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143
THE ALLIANCE OF
EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT.
A FRAGMENT.[N 1]
[See Mason's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 99; and Musae Etonenses, vol. ii. p. 152.]
ESSAY I.
———Πόταγ᾽, ὦ 'γαθέ· τὰν γὰρ ἀοιδαν
Οὔτι πα εἰς Λίδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα φυλαξεις.
Theocritus, Id. I. 63.
Οὔτι πα εἰς Λίδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα φυλαξεις.
Theocritus, Id. I. 63.
As sickly plants betray a niggard earth,
Whose barren[V 1] bosom starves her generous birth,
Nor genial warmth, nor genial juice retains,
Their roots to feed, and fill their verdant veins:
And as in climes, where winter holds his reign, 5
The soil, though fertile, will not teem in vain,
Forbids her gems to swell, her shades to rise,
Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies:
Whose barren[V 1] bosom starves her generous birth,
Nor genial warmth, nor genial juice retains,
Their roots to feed, and fill their verdant veins:
And as in climes, where winter holds his reign, 5
The soil, though fertile, will not teem in vain,
Forbids her gems to swell, her shades to rise,
Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies:
Variants
- ↑ Var. V. 2. Barren] Flinty, MS.
Notes
- ↑ In a note to his Roman History, Gibbon says: "Instead of compiling tables of chronology and natural history, why did not Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic poem of which he has left such an exquisite specimen!" Vol. ii. p. 248. 4to.—Would it not have been more philosophical in Gibbon to have lamented the situation in which Gray was placed; which was not only not favourable to the cultivation of poetry, but which naturally directed his thoughts to those learned inquiries, that formed the amusement or business of all around him?