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Des grand and bei The marly of soil s mence of the petes and powers se 2 rece ated americat the pore ency as ampy succed by the Best Tang, von Eke a good philosopar. 2 prend de moceaty of man from the convencions, and the meaness and misery de This reason a jew passages are selected fr This wah with those from Akenside.se a rompere view of the powers, situation, and to Exercises for Improvement in Eocatica, p.

Es cher poems are now to be considered."costeraboe will despatch them. It is not e wiy be abfcted himself so diligently to ing ether the ease and airiness of the light v-temence and elevation of the grander ode. wys his 1-fated hand upon his harp, his former seen to desert in; he has no longer his luxur pression, or variety of images. His thoughts & and has words inelegant. Yet such was his love that having written, with great vigour and poig Epustie to Curio, he transformed it afterwards into disgraceful only to its author.

Of his odes nothing favourable can be said; the se ments commonly want force, nature, or tion is sometimes harsh and uncou

structed and unpleasant, and

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oo distant from each other, or aregard to established use, and, theree ear, which, in a short composition, familiar with an innovation. compositions singly cannot be required; , brighter and darker parts; but, when d to be generally dull, all further labour r to what use can the work be criticised ad?

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GRAY

THONAS GRAY, the son of Mr. Pho of London, was born in Cornhill, Novel His grammatical education he received a n care of Mr. Antrobus, his mother's brodet to Dr. George: and when he left school, a pensioner at Peterhouse, in Cambridge. The transition from the school to the cal young scholars, the time from which they d of manhood, liberty, and happiness; but G have been very little delighted with acade cations; he liked at Cambridge neither the nor the fashion of study, and lived sullenly when his attendance on lectures was no longe As he intended to profess the common law, degree.

When he had been at Cambridge about five Horace Walpole, whose friendship he had ga invited him to travel with him as his comp wandered through France into Italy; and Gry contain a very pleasing account of many part

journey. But unequal friendships are easily d at Florence they quarrelled and parted; and M. is now content to have it told that it was by his fal we look, however, without prejudice on the ad find that men, whose consciousness of their own them above the compliances of servility, are in their association with superiours, to watch their nity with troublesome and punctilious jealousy, a fervour of independence to exact that attention whi refuse to pay. Part they did, whatever was the

and the rest of their travels was, doubtless,

p

more unple

to them both. Gray continued his journey in a

suitable to his own little fortune, with only

an

occasi

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d in September, 1741, and in rds buried his father, who had, of money upon a new house, so e, that Gray thought himself too He, therefore, retired to Camfter became bachelor of civil law; ng the place or its inhabitants, or he passed, except a short resiest of his life.

was deprived of Mr. West, the son ind, a friend on whom he appears to

, and who deserved his esteem by shows in his letters, and in the Ode to son has preserved, as well as by the when Gray sent him part of Agrippina, d just begun, he gave an opinion which d the progress of the work, and which very reader will confirm. It was certhe English stage that Agrippina was

1742, Gray seems first to have applied

to poetry; for in this year were proto Spring, his Prospect of Eton, and his sity. He began likewise a Latin poem, Cogitandi.

collected from the narrative of Mr. Mason, mbition was to have excelled in Latin poetry: ere reasonable to wish that he had prosecuted for, though there is at present some embarhis phrase, and some harshness in his lyrick As copiousness of language is such as very few 2nd his lines, even when imperfect, discover a om practice would quickly have made skilful. W lived on at Peterhouse, very little solicitous ers did or thought, and cultivated his mind and his views without any other purpose than of ng and amusing himself; when Mr. Mason, being fellow of Pembroke hall, brought him a companion

methods; he became a fellow of the Royal Society obtained a degree at Cambridge; and was admitted the College of Physicians; he wrote little poetry, but și lished, from time to time, medical essays and observatio he became physician to St. Thomas's hospital; he read Gulstonian lectures in anatomy; but began to give, fav Crounian lecture, a history of the revival of learning, in which he soon desisted; and, in conversation, be ver eagerly forced himself into notice by an ambitious oster tion of elegance and literature.

His Discourse on the Dysentery, 1764, was considered a a very conspicuous specimen of Latinity, which entiti him to the same height of place among the scholars as possessed before among the wits; and he might, perbe have risen to a greater elevation of character, but that studies were ended with his life, by a putrid fever, June 1770, in the forty-ninth year of his age".

Akenside is to be considered as a didactick and lyrio poet. His great work is the Pleasures of Imagination; a performance which, published as it was, at the age twenty-three, raised expectations that were not very ampy satisfied. It has undoubtedly a just claim to very particu lar notice, as an example of great felicity of genius, and uncommon amplitude of acquisitions, of a young mind stored with images, and much exercised in combining and comparing them.

With the philosophical or religious tenets of the author, I have nothing to do; my business is with his poetry. The subject is well chosen, as it includes all images that can strike or please, and thus comprises every species of poetical delight. The only difficulty is in the choice of examples and illustrations; and it is not easy, in such exuberance of matter, to find the middle point between penury and satiety. The parts seem artificially disposed, with sufficient coherence, so as that they cannot change their places without injury to the general design.

A most curious and original character of Akenside is given by George Hardinge, in vol. viii. of Nichols's Literary Anecdotes. ED.

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