| “––––Mona, Where thousand elfin shapes abide.” |
Mona is properly the Roman name of the Isle of Anglesey, anciently so famous for its Druids; but sometimes, as in this place, it is given to the Isle of Man. Both these isles still retain much of the genius of superstition, and are now the only places where there is the least chance of finding a fairy.
ODE TO A LADY,
ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL ROSS, IN THE ACTION OF FONTENOY.
The iambic kind of numbers in which this ode is conceived seems as well calculated for tender and plaintive subjects, as for those where strength or rapidity is required.––This, perhaps, is owing to the repetition of the strain in the same stanza; for sorrow rejects variety, and affects a uniformity of complaint. It is needless to observe, that this ode is replete with harmony, spirit, and pathos; and there surely appears no reason why the seventh and eighth stanzas should be omitted in that copy printed in Dodsley’s Collection of Poems.