21. Cf. Lucretius, iii. 894:
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Jam jam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxorOptima nee dulces occurrent oscula natiPraeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent;" and Horace, _Epod._ ii. 39: "Quod si pudica mulier in partem juvetDomum atque dulces liberos* * * * * * *Sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focumLassi sub adventum viri," etc. Mitford quotes Thomson, _Winter_, 311: "In vain for him the officious wife preparesThe fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;In vain his little children, peeping outInto the mingling storm, demand their sireWith tears of artless innocence." Wakefield cites _The Idler_, 103: "There are few things, not purelyevil, of which we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, _thisis the last_." 22. _Ply her evening care_. Mitford says, "To _ply a care_ is anexpression that is not proper to our language, and was probablyformed for the rhyme _share_." Hales remarks: "This is probably thekind of phrase which led Wordsworth to pronounce the language of the_Elegy_ unintelligible. Compare his own 'And she I cherished _turned her wheel_Beside an English fire.'" 23. _No children run_, etc. Hales quotes Burns, _Cotter's SaturdayNight_, 21: "Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher throughTo meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee." 24. Among Mitford's MS. variations we find "coming kiss." Wakefieldcompares Virgil, _Geo._ ii. 523: "Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati;" and Mitford adds from Dryden, "Whose little arms about thy legs are cast,And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's haste." Cf. Thomson, _Liberty_, iii. 171: "His little children climbing for a kiss." 26. _The stubborn glebe_. Cf. Gay, _Fables_, ii. 15: "'Tis mine to tame the stubborn glebe." _Broke_=broken, as often in poetry, especially in the Elizabethanwriters. See Abbott, _Shakes. Gr._ 343. 27. _Drive their team afield_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 27: "We drove afield;"and Dryden,_ Virgil's Ecl._ ii. 38: "With me to drive afield." 28. _Their sturdy stroke_. Cf. Spenser, _Shep. Kal._ Feb.: "But to the roote bent his sturdy stroake,And made many wounds in the wast [wasted] Oake;" and Dryden, _Geo._ iii. 639: "Labour him with many a sturdy stroke." 30. As Mitford remarks, _obscure_ and _poor_ make "a very imperfectrhyme;" and the same might be said of _toil_ and _smile_. 33. Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind these verses from hisfriend West's _Monody on Queen Caroline_: "Ah, me! what boots us all our boasted power,Our golden treasure, and our purple state;They cannot ward the inevitable hour,Nor stay the fearful violence of fate."
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