Lowell says: "Gray, if we may believe the commentators, has not an idea, scarcely an epithet, that he can call his own, and yet he is, in the best sense, one of the classics of English literature." And Sir James Mackintosh says: "Of all English poets he was the most finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendor of which poetic style seemed to be capable. It may be added that he deserves the comparatively trifling praise of having been the most learned poet since Milton." =Other Poems to be Read:= Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard; On a Distant Prospect of Eton College; The Progress of Poesy; Ode on Spring. REFERENCES: Johnson's _Lives of English Poets_; _Gray_ (English Men of Letters), by Edmund Gosse; Hazlitt's _Lectures on the English Poets_; Roscoe's _Essays_. Alexander Pope. FROM THE "ESSAY ON CRITICISM." Some to Conceit{1} alone their taste confine, And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;{2} One glaring Chaos and wild heap of wit.{3} Poets, like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is nature to advantage dress'd; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;{4} Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit. For works may have more wit than does 'em good, As bodies perish through excess of blood. Others for Language all their care express, And value books, as women men,{5} for dress: Their praise is still,--the style is excellent; The sense, they humbly take upon content.{6} Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found: False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, In gaudy colors spreads on ev'ry place; The face of nature we no more survey, All glares alike, without distinction gay: But true expression, like th' unchanging sun, Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon; It gilds all objects, but it alters none. Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent, as more suitable; A vile conceit in pompous words express'd Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd: For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,{7} As sev'ral garbs with country, town, and court. Some by old words to fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; Such labor'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile, Unlucky, as Fungoso{8} in the play, These sparks{9} with awkward vanity display What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; And but so mimic ancient wits at best,