Still, where rosy pleasure leads, Behind the steps that misery treads, The hues of bliss more brightly glow, See the wretch, that long has toss'd Humble quiet builds her cell, Near the source whence pleasure flows; She eyes the clear crystalline well, And tastes it as it goes. 'While' far below the 'madding' crowd 'Rush headlong to the dangerous flood,' Where broad and turbulent it sweeps, 'And' perish in the boundless deeps. Mark where indolence, and pride, Their dull but daily round: E "To these, if Hebe's self should bring 'Mark ambition's march sublime Up to power's meridian height; Phantoms of danger, death, and dread, 'Happier he, the peasant, far, From the pangs of passion free, He, when his morning task is done, He, unconscious whence the bliss, From toil he wins his spirits light, In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.' TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE FROM STATIUS. THEB. LIB. VI. VER. 704-724. This translation, which Gray sent to West, consisted of about a hundred and ten lines. Mr. Mason selected twenty-seven lines, which he published, as Gray's first attempt in English verse. THIRD in the labours of the disc came on, Artful and strong he pois'd the well-known weight, His vigorous arm he tried before he flung, The theatre's green height and woody wall The ponderous mass sinks in the cleaving ground, Cambridge, FRAGMENT OF A TRAGEDY, DESIGNED BY MR. GRAY, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE DEATH OF AGRIPPINA. "THE Britannicus of Mr. Racine, I know, was one of Mr. Gray's most favourite plays; and the admirable manner in which I have heard him say he saw it represented at Paris, seems to have led him to choose the death of Agrippina for his first and only effort in the drama. The execution of it also, as far as it goes, is so very much in Racine's taste, that I suspect, if that great poet had been born an Englishman, he would have written precisely in the same style and manner. However, as there is at present in this nation a general prejudice against declamatory plays, I agree with a learned friend, who perused the manuscript, that this fragment will be little relished by the many; yet the admirable strokes of nature and character with which it abounds, and the majesty of its diction, prevent me from withholding from the few, who I expect will relish it, so great a curiosity (to call it nothing more) as part of a tragedy written by Mr. Gray. These persons well know, that till style and sentiment be a little more regarded, mere action and passion will never secure reputation to the author, whatever they may do to the actor. It is the business of the one, 'to strut and fret his hour upon the stage;' and if he frets and struts enough, he is sure to |