66 And float amid the liquid noon; To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of Man : And they that creep, and they that fly, 30 "Every language," says the same annotator, "is enriched and improved by the introduction of words of so easy a derivation as the one in dispute. The Latin word mellitus, seems to be exactly similar." Ver. 27. And float amid the liquid noon.] "Nare per æstatem liquidam." Ver. 30. Quick-glancing to the sun.] 66 Virg. Georg. lib. iv. Sporting with quick glance, Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold." Par. Lost, book vii. Ver. 31. To Contemplation's sober eye.] "While insects from the threshold preach," &c. M. GREEN in the Grotto. Dodsley's Miscellany, vol. v. p. 161. This Poem is quoted at length by Gray, in a letter to Mr. Walpole. See Sect. iv. Letter xxv. He there says, "I here send you a bit of a thing for two reasons; first, because it is one of your favourite's, Mr. Green; and next, because I would do justice the thought on which my second Ode turns, (the present Poem was originally placed first in order,) was manifestly stole from thence. Not that I knew it at the time, but having seen this many years before; to be sure it printed itself on my memory, and, forgetting the author, I took it for my own. : Mr. Wakefield considers our author as indebted in this stanza to a passage in Thompson's Summer, 342:: POEMS. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter through life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest : Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest. Methinks I hear, in accents low, The sportive kind reply: Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glitt'ring female meets, 45 No painted plumage to display: On hasty wings thy youth is flown, Thy sun is set, thy spring is goneWe frolic while 'tis May. "Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways, An idle Summer-life in Fortune's shine, From toy to toy, from vanity to vice! Till blown away by Death, Oblivion comes Behind, and strikes them from the book of life." Ver. 49. Thy sun is set.] 50 πανθ' άλιον αμμι δεδύκειν. Theoc. Id. i. ODE II. ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishesa. 'Twas on a lofty vase's side, The azure flowers that blow ; 5 a This little piece was written some years later than the third and fourth Odes; and Mr. Mason informs us, that, after the death of Mr. Gray, Mr. Walpole placed the vase in question on a pedestal at Strawberry-hill, with the first four lines of this Ode for its inscription: 'Twas on this vase's lofty side, &c. Ver. 3. "The azure flowers that blow," shew resolutely a rhyme is sometimes made when it cannot be found.-JOHNSON. Mr. Wakefield himself is constrained to admit that there is here an inexcusable redundancy. Mr. Mitford pleads authority, but unfortunately leaves his reader to decide whether the example of antiquity can sanction a fault. It must, however, be observed, that the line cited from the fifth Ode, The laughing flowers, that round them blow," is not a similar instance, as the word blow is there subservient to the preposition which precedes. Ver. 6. Gaz'd on the lake below.] It is a proof of no ordinary skill thus to confer dignity on so trivial a subject; and the same dexterity is conspicuous throughout the Ode. A happy exertion of this talent has eminently distinguished Virgil, Boileau, and Pope.-WAKEField. Her conscious tail her joy declar'd ; The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, 10 She saw; and purr'd applause. Still had she gaz'd; but 'midst the tide The Genii of the stream: Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue Through richest purple to the view Betray'd a golden gleam. The hapless Nymph with wonder saw : 15 20 Ver. 14. Two angel forms.] VARIATION. Two beauteous forms. -Dodsley's Misc. First edit. Ver. 16. Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue Through richest purple to the view Betray'd a golden gleam.] "The field, all iron, cast a gleaming brown." Par. Reg. iii. 326. "Aureus ipse; sed in foliis, quæ plurima circum Funduntur, viola sublucet purpura nigræ." Virg. Georg. iv. 274. Ver. 19. The hapless Nymph.] Impartiality obliges us to acknowledge, that this and the concluding stanza are very much inferior to the rest of the Ode, and altogether unworthy of the elegance and taste of Mr. Gray.-WAKEFIELD. With many an ardent wish, She stretch'd, in vain, to reach the prize : What Cat's averse to fish? Presumptuous Maid! with looks intent Nor knew the gulf between. Eight times emerging from the flood Some speedy aid to send. No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd; 25 30 Ver. 25. Presumptuous Maid.] This stanza will almost compensate the mediocrity of the preceding.-WAKEfield. Ver. 31. Eight times, &c.] A humorous allusion to the vulgar notion of a cat's vivacity. Mr. Bourne, whose elegiac poetry is the sweetest of any in the Latin language, has a pretty epigram upon this subject. DEFENDIT NUMERUS. "Blandior indulsit, felis, tibi parca; novena Hinc, si missa voles celsi de culmine tecti, Nec miseram, licet infestent laniique canesque, Te lanii exanimant, exanimantve canes. Si moriare semel, si bis, si terve, quaterve, Plusquam dimidia parte superstes eris."-WAKEFIELD. Ver. 34. No Dolphin came.] Alluding to the story of Arion, |