Gray was a scholar of rare attainments in both the language and the literature of Greece. Hence, in no inconsiderable measure, his self-critical spirit. His aim, as stated by himself, is at “extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous and musical.” As a poet he suffered from constitutional shortcomings. He is without profound imaginings or ecstatic sensibilities; but his beauties are no less undeniable, although of the sort which are mainly acquired from training. No one can fail to admire the perfect technique of his stanzas. It is doubtful, however, whether any but a Greek scholar can perceive the skill with which he has combined a mosaic of reminiscences of ancient writers into stanzas of perfect English. His _Progress of Poesy_ and his _Bard_ are plainly modelled on Pindar, but even his most beautiful individual expressions are sometimes but translations from the Greek. Said the Greek Phrynichus: “The purple light of love shines on her flushing cheeks.” To this Gray owes his O’er her warm cheek and rising bosom move The bloom of young desire and purple light of love. Of his enthusiasm for Greece we may judge from a passage in the _Progress of Poesy_: Woods, that wave o’er Delphi’s steep, Isles, that crown the Egaean deep, Fields, that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Maeander’s amber waves In lingering lab’rinths creep; How do your tuneful echoes languish— Mute, but to the voice of anguish? Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breath’d around: Ev’ry shade and hallowed fountain Murmur’d deep a solemn sound: Till the sad Nine in Greece’s evil hour, Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. Swift’s most popular work, _Gulliver’s Travels_, derives its hint from Lucian’s _True History_, and all that peculiar vein of humour which runs through the _Tale of a Tub_ and the _Battle of the Books_, is, consciously or unconsciously, the parallel of the characteristic irony of the same Lucian.