Aston was always kicking up disturbances. I remember being at Ranelagh with my father and mother, when we heard a great row, and were told that it was occasioned by Aston.

If I mistake not, Aston fought two duels in India on two successive days, and fell in the second one.*

That beautiful view of Conway Castle [in Mr. Rogers's dining-room] was painted by Sir George Beaumont, who presented it to me as a memorial of our having been originally introduced to each other in its ruins.-Sir George and I were always excellent friends. The morning after I arrived at Venice (on my first visit to Italy), I was looking out at the to convince him of his mistake, assuring him, 'that no Irishman, in that respect, was better than another man.'" Cooke's Memoirs of Macklin, p. 225.-ED.

"1798, Dec. 23. At Madras, in consequence of a wound he received in a duel with Major Allen, of which he languished about a week, Col. Harvey Aston. He had been engaged in a similar affair of honour, and on the same account, with Major Picton, only the day preceding that on which he met Major A., but which was fortunately terminated by each party firing in the air, and a proper explanation taking place as to the offence." Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxix. P. I. p. 527.-Aston had fought a duel in 1790 with Lieut. Fitzgerald, and was severely wounded. See Haydn's Dict. of Dates, sub. Duelling.-ED.

window, when I saw a gentleman and a lady land at my lodging from a gondola: they were Sir George and Lady Beaumont. The meeting was delightful: -even now, I think of it with pleasure.

In my youthful days Young's Night-Thoughts was a very favourite book, especially with ladies: I knew more than one lady who had a copy of it in which particular passages were marked for her by some popular preacher.

Young's poem The Last Day contains, amidst much absurdity, several very fine lines: what an enormous thought is this!

"Those overwhelming armies, whose command

Said to one empire 'Fall,' another 'Stand,'

Whose rear lay rapt in night, while breaking dawn
Rous'd the broad front, and call'd the battle on."*

At Brighton, during my youth, I became acquainted with a lawyer who had known Gray. He

Book ii.-ED.

said that Gray's pronunciation was very affected, c.g. "What naise (noise) is that?"

Henley (the translator of Beckford's Vathek) was one morning paying a visit to Gray, when a dog came into the room. "Is that your dog?" said Henley. "No," replied Gray: "do you suppose that I would keep an animal by which I might possibly lose my life."

I was a mere lad when Mason's Gray was published. I read it in my young days with delight, and have done so ever since: the Letters have for me an inexpressible charm; they are as witty as Walpole's, and have, what his want, true wisdom. I used to take a pocket edition of Gray's Poems with me every morning during my walks to town to my father's banking-house, where I was a clerk, and read them by the way. I can repeat them all. I do envy Gray these lines in his Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College;

"Still as they run, they look behind,

They hear a voice in every wind,

And snatch a fearful joy."

But what immediately follows is not good;

"Gay hope is theirs, by Fancy fed,

Less pleasing when possess'd:"

we cannot be said to possess hope.*-How strange it is that, with all Gray's care in composition, the word "shade" should occur three times in the course of the eleven first lines of that ode !—

"Her Henry's holy shade."

"Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among."
"Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade!"

Both Fox and Courtenay thought Gray's fragment, The Alliance of Education and Government, his finest poem: but that was because they preferred the heroic couplet to every other kind of verse. A celebrated passage in it,—

"Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar

Has Scythia breath'd the living cloud of war;

And, where the deluge burst with sweepy sway,
Their arms, their kings, their gods were roll'd away.
As oft have issu❜d, host impelling host,

The blue-ey'd myriads from the Baltic coast:

His friend Wakefield had anticipated Mr. Rogers in the above remark: "Though the object of hope may truly be said to be less pleasing in possession than in the fancy; yet HOPE in person cannot possibly be possessed," &c. Note ad L-Ed.

The prostrate south to the destroyer yields
Her boasted titles and her golden fields;
With grim delight the brood of winter view
A brighter day and heavens of azure hue,
Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose,

And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows,"

is a good deal injured by the forced and unnatural expression, "pendent vintage."*

I once read Gray's Ode to Adversity to Wordsworth; and at the line,—

"And leave us leisure to be good,”—

Wordsworth exclaimed, "I am quite sure that is not original; Gray could not have hit upon it."+

The stanza which Gray threw out of his Elegy is better than some of the stanzas he has retained;

"There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."

* For this expression Gray was indebted to Virgil;
"Non eadem arboribus pendet vindemia nostris
Quam Methymnæo carpit de palmite Lesbos."

Georg. ii. 89.-ED.

†The Rev. J. Mitford, in his ed. of Gray, cites ad l., "And know, I have not yet the leisure to be good." Oldham, Ode, st. 5,-Works, i. 85, ed. 1722.-ED.