[103.] Gray, according to Mason, "admired Dryden almost beyond bounds."3
3 In a journey through Scotland in 1765, Gray became acquainted with Beattie, to whom he commended the study of Dryden, adding that "if there was any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly from the great poet."
[105.] "Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes" (Gray). Cf. Pope, Imit. of Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 267:
| "Waller was smooth: but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full-resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine." |
[106.] Gray quotes Job xxxix. 19: "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?"
[108.] Bright-eyed. The MS. has "full-plumed."
[110.] Gray quotes Cowley, Prophet: "Words that weep, and tears that speak."
Dugald Stewart remarks upon this line: "I have sometimes thought that Gray had in view the two different effects of words already described; the effect of some in awakening the powers of conception and imagination; and that of others in exciting associated emotions."
[111.] "We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his choruses; above all in the last of Caractacus: