se of
children." And in a letter to Walpole, Feb. 25, 1768, he says he has
added "certain little Notes, partly from justice (to acknowledge the
debt where I had borrowed anything), partly from ill temper, just to
tell the gentle reader that Edward I. was not Oliver Cromwell, nor
Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor."

Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, said that "if the Bard recited his
Ode only _once_ to Edward, he was sure he could not understand it."
When this was told to Gray, he said, "If he had recited it twenty
times, Edward would not have been a bit wiser; but that was no reason
why Mr. Fox should not."]

"The metre of these Odes is constructed on Greek models. It is not
uniform but symmetrical. The nine stanzas of each ode form three
groups. A slight examination will show that the 1st, 4th, and 7th
stanzas are exactly inter-correspondent; so the 2d, 5th, and 8th; and
so the remaining three. The technical Greek names for these three
parts were [Greek: strophe] (strophe), [Greek: antistrophe]
(antistrophe), and [Greek: epodos] (epodos)--the Turn, the
Counter-turn, and the After-song--names derived from the theatre; the
Turn denoting the movement of the Chorus from one side of the [Greek:
orchestra] (orchestra), or Dance-stage, to the other, the
Counter-turn the reverse movement, the After-song something sung
after two such movements. Odes thus constructed were called by the
Greeks Epodic. Congreve is said to have been the first who so
constructed English odes. This system cannot be said to have
prospered with us. Perhaps no English ear would instinctively
recognize that correspondence between distant parts which is the
secret of it. Certainly very many readers of _The Progress of Poesy_
are wholly unconscious of any such harmony" (Hales).

[Illustration: ALCAEUS AND SAPPHO. FROM A PAINTING ON A VASE.]

1. _Awake, Aeolian lyre_. The blunder of the Critical Reviewers who
supposed the "harp of Aeolus" to be meant led Gray to insert this
note: "Pindar styles his own poetry with its musical accompaniments,
[Greek: Aiolis molpe, Aiolides chordai, Aiolidon pnoai aulon],
Aeolian song, Aeolian strings, the breath of the Aeolian flute."

Cf. Cowley, _Ode of David_: "Awake, awake, my lyre!" Gray himself
quotes _Ps._ lvii. 8. The first reading of the line in the MS. was,
"Awake, my lyre: my glory, wake." Gray also adds the following note:
"The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The
various sources of p