7: "Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne;" _Il
Pens._ 53: "the fiery-wheeled throne;" _P. L._ vi. 758:

"Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pure
Amber, and colours of the showery arch;"

and _id._ vi. 771:

"He on the wings of cherub rode sublime,
On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned."

101. _Blasted with excess of light_. Cf. _P. L._ iii. 380: "Dark with
excessive bright thy skirts appear."

102. Cf. Virgil, _Aen._ x. 746: "in aeternam clauduntur lumina
noctem," which Dryden translates, "And closed her lids at last in
endless night." Gray quotes Homer, _Od._ viii. 64:

[Greek: Ophthalmon men amerses, didou d' hedeian aoiden.]

103. Gray, according to Mason, "admired Dryden almost beyond
bounds."[3]

[Footnote 3: In a journey through Scotland in 1765, Gray became
acquainted with Beattie, to whom he commended the study of Dryden,
adding that "if there was any excellence in his own numbers, he had
learned it wholly from the great poet."]

105. "Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of
Dryden's rhymes" (Gray). Cf. Pope, _Imit. of Hor. Ep._ ii. 1, 267:

"Waller was smooth: but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine."

106. Gray quotes _Job_ xxxix. 19: "Hast thou clothed his neck with
thunder?"

108. _Bright-eyed_. The MS. has "full-plumed."

110. Gray quotes Cowley, _Prophet_: "Words that weep, and tears that
speak."

Dugald Stewart remarks upon this line: "I have sometimes thought that
Gray had in view the two different effects of words already
described; the effect of some in awakening the powers of conception
and imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions."

111. "We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind
than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley (who had his
merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That
of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of late
days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some
of his choruses; above all in the last of _Caractacus_:

'Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread!' etc." (Gray).

113. _Wakes thee now_. Cf. _Elegy_, 48: "Or wak'd to ecstasy the
living lyre."

115. "[Greek: Dios pros ornicha theion]. _Olymp._ ii. 159. Pindar
compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak
and clamour in vain below, while i