252 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 101. 



Facing the title-page is a portrait of Bishop 

 Taylor, engraved by Van Hove. The Preface, 

 without meiitioning the author's name, informs 

 the reader that the two sermons following, "by 

 means of a person of Honour yet living, are now 

 come into the press for public use and benefit." 

 The first sermon is on Matt. xi. 30. : " For my 

 Yoke is easy, and my Burthen is light ; " and is 

 contained in Taylor's Life of Christ (Eden's edit. 

 of his Works, vol. ii. ])p. .51.5 — 528.). The second 

 sermon is on Luke xiii. 23, 24., and begins : " The 

 life of a Christian is a perpetual contention for 

 mastery;" and ends, " If we strive according to 

 his holy Injunctions, we shall certainly enter, 

 according to his holy promises, but else upon con- 

 dition." This sermon does not appear, as far as I 

 have been able to discover, in any collection of 

 Taylor's Works, nor amongst his Sermons in the 

 new edition ; nor do I find the volume itself 

 noticed by any of his biographers. It would be 

 extraordinary if, when so much has been printed 

 as part of his works which did not belong to hlni, 

 a sermon indisputably his should have been omitted 

 by all his various editors ; a sermon, too, which 

 every reader will allow to be a fine one. Perhaps 

 the rev. editor of the new edition of Taylor's 

 Works can explain the reason of this omission. I 

 shall be glad to be corrected if I have overlooked 

 the sermon in any part of the Bishop's collected 

 Works. James Crossley. 



COWLEY AND GKAY, NO. II. 



Gra\', when alluding to Shakspeare, in bis Pin- 

 daric ode on " The Progress of Poesy," had pro- 

 bably Cowley in memory : 



'■ Far from the sun and summer jjale. 

 In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid, 

 AVhat time, where lucid Avon stray'J. 



To him the mighty mother did unvoil 

 Her awful face: the dauntless child 

 Slretch'd forth his little arms and smil'd." 

 Wakefield, in one of his notes, remarks on this — 

 " An allusion, perhaps, to that verse of Virgil, 

 ' lucipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem.' " 

 Instead of Virgil, I suspect that Gray was think- 

 ing of the first Nemean Ode of Pindar, wlierein 

 the infant Hercules is described as stran^lin"- 

 the snakes sent to destroy him by Juno : 

 " 6 5' vp- 

 Buy /.liv ayTeiVff Kapa, 

 Viiparo Se npuTOv ix&XM, 

 oi(7<xoAai Zoious ah'x^ivoyv 

 fiap\pas d<pvK70is x^piJ''" ^"^s o'l^iar." 

 Let me give a portion of Cowley's translation : 

 " Tlie big-limb"d babe in his huge cradle lay, 

 Too weighty to be rock'd by nurse's hands. 



Wrapt in purple swaddling bands ; 

 When, lo ! by jealous Juno's fierce commands, 

 Two dreadful serpents come. 



" All naked from her bed the passionate mother lept 

 To save, or perish with her child. 

 She trembled, and shecry'd; the mighty infant smiled: 

 The mighty infant seem'd well pleased 

 At his gay gilded foes. 

 And as their spotted necks up to the cradle rose, 

 IFith his young warlike hands on both he seiz'd." 



The stretching forth of the child's hands he found 

 in Pindar and Cowley ; his " smiling " in Cowley 

 alone, for there is no trace of it in the original. 

 While speaking of Gray, one scarcely likes alluding 

 to that great whetstone, Dr. Johnson ; for certainly 

 the darkest shade on his well-merited literary 

 reputation arises from his unjust, ill-natured, and 

 unscholarlike criticisms upon a poet whose sole 

 transgression was to have been his cotemporary. 

 But Johnson eulogises Shakspeare, as did Gray, 

 and I cannot help thinking that he, as well as Gray, 

 was indebted to Cowley : e. g. Johnson writes : 



" When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes 

 First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose ; 

 Each change ofmany-colour'd life he drew. 

 Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new : 

 Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 

 j4nd panting Time toil'd after him in vain." 



Prologue spoken by Mr. Garrick at the opening 

 of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1747. 



" He did the utmost bounds of knowledge find ; 

 He found them not so large as was bis inind, 

 But, like the brave Pellaean youth, did nione 

 Because that art had no more worlds than one. 

 And when he saw that he through all had past. 

 He dy'd, lest he should idle grow at last." 



Cowley, On the Death of Sir Henry Wootton, 

 page 6.: Lond. 16G8, fol. 



And with Dr. Johnson's sixth line — 



" Panting Time toil'd after him in vain," 



we may, I think, compare Cowley's description of 

 King David's earlier years : 



" Bless me ! how swift and growing was his wit ! 

 The wings of Time fag'd dully after it." 



Davideis, lib. iii. p. 92. 



But to return to Gray, Ode VL " The Bard : " 



" With haggard eyes the poet stood ; 

 Loose his beard, and hoary hair 

 Streamed, tike a meteor, to the troubled air." 



Wakefield quotes Paradise Lost, lib. i. 535. : 



" Tlie imperial ensign, which full high advanc'd. 

 Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind." 



Campbell, in. 21ie Pleasures of Hope, Part I., 

 does borrow from Milton in the above passage : 



" Where Andes, giant of the western star. 

 With meteor standard to the winds unfurl' d ; " 



but Gray is alluding to hair, and not to a standard ; 

 to the original derivation of tlie word comet ((to'/nj), 

 and possibly to a difierent passage in Milton, viz. 

 Par. Lost, ii. 706. : 



