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And float amid the liquid noon;
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some shew their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye

Such is the race of Man :

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

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"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.]

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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,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,

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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,
Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd,
The quivering nations sport; 'till, tempest-wing'd,
Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day.
E'en so luxurious men, unheeding, pass

An idle Summer-life in Fortune's shine,
A season's glitter! thus they flutter on

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.]

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πανθ' άλιον

αμμι

δεδύκειν.

Theoc. Id. i.

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ODE II.

ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT,

Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishesa.

'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dy'd

The azure flowers that blow ;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclin'd,
Gaz'd on the lake below.

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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,

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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 fair round face, the snowy beard,

The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,

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She saw; and purr'd applause.

Still had she gaz'd; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,

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 :
A whisker first, and then a claw,

15

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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 female heart can gold despise?

What Cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous Maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,

Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smil'd)
The slipp'ry verge her feet beguil❜d,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew'd to ev'ry wat'ry God,

Some speedy aid to send.

No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd;

25

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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
Nam tibi net Lachesis fila novena colo.

Hinc, si missa voles celsi de culmine tecti,
Decidis in tutos præcipitata pedes.

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,

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