See also Catullus, In Nupt. Jun. et Manl. 216:

"Torquatus volo parvulus
Matris e gremio suae
Porrigens teneras manus,
Dulce rideat."

[91.] These golden keys. Cf. Young, Resig.:

"Nature, which favours to the few
All art beyond imparts,
To him presented at his birth
The key of human hearts."

Wakefield cites Comus, 12:

"Yet some there be, that with due steps aspire
To lay their hands upon that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity."

See also Lycidas, 110:

"Two massy keys he bore of metals twain;
The golden opes, the iron shuts amain."

[93.] Of horror. A MS. variation is "Of terror."

[94.] Or ope the sacred source. In a letter to Dr. Wharton, Sept. 7, 1757, Gray mentions, among other criticisms upon this ode, that "Dr. Akenside criticises opening a source with a key." But, as Mitford remarks, Akenside himself in his Ode on Lyric Poetry has, "While I so late unlock thy purer springs," and in his Pleasures of Imagination, "I unlock the springs of ancient wisdom."