PARAPHRASE OF GRAY'S ALCAICK ODE, WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF THE GRAND CHARTREUSE, ON HIS WAY BACK TO ENGLAND, AFTER HAVING VISITED THE ITALIAN CITIES WITH MR WALPOLE. * HAIL, guardian of this deep severe retreat, Thou would'st my lips thy sacred power should greet: * This attempt is boldly paraphrastic. It appeared to the translator that Gray must mean more than he has, at least, perspicuously expressed, when he says, in this latin ode, that "the sublime scenery round the Chartreuse inspires him with more religious reverence than the statues of Phidias, Here, 'mid the desert cliffs that sternly frown, To my aw'd spirit, and my throbbing heart Hail, solemn scenes! and to my wearied mind Swift should she bear me to the vortex wild, adorned with gold." Strange indeed, if it did not; since, though such objects may excite admiration of human skill, they have no obvious tendency to inspire devotion. Surely that was saying too little for those awful monuments of their Creator's power, which inevitably lift the serious and feeling heart to its God. The above English version ventures to make the poet say what he must have meant ;-that he there more powerfully feels the presence of the Deity, than amid the pomp of the Romish altars, adorned with pictures, and statues, steaming with incense, and blazing with gold. The translator also takes the liberty to add another, and more pious idea to that, with which Gray's latin ode somewhat abruptly concludes. Grant me, kind Heaven, some climate lone and mild, Some vale sequester'd from the struggling world! Where, free from vulgar tumults of the vain, 1. 6. Endless day-In his edition of his friend's works Mason observes, that this latin poem is "marked with some of the finest touches of Gray's melancholy muse. The extreme gloom and disgust to the world, breathed through its stanzas, probably resulted from his disagreement with Mr Walpole, which occasioned his premature return to England." Gray's letters thus describe the situation of the grand Chartreuse :-" We proceeded on horses which are used to the way, up the "mountain of the Chartreuse. It is six miles to the top; the "road winds up it, generally not six feet broad. On one "hand, rocks, with woods of pine-trees hanging over their "heads; on the other, a monstrous precipice, almost perpen dicular, at the bottom of which rolls a torrent, that some"times tumbling amongst the fragments of stone, which have "fallen from above, and sometimes precipitating itself down " vast descents, with noise like thunder, which is still increa"sed by the echoes from the mountains on each side, concurs "to form one of the most awful, the most romantic, the most " astonishing scenes I ever beheld. Add to this, the strange "views made by the cliffs and craggs on the other hand, " which in many places throw themselves from the summit "down to the vale, and the river below, and you will con"clude we had no occasion to repent our pains." 10 ΤΟ SIR NIGEL GRESLEY. APOLOGY FOR NOT ACCEPTING HIS INVITATION TO A MASQUERADE-BALL AT HIS SEAT, DRAKELOW, IN STAFFORDSHIRE. AH, GRESLEY! skill'd to deck the festal rite Grotesque and gay, to fleet beneath thy dome; Youth, health, or spirit, to the glittering scene, Clos'd o'er my friends, forbid the pageant bowers To shine before me with magnetic powers. When graver Pleasures, and domestic Mirth, Rise the soft Lares of that glowing hearth, Where Drakelow, white as o'er the vale she gleams, Eyes her fair form in Trent's pellucid streams, Mine may it be to share the joys benign, More grateful to existence' dim decline; To view expanding mind, with effluence warm, Illume thy lov'd MARIA's youthful form; To mark around that ever liberal board, Bless'd by glad welcome from its graceful lord, With sportive glee his lovely infants sit, And bright LOUISA lance the darts of wit; While most his sense and spirit render gay The golden leisure of the social day. 1. 8. Lov'd Maria's-Miss Gresley, then fourteen, Sir Nigel's eldest daug ter. 1. 12. Bright Louisa-Miss Louisa Gresley, Sir Nigel's sister, since Mrs William Gresley. |