It is probable that Milton has given us his idea of what was meant by _this purple light_, when applied to the human countenance, in the felicitous expression of CELESTIAL ROSY-RED. Gray appears to me to be indebted to Milton for a hint for the opening of his Elegy: as in the first line he had Dante and Milton in his mind, he perhaps might also in the following passage have recollected a congenial one in Comus, which he altered. Milton, describing the evening, marks it out by ---- What time the _laboured ox_ In his loose traces from the furrow came, And the _swinkt hedger_ at his supper sat. Gray has The _lowing herd_ wind slowly o'er the lea, The _ploughman_ homeward plods his weary way. Warton has made an observation on this passage in Comus; and observes further that it is a _classical_ circumstance, but not a _natural_ one, in an _English landscape_, for our ploughmen quit their work at noon. I think, therefore, the imitation is still more evident; and as Warton observes, both Gray and Milton copied here from books, and not from life. There are three great poets who have given us a similar incident. Dryden introduces the highly finished picture of the _hare_ in his Annus Mirabilis:-- _Stanza_ 131. So I have seen some _fearful hare_ maintain A course, till tired before the dog she lay, Who stretched behind her, pants upon the plain, Past power to kill, as she to get away. 132. With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey; His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies: She trembling creeps upon the ground away And looks back to him with _beseeching eyes_. Thomson paints the _stag_ in a similar situation:-- ----Fainting breathless toil Sick seizes on his heart--he stands at bay: The _big round tears_ run down his _dappled_ face, He _groans_ in anguish. _Autumn_, v. 451. Shakspeare exhibits the same object:-- The wretched animal heaved forth such _groans_, That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting; and the _big round tears_ Coursed one another down his _innocent nose_ In piteous chase. Of these three pictures the _beseeching eyes_ of Dryden perhaps is more pathetic than _the big round tears_, certainly borrowed by Thomson from Shakspeare, because the former expression has more passion, and is therefore more poetical. The sixth line in Dryden is perhaps exquisite for its imitative harmony, and with peculiar felicity paints the action itself. Thomson adroitly drops the _innocent nose_, of which one word seems to have lost its original signification, and the other offends now by its familiarity. _The dappled face_ is a term more picturesque, more appropriate, and more poetically expressed. EXPLANATION OF THE FAC-SIMILE.