d to die, are mine.'"

With regard to the _obscurity_ of the poem, the same writer remarks
that "it is such only as of necessity arises from the plan and
conduct of a prophecy." "In the prophetic poem," he adds, "one point
of history alone is told, and the rest is to be acquired previously
by the reader; as in the contemplation of an historical picture,
which commands only one moment of time, our memory must supply us
with the necessary links of knowledge; and that point of time
selected by the painter must be illustrated by the spectator's
knowledge of the past or future, of the cause or the consequences."

He refers, for corroboration of this opinion, to Dr. Campbell, who in
his "Philosophy of Rhetoric," says: "I know no style to which
darkness of a certain sort is more suited than to the prophetical:
many reasons might be assigned which render it improper that prophecy
should be perfectly understood before it be accomplished. Besides, we
are certain that a prediction may be very dark before the
accomplishment, and yet so plain afterwards as scarcely to admit a
doubt in regard to the events suggested. It does not belong to
critics to give laws to prophets, nor does it fall within the
confines of any human art to lay down rules for a species of
composition so far above art. Thus far, however, we may warrantably
observe, that when the prophetic style is imitated in poetry, the
piece ought, as much as possible, to possess the character above
mentioned. This character, in my opinion, is possessed in a very
eminent degree by Mr. Gray's ode called _The Bard_. It is all
darkness to one who knows nothing of the English history posterior to
the reign of Edward the First, and all light to one who is acquainted
with that history. But this is a kind of writing whose peculiarities
can scarcely be considered as exceptions from ordinary rules."

Farther on in the same essay, Mitford remarks: "The skill of Gray is,
I think, eminently shown in the superior distinctness with which he
has marked those parts of his prophecies which are speedily to be
accomplished; and in the gradations by which, as he descends, he has
insensibly melted the more remote into the deeper and deeper
shadowings of general language. The first prophecy is the fate of
Edward the Second. In that the Bard has pointed out the very night in
which he is to be destroyed; has named the river that flowed around
his prison, and the castle that was the scene of his suff