h, though either vulgar ignorance or common
sense at first universally rejected them, many have been since persuaded
to think themselves delighted. I am one of those that are willing to be
pleased, and therefore would gladly find the meaning of the first stanza
of the "Progress of Poetry." Gray seems in his rapture to confound the
images of spreading sound and running water. A "stream of music" may
be allowed; but where does "music," however "smooth and strong," after
having visited the "verdant vales, roll down the steep amain," so as
that "rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar"? If this be said
of music, it is nonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the
purpose. The second stanza, exhibiting Mars' car and Jove's eagle, is
unworthy of further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy to
his common-places. To the third it may likewise be objected that it is
drawn from mythology, though such as may be more easily assimilated to
real life. Idalia's "velvet green" has something of cant. An epithet or
metaphor drawn from Nature ennobles Art; an epithet or metaphor
drawn from Art degrades Nature. Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily
compounded. "Many-twinkling" was formerly censured as not analogical;
we may say "many-spotted," but scarcely "many-spotting." This stanza,
however, has something pleasing. Of the second ternary of stanzas, the
first endeavours to tell something, and would have told it, had it not
been crossed by Hyperion; the second describes well enough the universal
prevalence of poetry; but I am afraid that the conclusion will not rise
from the premises. The caverns of the North and the plains of Chili are
not the residences of "glory and generous shame." But that poetry and
virtue go always together is an opinion so pleasing that I can forgive
him who resolves to think it true. The third stanza sounds big with
"Delphi," and "AEgean," and "Ilissus," and "Meander," and "hallowed
fountains," and "solemn sound;" but in all Gray's odes there is a kind
of cumbrous splendour which we wish away. His position is at last false.
In the time of Dante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school
of poetry, Italy was overrun by "tyrant power" and "coward vice;" nor
was our state much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts. Of
the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of Shakespeare.
What is said of that mighty genius is true, but it is not said happily;
the real effects