MISCELLANEOUS. 301 



one to the river Lodon, are peculiarl}' beautiful, and 

 that to Mr Gray is most elegantly turned. The " Ode 

 on the approacli of Summer," is replete with genius and 

 poetic fire : and even over the Birthday odes, whicli he 

 wrote as poet laureat, his genius has cast energy and 

 beauty. His humorous pieces and satires abound in wit : 

 iind, in short, taking' him altogether, he is an ornament 

 to our country and our language, and it is to be regretted 

 tliat the profusion with which he has made use of the 

 beauties of other poets should have given room for cen- 

 sure. 



I should have closed my short, and I fear jejune, essay 

 on Warton, but that I wished to hint to your truly ele- 

 gant and acute Stamford correspondent, Octavius Gil- 

 christ (whose future remarks on Warton's imitations I 

 await with considerable impatience), that the passage in 

 the " Pleasures of Melancholy" — 



-" or gJiosth shape, 



At distance seen, invites, ivith heck'ning hand, 

 Thy lonesome steps,^' 



which he supposes to be taken from the following in 

 " Comus," 



" Of calling shapes, ard bock'ning shadows dire, 

 And airy tongues that syllable men's names," 



is more probably taken from the commencement of Pope's 

 elegy on an unfortunate lady — 



" "What beek'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade 

 Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade ?"' 



The original idea was possibly taken from " Comus" 

 by Pope, from whom Warton, to all appearance, again 

 borrowed it. 



Were the similarity of the passage in Gray to that in 

 Warton less striking and verbal, I should be inclined to 

 think it only a remarkable coincidence ; for Gray's bio- 

 grapher informs us, that he commenced his elegy in 17^2, 

 and that it was completed in 17^4, being the year which 

 he particularly devuted to the Muses, though he did nut 



