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[The Alliance of Education and Government. A Fragment]

[The Alliance of Education and Government.
A Fragment]


Essay I.

                . . . πόταγ᾽, ὦ ᾽γαθέ· τὰν γὰρ ἀοιδάν
οὔτι πω εἰς Ἀΐδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα ϕυλαξεῖς.
Theoc[ritus, Idyll i. 62-63].

1 As sickly plants betray a niggard earth,
2 Whose barren bosom starves her generous birth,
3 Nor genial warmth nor genial juice retains
4 Their roots to feed and fill their verdant veins;
5 And as in climes, where winter holds his reign,
6 The soil, though fertile, will not teem in vain,
7 Forbids her gems to swell, her shades to rise,
8 Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies:
9 So draw mankind in vain the vital airs,
10 Unformed, unfriended, by those kindly cares
11 That health and vigour to the soul impart,
12 Spread the young thought and warm the opening heart.
13 So fond Instruction on the growing powers
14 Of nature idly lavishes her stores,
15 If equal Justice with unclouded face
16 Smile not indulgent on the rising race,
17 And scatter with a free though frugal hand
18 Light golden showers of plenty o'er the land:
19 But Tyranny has fixed her empire there,
20 To check their tender hopes with chilling fear,
21 And blast the blooming promise of the year.

22 This spacious animated scene survey
23 From where the rolling orb, that gives the day,
24 His sable sons with nearer course surrounds,
25 To either pole and life's remotest bounds.
26 How rude so e'er the exterior form we find,
27 Howe'er opinion tinge the varied mind,
28 Alike to all the kind impartial heaven
29 The sparks of truth and happiness has given:
30 With sense to feel, with memory to retain,
31 They follow pleasure and they fly from pain;
32 Their judgement mends the plan their fancy draws,
33 The event presages and explores the cause.
34 The soft returns of gratitude they know,
35 By fraud elude, by force repel the foe;
36 While mutual wishes, mutual woes, endear
37 The social smile and sympathetic tear.

38 Say then, through ages by what fate confined
39 To different climes seem different souls assigned?
40 Here measured laws and philosophic ease
41 Fix and improve the polished arts of peace.
42 There Industry and Gain their vigils keep,
43 Command the winds and tame the unwilling deep.
44 Here force and hardy deeds of blood prevail;
45 There languid pleasure sighs in every gale.
46 Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar
47 Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war;
48 And, where the deluge burst, with sweepy sway
49 Their arms, their kings, their gods were rolled away.
50 As oft have issued, host impelling host,
51 The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic coast.
52 The prostrate south to the destroyer yields
53 Her boasted titles and her golden fields:
54 With grim delight the brood of winter view
55 A brighter day and heavens of azure hue,
56 Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose,
57 And quaff the pendent vintage, as it grows.
58 Proud of the yoke and pliant to the rod,
59 Why yet does Asia dread a monarch's nod,
60 While European freedom still withstands
61 The encroaching tide, that drowns her lessening lands,
62 And sees far off with an indignant groan
63 Her native plains and empires once her own?
64 Can opener skies and suns of fiercer flame
65 O'erpower the fire that animates our frame,
66 As lamps, that shed at even a cheerful ray,
67 Fade and expire beneath the eye of day?
68 Need we the influence of the northern star
69 To string our nerves and steel our hearts to war?
70 And, where the face of nature laughs around,
71 Must sickening Virtue fly the tainted ground?
72 Unmanly thought! what seasons can control,
73 What fancied zone can circumscribe the Soul,
74 Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs,
75 By Reason's light on Resolution's wings,
76 Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes
77 O'er Libya's deserts and through Zembla's snows?
78 She bids each slumbering energy awake,
79 Another touch, another temper take,
80 Suspends the inferior laws that rule our clay:
81 The stubborn elements confess her sway;
82 Their little wants, their low desires, refine,
83 And raise the mortal to a height divine.

84 Not but the human fabric from the birth
85 Imbibes a flavour of its parent earth:
86 As various tracts enforce a various toil,
87 The manners speak the idiom of their soil.
88 An iron-race the mountain-cliffs maintain,
89 Foes to the gentler genius of the plain:
90 For where unwearied sinews must be found
91 With sidelong plough to quell the flinty ground,
92 To turn the torrent's swift-descending flood,
93 To brave the savage rushing from the wood,
94 What wonder if, to patient valour trained,
95 They guard with spirit what by strength they gained;
96 And while their rocky ramparts round they see,
97 The rough abode of want and liberty,
98 (As lawless force from confidence will grow)
99 Insult the plenty of the vales below?
100 What wonder in the sultry climes, that spread
101 Where Nile redundant o'er his summer-bed
102 From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,
103 And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings,
104 If with adventurous oar and ready sail,
105 The dusky people drive before the gale,
106 Or on frail floats to distant cities ride,
107 That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide.

Expanding the poem lines shows notes and queries taken from various critical editions of Gray's works, as well as those contributed by users of the Archive. There are 5 textual and 10 explanatory notes/queries.

All notes and queries are shown by default.

0 [The Alliance of Education and Government.
A Fragment] 1 Explanatory

Title/Paratext] "The first fifty-seven lines of [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"The first fifty-seven lines of this poem were sent from Stoke, in August, 1748, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, which concludes as follows:—"I fill up with the beginning of a sort of Essay; what name to give it I know not, but the subject is the Alliance of Education and Government; I mean to show that they must necessarily concur to produce great and useful men. I desire your judgment upon so far before I proceed any further. Pray show it to no one (as it is a fragment) except it be Stonehewer, who has seen most of it already, I think." Mason says, "he was busily employed in it at the time when M. de Montesquieu's book 'L' Esprit des Lois' was first published. On reading it he found the Baron had forestalled some of his best thoughts; . . . yet the two writers differ a little in one very material point, viz., the influence of soil and climate on national manners. Some time after, he had thoughts of resuming his plan, and of dedicating it, by an introductory ode, to M. de Montesquieu, but that great man's death, which happened in 1755, made him drop his design finally."
    In a note to his Roman History, Gibbon says: "Instead of compiling tables of chronology and natural history, why did not Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic poem of which he has left such an exquisite specimen?" Vol. iii. p. 248. Would it not have been more philosophical in Gibbon to have lamented the situation in which Gray was placed; which was not only not favourable to the cultivation of poetry, but which naturally directed his thoughts to those learned inquiries, that formed the amusement or business of all around him?—Mitford."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 249-250.

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Essay I.

                . . . πόταγ᾽, ὦ ᾽γαθέ· τὰν γὰρ ἀοιδάν
οὔτι πω εἰς Ἀΐδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα ϕυλαξεῖς.
Theoc[ritus, Idyll i. 62-63].

1 As sickly plants betray a niggard earth,
2 Whose barren bosom starves her generous birth, 1 Textual

2.1-7 Whose ... birth,] "This and the other words [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"This and the other words which Mr. Gosse (in the footnotes to pages 113-115 of vol. i. of his edition of Gray's "Works") attributes to Mason are really Gray's, as may be seen in the Pembroke MSS., where the whole of this poem is in Gray's handwriting and as given by Mason except in line 106."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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3 Nor genial warmth nor genial juice retains
4 Their roots to feed and fill their verdant veins;
5 And as in climes, where winter holds his reign,
6 The soil, though fertile, will not teem in vain,
7 Forbids her gems to swell, her shades to rise,
8 Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies:
9 So draw mankind in vain the vital airs, 1 Explanatory

9.1-8 So ... airs,] ""Vitales auras carpis."—Virg. Æneid, i. [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

""Vitales auras carpis."—Virg. Æneid, i. 387."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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10 Unformed, unfriended, by those kindly cares
11 That health and vigour to the soul impart,
12 Spread the young thought and warm the opening heart. 1 Explanatory

12.8-9 opening heart.] "See "Ode for Music," 21." J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"See "Ode for Music," 21."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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13 So fond Instruction on the growing powers
14 Of nature idly lavishes her stores, 1 Explanatory

14.1-6 Of ... stores,] ""And lavish Nature laughs and [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

""And lavish Nature laughs and throws her stores around."—Dryden, Virgil, vii. 76."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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15 If equal Justice with unclouded face
16 Smile not indulgent on the rising race,
17 And scatter with a free though frugal hand 1 Explanatory

17.2 - 18.5 scatter ... plenty] "Cf. the "Elegy," 63." J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Cf. the "Elegy," 63."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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18 Light golden showers of plenty o'er the land: 1 Explanatory

17.2 - 18.5 scatter ... plenty] "Cf. the "Elegy," 63." J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Cf. the "Elegy," 63."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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19 But Tyranny has fixed her empire there, 1 Textual

19.2 - 21.4 Tyranny ... blooming] "Tyranny has,—he first wrote "gloomy [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Tyranny has,—he first wrote "gloomy sway have," and for "blooming" he had "vernal.""

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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20 To check their tender hopes with chilling fear, 1 Textual

19.2 - 21.4 Tyranny ... blooming] "Tyranny has,—he first wrote "gloomy [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Tyranny has,—he first wrote "gloomy sway have," and for "blooming" he had "vernal.""

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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21 And blast the blooming promise of the year. 1 Textual

19.2 - 21.4 Tyranny ... blooming] "Tyranny has,—he first wrote "gloomy [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Tyranny has,—he first wrote "gloomy sway have," and for "blooming" he had "vernal.""

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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22 This spacious animated scene survey
23 From where the rolling orb, that gives the day,
24 His sable sons with nearer course surrounds,
25 To either pole and life's remotest bounds.
26 How rude so e'er the exterior form we find,
27 Howe'er opinion tinge the varied mind,
28 Alike to all the kind impartial heaven
29 The sparks of truth and happiness has given:
30 With sense to feel, with memory to retain,
31 They follow pleasure and they fly from pain;
32 Their judgement mends the plan their fancy draws,
33 The event presages and explores the cause.
34 The soft returns of gratitude they know,
35 By fraud elude, by force repel the foe;
36 While mutual wishes, mutual woes, endear
37 The social smile and sympathetic tear.

38 Say then, through ages by what fate confined
39 To different climes seem different souls assigned?
40 Here measured laws and philosophic ease
41 Fix and improve the polished arts of peace.
42 There Industry and Gain their vigils keep,
43 Command the winds and tame the unwilling deep.
44 Here force and hardy deeds of blood prevail;
45 There languid pleasure sighs in every gale.
46 Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar
47 Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war;
48 And, where the deluge burst, with sweepy sway 1 Explanatory

48.7-8 sweepy sway] "cf. the "Bard," 75, and [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"cf. the "Bard," 75, and note."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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49 Their arms, their kings, their gods were rolled away.
50 As oft have issued, host impelling host,
51 The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic coast.
52 The prostrate south to the destroyer yields
53 Her boasted titles and her golden fields:
54 With grim delight the brood of winter view
55 A brighter day and heavens of azure hue,
56 Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose, 1 Explanatory

56.1-8 Scent ... rose,] "Cf. "gathered fragrance," "Ode on [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Cf. "gathered fragrance," "Ode on Spring," 10, and Milton, "Arcades," 32:—

"And ye, ye breathing roses of the wood.""

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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57 And quaff the pendent vintage, as it grows.
58 Proud of the yoke and pliant to the rod,
59 Why yet does Asia dread a monarch's nod,
60 While European freedom still withstands
61 The encroaching tide, that drowns her lessening lands,
62 And sees far off with an indignant groan
63 Her native plains and empires once her own?
64 Can opener skies and suns of fiercer flame
65 O'erpower the fire that animates our frame,
66 As lamps, that shed at even a cheerful ray, 1 Explanatory, 1 Textual

66.1 - 67.8 As ... day?] "Rogers refers to Dryden's "Religio [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Rogers refers to Dryden's "Religio Laici":—

"And as these nightly tapers disappear,
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere.""

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

66.6 even] "Eve should be "ev'n," the [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Eve should be "ev'n," the reading in the Pembroke MS."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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67 Fade and expire beneath the eye of day? 1 Explanatory

66.1 - 67.8 As ... day?] "Rogers refers to Dryden's "Religio [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Rogers refers to Dryden's "Religio Laici":—

"And as these nightly tapers disappear,
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere.""

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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68 Need we the influence of the northern star
69 To string our nerves and steel our hearts to war?
70 And, where the face of nature laughs around,
71 Must sickening Virtue fly the tainted ground?
72 Unmanly thought! what seasons can control,
73 What fancied zone can circumscribe the Soul,
74 Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs,
75 By Reason's light on Resolution's wings,
76 Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes
77 O'er Libya's deserts and through Zembla's snows?
78 She bids each slumbering energy awake,
79 Another touch, another temper take,
80 Suspends the inferior laws that rule our clay:
81 The stubborn elements confess her sway;
82 Their little wants, their low desires, refine,
83 And raise the mortal to a height divine.

84 Not but the human fabric from the birth
85 Imbibes a flavour of its parent earth:
86 As various tracts enforce a various toil,
87 The manners speak the idiom of their soil.
88 An iron-race the mountain-cliffs maintain,
89 Foes to the gentler genius of the plain:
90 For where unwearied sinews must be found
91 With sidelong plough to quell the flinty ground,
92 To turn the torrent's swift-descending flood,
93 To brave the savage rushing from the wood,
94 What wonder if, to patient valour trained,
95 They guard with spirit what by strength they gained;
96 And while their rocky ramparts round they see,
97 The rough abode of want and liberty,
98 (As lawless force from confidence will grow)
99 Insult the plenty of the vales below?
100 What wonder in the sultry climes, that spread
101 Where Nile redundant o'er his summer-bed
102 From his broad bosom life and verdure flings, 1 Explanatory

102.8 flings,] "cf. the use of "fling," [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"cf. the use of "fling," "Ode on Spring," 10."

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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103 And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings,
104 If with adventurous oar and ready sail,
105 The dusky people drive before the gale, 1 Explanatory

105.4-7 drive ... gale,] "Cf. "Paradise Lost," iii. 438:— [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Cf. "Paradise Lost," iii. 438:—

                    "Where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light.""

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 250.

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106 Or on frail floats to distant cities ride, 1 Textual

106.6 distant] "Mason has 'neighb'ring.'" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Mason has 'neighb'ring.'"

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 251.

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107 That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide. 1 Textual

107.1-8 That ... tide.] "[Note on the couplet found [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"[Note on the couplet found by Mason: "When love could teach a monarch to be wise, // And gospel-light first dawned from Bullen's eyes."] In the short notice of Gray by Horace Walpole, prefixed to Mitford's "Correspondence of Gray and Mason," he says he began a poem on the reformation of learning, but soon dropped it on finding his plan too much resembling the "Dunciad." It had this admirable line in it—

"When gospel-light," etc.
Walpole seems to have quoted from memory; the couplet does not occur in the "Hymn to Ignorance," to which he refers, nor yet in the poem before us, but among the papers in which Mason found the plan in prose of this poem.
    Walpole imitated the couplet in an inscription on a Gothic column to Queen Catherine:—
"From Katherine's wrongs a nation's bliss was spread,
And Luther's light from Henry's lawless bed.""

The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891, p. 251.

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Works cited

  • The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray: English and Latin. Edited with an introduction, life, notes and a bibliography by John Bradshaw. The Aldine edition of the British poets series. London: George Bell and sons, 1891.

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