[57] Ibid.
[58] Life of Pope.
[59] Gray's life.
[60] Ibid.
[61] Gray's life.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Pastor cum traheret per freta navibus, &c.
[64] Gray's life. Dr. Beattie of Aberdeen differs very widely from Dr. Johnson on the merit of this poem. He says, 'I have heard the finest Ode in the world (meaning Gray's Bard) blamed for the boldness of its figures, and for what the critic was pleased to call obscurity.' Beattie's Essays on poetry and musick, 3d edit. p. 269. This is, certainly very strong; yet he seems in some danger of contradicting himself, when he says in another place, That 'for energy of words, vivacity of description, and apposite variety of numbers, Dryden's Feast of Alexander is superior to any ode of Horace or Pindar now extant.' Ibid, p. 17. One would have been apt to suppose that the Lyrick Poem which eclipsed Horace, if not the finest, is at least one of 'the finest in the world.'—But an author has novelty to recommend him, when he affirms that Gray is superior to Dryden, and Dryden to all Antiquity.
[65] Gray's life.
[66] Ibid.