plained by the "purple" in next line; an allusion
to the famous Tyrian dye of the ancients. Cf. Pope, _Windsor Forest_,
142: "with fins of Tyrian dye."

17. Cf. Virgil, _Geo._ iv. 274:

"_Aureus_ ipse; sed in foliis, quae plurima circum
Funduntur, violae _sublucet purpura_ nigrae."

See also Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 332: "His shining horns diffus'd a
golden glow;" _Temple of Fame_, 253: "And lucid amber casts a golden
gleam."

24. In the 1st ed. "What cat's a foe to fish?" and in the next line,
"with eyes intent."

31. _Eight times_. Alluding to the proverbial "nine lives" of the
cat.

34. _No dolphin came_. An allusion to the story of Arion, who when
thrown overboard by the sailors for the sake of his wealth was borne
safely to land by a dolphin.

_No Nereid stirr'd_. Cf. Milton, _Lycidas_, 50:

"Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?"

35, 36. The reading of 1st ed. is,

"Nor cruel Tom nor Harry heard.
What favourite has a friend?"

40. The 1st ed. has "Not all that strikes," etc.

42. _Nor all that glisters gold_. A favourite proverb with the old
English poets. Cf. Chaucer, _C. T._ 16430:

"But all thing which that shineth as the gold
Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told;"

Spenser, _F. Q._ ii. 8, 14:

"Yet gold all is not, that doth golden seeme;"

Shakes. _M. of V._ ii. 7:

"All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told;"

Dryden, _Hind and Panther_:

"All, as they say, that glitters is not gold."

Other examples might be given. _Glisten_ is not found in Shakes. or
Milton, but both use _glister_ several times. See _W. T._ iii. 2;
_Rich. II._ iii. 3; _T. A._ ii. 1, etc.; _Lycidas_, 79; _Comus_, 219;
_P. L._ iii. 550; iv. 645, 653, etc.

[Illustration: ETON COLLEGE.]

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

This, as Mason informs us, was the first English[1] production of
Gray's that appeared in print. It was published, in folio, in 1747;
and appeared again in Dodsley's _Collection_, vol. ii. p. 267,
without the name of the author.

[Footnote 1: A Latin poem by him, a "Hymeneal" on the Prince of
Wales's Marriage, had appeared in the _Cambridge Collection_ in
1736.]

Hazlitt (_Lectures on English Poets_) says of this Ode: "It is more
mechanical and commonplace [than the _Elegy_]; but it touches on
certain strings about the heart, that vibrate in unison with it to
our