POPE. 337 



test to distinguish poetry from verse-making. The whole 

 Romantic School, in its germ, no doubt, but yet unmistak 

 ably foreshadowed, lies already in the &quot;Ode on the Super 

 stitions of the Highlands.&quot; He was the first to bring back 

 into poetry something of the antique fervour, and found 

 again the long-lost secret of being classically elegant with 

 out being pedantically cold. A skilled lover of music,* he 

 rose from the general sing-song of his generation to a 

 harmony that had been silent since Milton, and in him, to 

 use his own words, 



&quot;The force of energy is found, 

 And the sense rises on the wings of sound.&quot; 



But beside his own direct services in the reformation of 

 our poetry, we owe him a still greater debt as the inspirer 

 of Gray, whose &quot; Progress of Poesy,&quot; in reach, variety, and 

 loftiness of poise, overflies all other English lyrics like an 

 eagle. In spite of the dulness of contemporary ears, pre 

 occupied with the continuous hum of the popular hurdy- 

 gurdy, it was the prevailing blast of Gray s trumpet that 

 more than anything else called men back to the legiti 

 mate standard. f Another poet, Dyer, whose &quot; Fleece&quot; was 



* Milton, Collins, and Gray, our three great masters of harmony, 

 were all musicians. 



t Wordsworth, who recognised forerunners in Thomson, Collins, 

 Dyer, and Burns, and who chimes in with the popular superstition 

 about Chatterton, is always somewhat niggardly in his appreciation of 

 Gray. Yet he owed him not a little. Without Gray s tune in his ears, 

 his own noblest Ode would have missed the varied modulation which is 

 one of its main charms. Where he forgets Gray, his verse sinks to 

 something like the measure of a jig. Perhaps the suggestion of one 

 of his own finest lines, 



(&quot; The light that never was on land or sea,&quot;) 

 was due to Gray s 



&quot; Orient hues nnborrowed of the sun.&quot; 



I believe it has not been noticed that among the verses in Gray s 

 &quot; Sonnet on the Death of West,&quot; which Wordsworth condemns as of 

 no value, the second 



&quot;And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fires&quot; 



is one of Gray s happy reminiscences from a poet in some respects 

 greater than either of them : 



KO 



