[225] Two of Gray’s mechanical figures were marked down for special censure by Dr. Johnson (“Lives,” Gray, ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 440), whose criticism was endorsed by Walpole (“Letters,” Vol. III, p. 98), who likened “Fell Thirst and Famine” to the devils in “The Tempest” who whisk away the banquets from the shipwrecked Dukes. [226] “Letters” (December 19, 1786), Tovey, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 322. [227] In this connexion mention may be made of “William Blake’s Designs for Gray’s Poems,” recently published for the first time with a valuable introduction by H. J. C. Grierson (Oxford, 1922). “Blake’s imagination,” says Professor Grierson, “communicates an intenser life to Gray’s half-conventional personifications” (Intro., p. 17). [228] Canto I: LXXIV-LXXV. [229] Cp. also the detailed personification of “Thrift,” given by Mickle in his “Syr Martyn” (1787).—“Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. XI, p. 645. [230] Cf. “Paradise Lost,” VI, 3; and Pope’s “Iliad,” V, 297. [231] “Works” ed. Ellis and Yeats, Vol. I, Pref., x. [232] July 6, 1803, “Letters,” ed. A. G. B. Russell (1906), p. 121. [233] In the parallel verses of “The Songs of Experience” the human attributes are attributed respectively to _Cruelty_, _Jealousy_, _Terror_, and _Secrecy_. [234] “Poetical Works,” ed. John Sampson (Oxford), 1914, p. 187. [235] _Vide_, e.g., ll. 18-26. [236] See also, e.g., “Midnight,” l. 272 foll, and l. 410 foll. [237] A similar type of abstraction is found here and there in the stanzas of the “Song to David” (1763), e.g.: ’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned And heavenly melancholy tuned To bless and bear the rest. But on the whole Smart’s famous poem is singularly free from the bane, though the “Hymn to the Supreme Being” (_vide_ “A Song to David,” edited Tutin (1904), Appendix, p. 32), has not escaped the contagion. But better instances are to be found in the Odes (“Works,” 1761-1762), e.g., “Strong Labour ... with his pipe in his mouth,” “Health from his Cottage of thatch,” etc. _Vide_ also article on “Christopher Smart,” “Times Literary Supplement,” April 6, 1922, p. 224. [238] Cf. “Poems of William Cowper,” ed. J. C. Bailey (1905), Intro., p. xl. [239] There are faint personifications of the other seasons in Book III, ll. 427 foll., but none perhaps as effective as William Mickle had already given in his ode, “Vicissitude,” where he depicts Winter staying: his creeping steps to pause And wishful turns his icy eyes On April meads. [240] _Streaky_, for instance, is due to Thomson who, in the first draft of “Summer” (ll. 47-48) had written: Mildly elucent in the streaky east, later changed to At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east. [241] “Letters,” edited E. Coleridge, 1895, p. 215. [242] “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. I.