That face is not pleasant, sir. Nothing so disfigures a face as envy. Old Poets at last grow ugly all--but you, sir, are a Philosopher--and on your benign countenance 'twas but a passing cloud. There--you are as beautiful as ever--how comely in critical old age! Any farther fault to find with our friend Mitford? NORTH. "On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires, Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries, Even in our ashes live their wonted fires." "'Pious drops' is from Ovid--piæ lachrymæ; 'closing eye' is from Pope--'voice of nature' from the Anthologia, and the last line from Chaucer--'Yet on our ashes cold is fire yreken.' _From so many quarries are the stones brought to form this elaborate Mosaic pavement._" I say, for "piæ lachrymæ" all honour to Ovid--for "pious drops" all honour to Gray. "Closing eye" is _not_ from Pope's Elegy; "voice of nature" is _not_ from the Anthologia, but from Nature herself; Chaucer's line may have suggested Gray's, but the reader of Chaucer knows that Gray's has a tender and profound meaning which is not in Chaucer's at all--and he knows, too, that Mr Mitford is not a reader of Chaucer--for were he, he could not have written "ashes" for "ashen." There were _no_ quarries--there is _no_ Mosaic. Mosaic pavement! Worse, if possible--more ostentatiously pedantic--even than stuck in flowers, jewels, settings, and sockets. TALBOYS. The Stanza is sacred to sorrow. NORTH. "From this Stanza," quoth Mitford, "the style of the composition drops into _a lower key_; the language is plainer, and is not in harmony with the splendid and elaborate diction of the former part." This objection is disposed of by what I said some minutes ago---- BULLER. Half an hour ago--on _Grayishness_. NORTH. And I have only this farther to say, gentlemen, that though the language is plainer--yet it is solemn; nor is it unpoetical--for the hoary-headed swain was moved as he spake; the style, if it drop into a lower key, is accordant with that higher key on which the music was pitched that has not yet left our hearing. An Elegy is not an Ode--the close should be mournful as the opening--with loftier strain between--and it is so; and whatever we might have to say of the Epitaph--its final lines are "awful"--as every man must have felt them to be--whether thought on in our own lonely night-room--in the Churchyard of Grantchester, where it is said Gray mused the Elegy--or by that Burial-ground in Inishail--or here afloat in the joyous sunshine for an hour privileged to be happy in a world of grief. BULLER. Let's change the subject, sir. May I ask what author you have in your other hand? NORTH. Alison on Taste. BULLER. You don't say so! I thought you quoted from memory. NORTH. So I did; but I have dog-eared a page or two. BULLER. I see no books lying about in the Pavilion--only Newspapers--and Magazines--and Reviews--and trash of that kind---- NORTH.