Who but would wish like thee to gain
The guidance of the public weal?
Sweet is Dundas’s golden show’r,
Cli—e’s visionary treasure sweet,
Sweet Holland’s rise but sweeter yet,
The still small place of privy seal.
“A Long Story,” which Gray himself considered unworthy a place amongst his Poems, does not appear to have attracted enough attention to be parodied, but a sequel to it was written by John Penn, and inserted in Hakewill’s History of Windsor, and a further sequel to that by the Poet Laureate, Henry James Pye.
“Poems by Mr. Gray.” Dublin. Printed by William Sleater, at No. 51 in Castle Street, 1775. This volume, published only four years after the death of Gray, contains poems which show that his reputation had already made its way to the Continent. It contains several Latin translations of the Elegy; a Latin address “Ad Poetam,” and an Italian version of the Elegy written by Signor Abbate Crocchi of Sienna. It also gives Mason’s continuation of Gray’s fragmentary Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude; the Ode to Raneleigh, a Parody; An Evening Contemplation in a College, a Parody; and Lloyd and Colman’s Burlesque Ode, all of which parodies have already been quoted.
“Runic Odes, imitated from the Norse Tongue,” in the manner of Mr. Gray. By Thomas James Mathias. Quarto. London, 1781. Price one shilling and sixpence. This imitation of Gray by the learned author of the once famous Pursuits of Literature, has nothing of a burlesque character, indeed it opens with a complimentary address to Gray:—
“Pardon me, Mighty Poet, that I turn