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"The Characters of the Christ-Cross Row, By a Critic, To Mrs ---"

"The Characters of the Christ-Cross Row,
By a Critic, To Mrs —"


1 Great D draws near- the Duchess sure is come,
2 Open the doors of the withdrawing-room:
3 Her daughters decked most daintily I see,
4 The dowager grows a perfect double D.
5 E enters next and with her Eve appears.
6 Not like yon dowager depressed with years:
7 What ease and elegance her person grace,
8 Bright beaming as the evening-star her face.
9 Queen Esther next- how fair e'en after death;
10 Then one faint glimpse of Queen Elizabeth;
11 No more, our Esthers now are nought but Hetties,
12 Elizabeths all dwindled into Betties.
13 In vain you think to find them under E,
14 They're all diverted into H and B.
15 F follows fast the fair- and in his rear
16 See folly, fashion, foppery straight appear,
17 All with fantastic clues, fantastic clothes,
18 With fans and flounces, fringe and furbelows.
19 Here Grub-street geese presume to joke and jeer,
20 All, all but Grannam Osborne's Gazetteer.
21 High heaves his hugeness H: methinks we see
22 Henry the Eighth's most monstrous majesty.
23 But why on such mock grandeur should we dwell?
24 H mounts to heaven and H descends to hell.
25 As H the Hebrew found, so I the Jew:
26 See Isaac, Joseph, Jacob pass in view.
27 The walls of old Jerusalem appear,
28 See Israel and all Judah thronging there.

* * * *

29 P pokes his head out, yet has not a pain:
30 Like Punch he peeps, but soon pops in again.
31 Pleased with his pranks, the pisgys calls him Puck,
32 Mortals he loves to prick and pinch and pluck.
33 Now a pert prig, he perks upon your face;
34 Now peers, pores, ponders with profound grimace;
35 Now a proud prince, in pompous purple dressed,
36 And now a player, a peer, a pimp or priest,
37 A pea, a pin, in a perpetual round,
38 Now seems a penny, and now shows a pound.
39 Like perch or pike in pond you see him come;
40 He in plantations hangs like pear or plum,
41 Pippin or peach, then perches on the spray,
42 In form of parrot, pye or popinjay.
43 P, Proteus-like, all tricks, all shapes can show,
44 The pleasantest person in the Christ-cross Row.

* * * *

45 As K a king, Q represents a queen,
46 And seems small difference the sounds between.
47 K as a man with hoarser accent speaks;
48 In shriller notes Q like a female squeaks.
49 Behold, K struts as might a king become;
50 Q draws her train along the drawing-room.
51 Slow follow all the quality of state:
52 Queer Queensberry only does refuse to wait.

* * * *

53 Thus great R reigns in town, while different far,
54 Rests in retirement little rural R;
55 Remote from cities lives in lone retreat,
56 With rooks and rabbit-burrows round his seat.
57 S sails the swan slow down the silver stream.

* * * *

58 So, big with weddings, waddles W,
59 And brings all womankind before your view:
60 A wench, a wife, a widow and a w[hor]e,
61 With woe behind and wantonness before.

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 1 textual and 1 explanatory notes/queries.

All notes and queries are shown by default.

0 "The Characters of the Christ-Cross Row,
By a Critic, To Mrs —" 1 Explanatory, 1 Textual

Title/Paratext] "This fragment was first printed [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"This fragment was first printed by Mitford in 1843, Gray's "Works," vol. v. p. 217. Horace Walpole says:—"Gray never would allow the foregoing Poem to be his, but it has too much merit, and the humour and versification are so much in his style, but I cannot believe it to be written by any other hand.—(Signed) H. W."
    "Dyce mentions, in a MS. note at South Kensington, that Gray's original autograph of these lines has been destroyed.""

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. 278.

Title/Paratext] "Walpole preserved the following fragment [...]" J. Bradshaw, 1891.

"Walpole preserved the following fragment of a letter from Gray, in which the verses were introduced:—
    "When I received the testimonial of so many considerable personages to adorn the second page of my next edition, and (adding them to the Testimonium Autoris de seipso) do relish and enjoy all the conscious pleasure resulting from six pennyworths of glory, I cannot but close my satisfaction with a sigh for the fate of my fellow-labourer in poetry, the unfortunate Mr. Golding, cut off in the flower or rather the bud of his honours, who had he survived but a fortnight more, might have been by your kind offices as much delighted with himself, as I. Windsor and Eton might have gone down to posterity together, perhaps appeared in the same volume, like Philips and Smith, and we might have sent at once to Mr. Pond for the frontispiece, but these, alas! are vain reflections. To return to myself. Nay! but you are such a wit! sure the gentlemen an't so good, are they? and don't you play upon the word. I promise you, few take to it here at all, which is a good sign (for I never knew anything liked here, that ever proved to be so any where else); it is said to be mine, but I strenuously deny it, and so do all that are in the secret, so that nobody knows what to think; a few only of King's College gave me the lie, but I hope to demolish them; for if I don't know, who should? Tell Mr. Chute, I would not have served him so, for any brother in Christendom, and am very angry. To make my peace with the noble youth you mention, I send you a Poem that I am sure they will read (as well as they can) a masterpiece—it is said, being an admirable improvement on that beautiful piece called Pugna Porcorum, which begins

Plangite porcelli Porcorum pigra propago;
but that is in Latin, and not for their reading, but indeed, this is worth a thousand of it, and unfortunately it is not perfect, and it is not mine.
    "When you and Mr. Chute can get the remainder of 'Marianne,' [footnote: 'In July, 1742, Gray sent "3 Parts of Marianne, a novel by Marivaux," to Chute.'] I shall be much obliged to you for it,—I am terribly impatient.""

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. 278-279.

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1 Great D draws near- the Duchess sure is come,
2 Open the doors of the withdrawing-room:
3 Her daughters decked most daintily I see,
4 The dowager grows a perfect double D.
5 E enters next and with her Eve appears.
6 Not like yon dowager depressed with years:
7 What ease and elegance her person grace,
8 Bright beaming as the evening-star her face.
9 Queen Esther next- how fair e'en after death;
10 Then one faint glimpse of Queen Elizabeth;
11 No more, our Esthers now are nought but Hetties,
12 Elizabeths all dwindled into Betties.
13 In vain you think to find them under E,
14 They're all diverted into H and B.
15 F follows fast the fair- and in his rear
16 See folly, fashion, foppery straight appear,
17 All with fantastic clues, fantastic clothes,
18 With fans and flounces, fringe and furbelows.
19 Here Grub-street geese presume to joke and jeer,
20 All, all but Grannam Osborne's Gazetteer.
21 High heaves his hugeness H: methinks we see
22 Henry the Eighth's most monstrous majesty.
23 But why on such mock grandeur should we dwell?
24 H mounts to heaven and H descends to hell.
25 As H the Hebrew found, so I the Jew:
26 See Isaac, Joseph, Jacob pass in view.
27 The walls of old Jerusalem appear,
28 See Israel and all Judah thronging there.

* * * *

29 P pokes his head out, yet has not a pain:
30 Like Punch he peeps, but soon pops in again.
31 Pleased with his pranks, the pisgys calls him Puck,
32 Mortals he loves to prick and pinch and pluck.
33 Now a pert prig, he perks upon your face;
34 Now peers, pores, ponders with profound grimace;
35 Now a proud prince, in pompous purple dressed,
36 And now a player, a peer, a pimp or priest,
37 A pea, a pin, in a perpetual round,
38 Now seems a penny, and now shows a pound.
39 Like perch or pike in pond you see him come;
40 He in plantations hangs like pear or plum,
41 Pippin or peach, then perches on the spray,
42 In form of parrot, pye or popinjay.
43 P, Proteus-like, all tricks, all shapes can show,
44 The pleasantest person in the Christ-cross Row.

* * * *

45 As K a king, Q represents a queen,
46 And seems small difference the sounds between.
47 K as a man with hoarser accent speaks;
48 In shriller notes Q like a female squeaks.
49 Behold, K struts as might a king become;
50 Q draws her train along the drawing-room.
51 Slow follow all the quality of state:
52 Queer Queensberry only does refuse to wait.

* * * *

53 Thus great R reigns in town, while different far,
54 Rests in retirement little rural R;
55 Remote from cities lives in lone retreat,
56 With rooks and rabbit-burrows round his seat.
57 S sails the swan slow down the silver stream.

* * * *

58 So, big with weddings, waddles W,
59 And brings all womankind before your view:
60 A wench, a wife, a widow and a w[hor]e,
61 With woe behind and wantonness before.

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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Spelling has been modernized throughout, except in case of conscious archaisms. Contractions, italics and initial capitalization have been largely eliminated, except where of real import. Obvious errors have been silently corrected, punctuation has been supplied. The editor would like to express his gratitude to the library staff of the Göttingen State and University Library (SUB Göttingen) for their invaluable assistance.