Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/254

322 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9-s.1v.ocr.2v9 Miranda, ' Tempest,' I. ii. 5, says :— O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer. There is no reference to Shakspeare in either M. or K. Perhaps Wordsworth himself may be thought to hint at the source by the stress laid on " afford." 7. 'Excursion,' iv. (in M. the sixteenth column), 482 ; K. v. 176 :— We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love. Ruskin has made a fine use of this line, by way of antithesis, in ' Fors Clavigera,' i. 5, where he refers to the passage. 8. 'The Solitary Reaper,' M. 223; K. ii. 346 :— The music in my heart I bore Long after it was heard no more. Shelley in one of his shortest poems has :— Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory. Tasso makes Tancred say of the wailing spirit in the haunted wood :— lo n' ho la voce udita, Che nel cor flebilmente anco mi suona. 'G. L.,'xiii. 49. 9. ' Poems founded on the Affections,' No. xix., ' To ,' M. 80 ; K. vii. 114 :— O dearer far than light and life are dear. Cf. Oldham,' Lament for Saul and Jonathan': Ah! dearer than my soul! Dearer than light, or life, or fame. 10. lb., No. viii., "She dwelt," &c, M. 78 ; K. ii. 63 (' On Lucy ') :— A violet by a mossy Btonc Half hidden from the eye She lived unknown, &c. The simile is found in Habington's ' Castara' (1634), p. 166 in Elton's edition (date of preface, 1812):— Like, the motet, which alone Prospers in some happy shade, My Castara liven unknown. To no looser eye betrayed. 11. 'Remembrance of Collins,' M. 6; K. i. 30 (1798) :— How calm, how still! the only sound Tho dripping of tho oar suspended. Cf. Byron, 'Ch. Har.,' iii. 86 (1816) :— It is the hush of night, and on the ear Drops the light drip of the impended oar. 12. 'Ode to Duty,' v. 2, M. 371 ; K. iii. 31 : There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them ; who, in love and truth, Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth : Glad Hearts ! without reproach or blot; Who do thy work, and know it not. Montesquieu, in 'Lettres Persanes,' No. 50, similarly writes :— "J'ai vu des gens chez qui la vertu etait si naturelle; qu'olle ne so faisait pas merne sentir; ils s'attachaient a leur devoir sans s'v plier, et x'y portaient commc par instinct: bien loin de relever par leurs discours leurs rares qualites. il semblait quV/e* n'araient pan perci jiuiqu d tux." Montaigne, too, recognizes this " natural" goodness, but reckons it below virtue, which implies effort:— " II me semble que la vertu est chose aultre, et plus noble, que les inclinations a la bonte qui naissent en nous car il semble quo le nom de la vertu presuppose de la difficult* et du contrast*," &c.—' Essais, ii. 11. 13. 'Ode to May,' M. 383 ; K. vii. 146. In v. 10 Wordsworth speaks of the streams as Gurgling in foamy waterbreak, Loitering in glassy pool. (K. has " grassy," with no v.l.) It is perhaps a mere coincidence natural to the subject that Tennyson's ' Brook' includes one of each pair of nouns, adjectives, and verbs:— And here and there a/orcm.y flake With many a silvery n-aterbreak I loiter round my cresses. 14. ' Descriptive Sketches,' M.'7 ; K. i. 33 : Much wondering by what fit of crazing care, Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there. Cf. Gray's ' Elegy,' v. 27 :— Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopclexs lore. Other resemblances, probably intentional allusions to a poem so well known, occur in those passages of ' The Excursion ' where tho subject is similar. Book v., M. 497 ; K. v. 238 (towards the end):— These that in trembling hope are laid apart. Gray's last lino but one of the 'Elegy ' is There they alike in trembling hope repose. Book vi., M. 503 ; K. v. 262, the Sceptic says of the Latin epitaph :— Smooth verse, inspired by no unlettered Muse. This seems a designed contrast to tho "uncouth rhymes "of the rustic headstones, and to Their name, their years, spelt bi/the unlettered Mttxe. ' Elegy,'vv. 20-21. With more hesitancy I venture to suggest that we may, perhaps, see at least a verbal resemblance to Gray in two lines of Words- worth's great ' Ode,' M. 442 ; K. iv. 53 :— O joy ! that in our embers Is something that doth live. Oi.:— Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. ' Elegy,' v. 23. But the thought is not the same.