To smuggle a few1 years, and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.

On this congenial spot he fix'd his choice;

Earl Goodwin trembled for his neighbouring sand; Here sea-gulls scream, and cormorants rejoice,

And mariners, though shipwreck'd, dread2 to land.

Here reign the blustering North and blighting East,
No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing;
Yet Nature could3 not furnish out the feast,
Art he invokes new horrors still to bring.

Here mouldering fanes and battlements arise,
Turrets and arches nodding to their fall,
Unpeopled monast'ries delude our7 eyes,
And mimic desolation covers all.

"Ah!" said the sighing peer, "had Bute been true,

Nor Mungo's, Rigby's, Bradshaw's friendship vain, Far better scenes than these had blest our view,

8

And realis'd the beauties which9 we feign:

1 A few [Some.-MS.

3 Could] Cannot.-MS.

5 Here] Now.-MS.

2 Dread] Fear.-[Nicholls.]

4 Horrors] Terrors. -[Nicholls.]

6 Turrets and arches] Arches and turrets.-MS.

7 Monast'ries . . . our] Palaces . . . his.-MS.

8 Mungo's, Rigby's, Bradshaw's] Shelburne's, Rigby's, Calcraft's.-MS.

Nor C-'s, nor B-d's promises been vain.-[Nicholls.] 8 Better] Other.-MS. Grac'd our view. -[Nicholls.] 9 Beauties which] Ruins that. - MS. [Nicholls.]

Horrors which.

"Purg'd by the sword, and purified1 by fire,

Then had we seen proud London's hated walls; Owls would have hooted in St. Peter's choir, And foxes stunk and litter'd in St. Paul's."

AMATORY LINES.

[These lines appear to me to be a paraphrase of an epigram in the 6th book of the Erotikon of Hercules Strozius the Elder, "Ad Carolum." Nothing is known of the circumstances under which Gray wrote them, but the original MS. was in the possession of the Countess de Viry (Miss Speed), who presented it, with the ensuing " Song," to the Rev. Mr. Leman when he visited her in Switzerland. Leman handed the verses to Joseph Warton, who printed them in his edition of Pope.—ED.]

WITH beauty, with pleasure surrounded, to languish

To weep without knowing the cause of my anguish : To start from short slumbers, and wish for the morn

ing

To close my dull eyes when I see it returning; Sighs sudden and frequent, looks ever dejectedWords that steal from my tongue, by no meaning connected!

Ah! say, Fellow-swains, how these symptoms befell me?

They smile, but reply not-Sure Delia will tell me!

1 Purified] Beautified.--MS.

2 Would] Might.-MS. Should.—[Nicholls.]

SONG.

[Written at the request of Miss Speed, to an old air of Geminiani, the thought adapted from the French. The text here printed is from a copy by Stonehewer at Pembroke College.— ED.]

THYRSIS, when we parted, swore

Ere the spring he would return—
Ah! what means yon violet flower!

And the buds that deck the thorn!
"Twas the Lark that upward sprung!
'Twas the Nightingale that sung!

Idle notes untimely green!
Why this unavailing haste?
Western gales and skies serene

Speak not always winter past.

Cease, my doubts, my fears to move,
Spare the honour of my love.

COMIC LINES.

It has

[This address occurs in a letter to William Mason, dated Jan. 8, 1768, and written from Pembroke College. never hitherto been included in Gray's Works.-ED.]

WEDDELL attends your call, and Palgrave proud, and Delaval the loud.

For thee does Powell squeeze, and Marriot sputter,
And Glyn cut phizzes, and Tom Neville stutter.
Brown sees thee sitting on his nose's tip,
The Widow feels thee in her aching hip;
For thee fat Nanny sighs, and handy Nelly,
And Balguy with a bishop in his belly.

COUPLET ABOUT BIRDS.

["Two verses made by Mr. Gray as we were walking in the spring in the neighbourhood of Cambridge."-Norton Nicholls' Reminiscences. Never before included in Gray's Works.-ED.] THERE pipes the woodlark, and the song-thrush there Scatters his loose notes in the waste of air.

TOPHET.

[Written by Gray under a caricature of the Rev. Henry Etough, a converted Jew of slanderous and violent temper. The drawing was made by "placid Mr. Tyson of Bene't College." Etough, who was a creature of Sir Robert Walpole, held the rectories of Therfield in Hunts and of Colmworth in Beds. This epigram exists in Stonehewer's handwriting in Pembroke College.-ED.]

THUS Etough look'd; so grinned the brawling fiend,
While frighted prelates bow'd and called him friend;
I saw them bow, and while they wished him dead,
With servile simper nod the mitred head.
Our mother-church, with half-averted sight,
Blush'd as she bless'd her griesly proselyte;
Hosannas rung through hell's tremendous borders,
And Satan's self had thoughts of taking orders.

PARODY ON AN EPITAPH.

["Extempore Epitaph on Ann, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery, made by Mr. Gray on reading the Epitaph on her Mother's tomb in the Church at Appleby, composed by the Countess in the same manner."-MS. note by Wharton. Gray was at Appleby on the 3d of September 1767. The triplet exists, in Gray's handwriting, among the Egerton MSS. It has not hitherto been included among his works.—ED.]

Now clean, now hideous, mellow now, now gruff,
She swept, she hiss'd, she ripen'd and grew rough,
At Broom, Pendragon, Appleby and Brough.

IMPROMPTUS.

[These trifles, never hitherto included in Gray's works, are given by Wharton, in the Egerton MSS., exactly as follows.— ED.]

IMPROMPTU by Mr. GRAY going out of Raby Castle.

Here lives Harry Vane,

Very good claret and fine Champaign.

EXTEMPORE by Mr. GRAY.

On Dr. K[eene], B[ishop] of C[hester].

The Bishop of Chester,

Tho' wiser than Nestor