,
Shew not their mealy wings, but to the summer."
Troil. and Cress. A iii. sc. 3.

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