"Torquatus volo parvulus Matris e gremio suae Porrigens teneras manus, Dulce rideat." 91. _These golden keys_. Cf. Young, _Resig._: "Nature, which favours to the few All art beyond imparts, To him presented at his birth The key of human hearts." Wakefield cites _Comus_, 12: "Yet some there be, that with due steps aspire To lay their hands upon that golden key That opes the palace of eternity." See also _Lycidas_, 110: "Two massy keys he bore of metals twain; The golden opes, the iron shuts amain." 93. _Of horror_. A MS. variation is "Of terror." 94. _Or ope the sacred source_. In a letter to Dr. Wharton, Sept. 7, 1757, Gray mentions, among other criticisms upon this ode, that "Dr. Akenside criticises opening a _source_ with a _key_." But, as Mitford remarks, Akenside himself in his _Ode on Lyric Poetry_ has, "While I so late _unlock_ thy purer _springs_," and in his _Pleasures of Imagination_, "I _unlock_ the _springs_ of ancient wisdom." 95. _Nor second he_, etc. "Milton" (Gray). 96, 97. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ vii. 12: "Up led by thee, Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed, An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air." 98. _The flaming bounds_, etc. Gray quotes Lucretius, i. 74: "Flammantia moenia mundi." Cf. also Horace, _Epist._ i. 14, 9: "amat spatiis obstantia rumpere claustra." 99. Gray quotes _Ezekiel_ i. 20, 26, 28. See also Milton, _At a Solemn Music_, 7: "Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne;" _Il Pens._ 53: "the fiery-wheeled throne;" _P. L._ vi. 758: "Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pure Amber, and colours of the showery arch;" and _id._ vi. 771: "He on the wings of cherub rode sublime, On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned." 101. _Blasted with excess of light_. Cf. _P. L._ iii. 380: "Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear." 102. Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ x. 746: "in aeternam clauduntur lumina noctem," which Dryden translates, "And closed her lids at last in endless night." Gray quotes Homer, _Od._ viii. 64: [Greek: Ophthalmôn men amerses, didou d' hêdeian aoidên.] 103. Gray, according to Mason, "admired Dryden almost beyond bounds."[3] [Footnote 3: In a journey through Scotland in 1765, Gray became acquainted with Beattie, to whom he commended the study of Dryden, adding that "if there was any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly from the great poet."] 105. "Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes" (Gray). Cf. Pope, _Imit. of Hor. Ep._ ii. 1, 267: "Waller was smooth: but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full-resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine." 106. Gray quotes _Job_ xxxix. 19: "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?" 108. _Bright-eyed_. The MS. has "full-plumed." 110. Gray quotes Cowley, _Prophet_: "Words that weep, and tears that speak."