Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/169

Give ample room, and verge enough^{[N 1]}
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death,^{[N 2]} thro' Berkley's roof that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!^{[N 3]} 56
She-wolf of France,^{[N 4]} with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs^{[N 5]}
The scourge of heav'n. What terrors round him wait!^{[N 6]}

Notes

1. V. 51. "I have a soul that like an ample shield
   Can take in all, and verge enough for more."
   Dryden. Sebastian, act i. sc. 1.
2. V. 55. Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle. Gray. See Drayton. Barons' Wars, v. lxvii.
   "Berkley, whose fair seat hath been famous long,
    Let thy sad echoes shriek a deadly sound
   To the vast air; complain his grievous wrong,
    And keep the blood that issued from his wound."
   
   
3. V. 56. This line of Gray is almost in the same words as Hume's description, vol. ii. p. 359: "The screams with which the agonizing king filled the castle."
4. V. 57. Isabel of France, Edward the Second's adulterous queen. Gray.
   This expression is from Shakespeare's Hen. VI. pt. III. act i. sc. 4: "She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France." Latin writers have used the same language. Apuleius, speaking of the sisters of Psyche: "Perfidæ lupulæ nefarias insidiascomparant." And Ausonius, ed. Tollii, p. 23: "Et mater est vere lupa." Plutarch in Vita Romuli, c. iv. p. 84. ed. Reiske. ΛΟΎΠΑΣ γὰρ ἐκάλουν Όι ΑΑΤΙΝΟΙ τῶν τε θηρίων τὰς λυκαίνας, καὶ τῶν γυναικῶν τὰς ἐταιρούσας, &c.
5. V. 59. "This evening from the sun's decline arriv'd,
   Who tells of some infernal spirit seen."
   P. L. iv. 792. Rogers.
6. V. 60. Triumphs of Edward the Third in France. Gray
   "Circumque atræ formidinis ora,
   Iræque, insidiæque, Dei comitatus, aguntur."
   Virg. Æn. xii. 335. W.