Chapter D: V., Goldsmith's Deserted Village (1)

Ep., Epistle, Epode.

Foll., following.

F. Q., Spenser's _Faërie Queene_.

H., Haven's _Rhetoric_ (Harper's edition).

Hales, _Longer English Poems_, edited by Rev. J. W. Hales (London, 1872).

Il Pens., Milton's _Il Penseroso_.

L'All., Milton's _L'Allegro_.

Ol., Pindar's _Olympian Odes_.

P. L., Milton's _Paradise Lost_.

P. R., Milton's _Paradise Regained_.

S. A., Milton's _Samson Agonistes_.

Shakes. Gr., Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_ (the references are to _sections_, not pages).

Shep. Kal., Spenser's _Shepherd's Kalendar_.

st., stanza.

Wb., Webster's Dictionary (last revised quarto edition).

Worc., Worcester's Dictionary (quarto edition).

Other abbreviations (names of books in the Bible, plays of Shakespeare, works of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace, etc.) need no explanation.

NOTES.

ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

This poem was begun in the year 1742, but was not finished until 1750, when Gray sent it to Walpole with a letter (dated June 12, 1750) in which he says: "I have been here at Stoke a few days (where I shall continue good part of the summer), and having put an end to a thing, whose beginning you have seen long ago, I immediately send it you. You will, I hope, look upon it in the light of a thing with an end to it: a merit that most of my writings have wanted, and are like to want." It was shown in manuscript to some of the author's friends, and was published in 1751 only because it was about to be printed surreptitiously.

February 11, 1751, Gray wrote to Walpole that the proprietors of "the Magazine of Magazines" were about to publish his _Elegy_, and added, "I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character; he must correct the press himself,[1] and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; and the title must be--'Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard.' If he would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better." Walpole did as requested, and wrote an advertisement to the effect that accident alone brought the poem before the public, although an apology was unnecessary to any but the author. On which Gray wrote, "I thank you for your advertisement, which saves my honour."

[Footnote 1: Dodsley's proof-reading must have been somewhat careless, for there are many errors of the press in this _editio princeps_. Gray writes to Walpole, under date of "Ash-Wednesday, Cambridge, 1751," as follows: "Nurse Dodsley has given it a pinch or two in the cradle, that (I doubt) it will bear the marks of as long as it lives. But no matter: we have ourselves suffered under her hands before now; and besides, it will only look the more careless and by _accident_ as it were." Again, March 3, 1751, he writes: "I do not expect any more editions; as I have appeared in more magazines than one. The chief errata were _sacred_ for _secret_; _hidden_ for _kindred_ (in spite of dukes and classics); and '_frowning_ as in scorn' for _smiling_. I humbly propose, for the benefit of Mr. Dodsley and his matrons, that take _awake_ [in line 92, which at first read "awake and faithful to her wonted fires"] for a verb, that they should read _asleep_, and all will be right." Other errors were, "Their _harrow_ oft the stubborn glebe," "And read their _destiny_ in a nation's eyes," "With uncouth rhymes and shapeless _culture_ decked," "Slow through the churchway _pass_," and many of minor importance.]

A writer in _Notes and Queries_, June 12, 1875, states that the poem first appeared in the _London Magazine_, March, 1751, p. 134, and that "the Magazine of Magazines" is "a gentle term of scorn used by Gray to indicate" that periodical, and not the name of any actual magazine. But in the next number of _Notes and Queries_ (June 19, 1875) Mr. F. Locker informs us that he has in his possession a title-page of the _Grand Magazine of Magazines_, and the page of the number for April, 1751, which contains the _Elegy_. The magazine is said to be "collected and digested by Roger Woodville, Esq.," and "published by Cooper at the Globe, in Pater Noster Row."

Gray says nothing in his letters of the appearance of the _Elegy_ in the _London Magazine_. The full title of that periodical was "The London Magazine: or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer." The editor's name was not given; the publisher was "R. Baldwin, jun. at the Rose in Pater-Noster Row." The volume for 1751 was the 20th, and the Preface (written at the close of the year) begins thus: "As the two most formidable Enemies we have ever had, are now extinct, we have great Reason to conclude, that it is only the Merit, and real Usefulness of our COLLECTION, that hath supported its Sale and Reputation for Twenty Years." A foot-note informs us that the "Enemies" are the "_Magazine of Magazines_ and _Grand Magazine of Magazines_;" from which it would appear that there were two periodicals of similar name published in London in 1751.[2]

[Footnote 2: May not the _Elegy_ have been printed in both of these? We do not know how otherwise to reconcile the conflicting statements concerning the "Magazine of Magazines," as Gray calls it. In the first place, Gray appears (from other portions of his letter to Walpole) to be familiar with this magazine, and would not be likely to confound it with another of similar name. Then, as we have seen, he writes _early in March_ to Walpole that the poem has been printed "in more magazines than one." This cannot refer to the _Grand Magazine of Magazines_, if, as Mr. Locker states, it was the _April_ number of that periodical in which the poem appeared. Nor can it refer to the _London Magazine_, as it is clear from internal evidence that the March number, containing the _Elegy_, was not issued until early in April. It contains a summary of current news down to Sunday, March 31, and the price of stocks in the London market for March 30. The _February_ number, in its "monthly catalogue" of new books, records the publication of the _Elegy_ by Dodsley thus: "An Elegy wrote in a Church-yard, pr. 6d. Dodsley."

If, then, the _Elegy_ did not appear in either the _London Magazine_ or the _Grand Magazine of Magazines_ until more than a month (in the case of the latter, perhaps two months) after Dodsley had issued it, in what magazine was it that it _did_ appear just before he issued it? The _N. A. Review_ says that "it was a close race between the Magazine and Dodsley; but the former, having a little the start, came out a few days ahead." If so, it must have been the _March_ number; or the _February_ one, if it was published, like the _London_, at the end of the month. Gray calls it "the Magazine of Magazines," and we shall take his word for it until we have reason for doubting it. What else was included in his "more magazines than one" we cannot even guess.

We have not been able to find the _Magazine of Magazines_ or the _Grand Magazine of Magazines_ in the libraries, and know nothing about either "of our own knowledge." The _London Magazine_ is in the Harvard College Library, and the statements concerning that we can personally vouch for.]

The author's name is not given with the _Elegy_ as printed in the _London Magazine_. The poem is sandwiched between an "Epilogue to _Alfred, a Masque_" and some coarse rhymes entitled "Strip-Me-Naked, or Royal Gin for ever." There is not even a printer's "rule" or "dash" to separate the title of the latter from the last line of the _Elegy_. The poem is more correctly printed than in Dodsley's authorized edition; though, queerly enough, it has "winds" in the second line and the parenthesis "(all he had)" in the Epitaph. Of Dodsley's misprints noted above it has only "Their _harrow_ oft" and "shapeless _culture_." These four errors, indeed, are the only ones worth noting, except "Or _wake_ to extasy the living lyre."

The "Magazine of Magazines" (as the writer in the _North American Review_ tells us) printed the _Elegy_ with the author's name. The authorized though anonymous edition was thus briefly noticed by _The Monthly Review_, the critical Rhadamanthus of the day: "_An Elegy in a Country Churchyard_. 4to. Dodsley's. Seven pages.--The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity."

"Soon after its publication," says Mason, "I remember, sitting with Mr. Gray in his College apartment, he expressed to me his surprise at the rapidity of its sale. I replied:

'Sunt lacrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.'

He paused awhile, and taking his pen, wrote the line on a printed copy of it lying on his table. 'This,' said he, 'shall be its future motto.' 'Pity,' cried I, 'that Dr. Young's Night Thoughts have preoccupied it.' 'So,' replied he, 'indeed it is.'" Gray himself tells the story of its success on the margin of the manuscript copy of the _Elegy_ preserved at Cambridge among his papers, and reproduced in _fac-simile_ in Mathias's elegant edition of the poet. The following is a careful transcript of the memorandum:

"publish'd in
Feb:^{ry}, 1751.
by Dodsley: &
went thro' four
Editions; in two
months; and af-
terwards a fifth
6^{th} 7^{th} & 8^{th} 9^{th} & 10^{th}
& 11^{th}
printed also in 1753
with M^r Bentley's
Designs, of w^{ch}
there is a 2^d Edition
& again by Dodsley
in his Miscellany,
Vol: 4^{th} & in a
Scotch Collection
call'd _the Union_.
translated into
Latin by Chr: Anstey
Esq, & the Rev^d M^r
Roberts, & publish'd
in 1762; & again
in the same year
by Rob: Lloyd, M: A:"

"One peculiar and remarkable tribute to the merit of the _Elegy_," says Professor Henry Reed, "is to be noticed in the great number of translations which have been made of it into various languages, both of ancient and modern Europe. It is the same kind of tribute which has been rendered to _Robinson Crusoe_ and to _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and is proof of the same universality of interest, transcending the limits of language and of race. To no poem in the English language has the same kind of homage been paid so abundantly. Of what other poem is there a polyglot edition? Italy and England have competed with their polyglot editions of the _Elegy_: Torri's, bearing the title, 'Elegia di Tomaso Gray sopra un Cimitero di Campagna, tradotta dall' Inglese in più lingue: Verona, 1817; Livorno, 1843;' and Van Voorst's London edition." Professor Reed adds a list of the translations (which, however, is incomplete), including one in Hebrew, seven in Greek, twelve in Latin, thirteen in Italian, fifteen in French, six in German, and one in Portuguese.

"Had Gray written nothing but his _Elegy_," remarks Byron, "high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is the cornerstone of his glory."

The tribute paid the poem by General Wolfe is familiar to all, but we cannot refrain from quoting Lord Mahon's beautiful account of it in his _History of England_. On the night of September 13th, 1759, the night before the battle on the Plains of Abraham, Wolfe was descending the St. Lawrence with a part of his troops. The historian says: "Swiftly, but silently, did the boats fall down with the tide, unobserved by the enemy's sentinels at their posts along the shore. Of the soldiers on board, how eagerly must every heart have throbbed at the coming conflict! how intently must every eye have contemplated the dark outline, as it lay pencilled upon the midnight sky, and as every moment it grew closer and clearer, of the hostile heights! Not a word was spoken--not a sound heard beyond the rippling of the stream. Wolfe alone--thus tradition has told us--repeated in a low tone to the other officers in his boat those beautiful stanzas with which a country churchyard inspired the muse of Gray. One noble line,

'The paths of glory lead but to the grave,'

must have seemed at such a moment fraught with mournful meaning. At the close of the recitation Wolfe added, 'Now, gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec.'"

Hales, in his Introduction to the poem, remarks: "The _Elegy_ is perhaps the most widely known poem in our language. The reason of this extensive popularity is perhaps to be sought in the fact that it expresses in an exquisite manner feelings and thoughts that are universal. In the current of ideas in the _Elegy_ there is perhaps nothing that is rare, or exceptional, or out of the common way. The musings are of the most rational and obvious character possible; it is difficult to conceive of any one musing under similar circumstances who should not muse so; but they are not the less deep and moving on this account. The mystery of life does not become clearer, or less solemn and awful, for any amount of contemplation. Such inevitable, such everlasting questions as rise on the mind when one lingers in the precincts of Death can never lose their freshness, never cease to fascinate and to move. It is with such questions, that would have been commonplace long ages since if they could ever be so, that the _Elegy_ deals. It deals with them in no lofty philosophical manner, but in a simple, humble, unpretentious way, always with the truest and the broadest humanity. The poet's thoughts turn to the poor; he forgets the fine tombs inside the church, and thinks only of the 'mouldering heaps' in the churchyard. Hence the problem that especially suggests itself is the potential greatness, when they lived, of the 'rude forefathers' that now lie at his feet. He does not, and cannot solve it, though he finds considerations to mitigate the sadness it must inspire; but he expresses it in all its awfulness in the most effective language and with the deepest feeling; and his expression of it has become a living part of our language."

The writer in the _North American Review_ (vol. 96) from whom we have elsewhere quoted says of the _Elegy_: "It is upon this that Gray's fame as a poet must chiefly rest. By this he will be known forever alike to the lettered and the unlettered. Many, in future ages, who may never have heard of his classic Odes, his various learning, or his sparkling letters, will revere him only as the author of the _Elegy_. For this he will be enshrined through all time in the hearts of the myriads who shall speak our English tongue. For this his name will be held in glad remembrance in the far-off summer isles of the Pacific, and amidst the waste of polar snows. If he had written nothing else, his place as a leading poet in our language would still be assured. Many have asserted, with Johnson, that he was a mere mechanical poet--one who brought from without, but never found within; that the gift of inspiration was not native to him; that his imagination was borrowed finery, his fancy tinsel, and his invention the world's well-worn jewels; that whatever in his verse was poetic was not new, and what was new was not poetic; that he was only an unworldly dyspeptic, living amid many books, and laboriously delving for a lifetime between musty covers, picking out now and then another's gems and bits of ore, and fashioning them into ill-compacted mosaics, which he wrongly called his own. To all this the _Elegy_ is a sufficient answer. It is not old--it is not bookish; it is new and human. Books could not make its maker: he was born of the divine breath alone. Consider all the commentators, the scholiasts, the interpreters, the annotators, and other like book-worms, from Aristarchus down to Döderlein; and may it not be said that, among them all, 'Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum?'

"Gray wrote but little, yet he wrote that little well. He might have done far more for us; the same is true of most men, even of the greatest. The possibilities of a life are always in advance of its performance. But we cannot say that his life was a wasted one. Even this little _Elegy_ alone should go for much. For, suppose that he had never written this, but instead had done much else in other ways, according to his powers: that he had written many learned treatises; that he had, with keen criticism, expounded and reconstructed Greek classics; that he had, perchance, sat upon the woolsack, and laid rich offerings at the feet of blind Justice;--taking the years together, would it have been, on the whole, better for him or for us? Would he have added so much to the sum of human happiness? He might thus have made himself a power for a time, to be dethroned by some new usurper in the realm of knowledge; now he is a power and a joy forever to countless thousands."

Two manuscripts of the _Elegy_, in Gray's handwriting, still exist. Both were bequeathed by the poet, together with his library, letters, and many miscellaneous papers, to his friends the Rev. William Mason and the Rev. James Browne, as joint literary executors. Mason bequeathed the entire trust to Mr. Stonhewer. The latter, in making his will, divided the legacy into two parts. The larger share went to the Master and Fellows of Pembroke Hall. Among the papers, which are still in the possession of the College, was found a copy of the _Elegy_. An excellent fac-simile of this manuscript appears in Mathias's edition of Gray, published in 1814. In referring to it hereafter we shall designate it as the "Pembroke" MS.

The remaining portion of Gray's literary bequest, including the other manuscript of the _Elegy_, was left by Mr. Stonhewer to his friend, Mr. Bright. In 1845 Mr. Bright's sons sold the collection at auction. The MS. of the _Elegy_ was bought by Mr. Granville John Penn, of Stoke Park, for _one hundred pounds_--the highest sum that had ever been known to be paid for a single sheet of paper. In 1854 this manuscript came again into the market, and was knocked down to Mr. Robert Charles Wrightson, of Birmingham, for 131 pounds. On the 29th of May, 1875, it was once more offered for sale in London, and was purchased by Sir William Fraser for 230 pounds, or about $1150. A photographic reproduction of it was published in London in 1862. For convenience we shall refer to it as the "Wrightson" MS.

There can be little doubt that the Wrightson MS. is the original one, and that the Pembroke MS. is a fair copy made from it by the poet. The former contains a greater number of alterations, and varies more from the printed text. It bears internal evidence of being the rough draft, while the other represents a later stage of the poem. We will give the variations of both from the present version.[3]

[Footnote 3: For the readings of the Wrightson MS. we have had to depend on Mason, Mitford, and other editors of the poem, and on the article in the _North American Review_, already referred to. The readings of the Pembroke MS. are taken from the engraved fac-simile in Mathias's edition.

The two stanzas of which a fac-simile is given on page 73 are from the Pembroke MS., but the wood-cut hardly does justice to the feminine delicacy of the poet's handwriting.]

The Wrightson MS. has in the first stanza, "The lowing herd _wind_ slowly," etc. See our note on this line, below.

In the 2d stanza, it reads, "And _now_ the air," etc.

The 5th stanza is as follows:

"For ever sleep: the breezy call of morn,
Or swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
Or Chanticleer so shrill, or echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed."

In 8th stanza, "Their _rustic_ joys," etc.

In 10th stanza, the first two lines read,

"Forgive, ye proud, th' involuntary fault,
If memory to these no trophies raise."

In 12th stanza, "Hands that the _reins_ of empire," etc.

In 13th stanza, "Chill Penury _depress'd_," etc.

The 15th stanza reads thus:

"Some village Cato, who, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Tully here may rest,
Some Cæsar guiltless of his country's blood."[4]

[Footnote 4: The _Saturday Review_ for June 19, 1875, has a long article on the change made by Gray in this stanza, entitled, "A Lesson from Gray's Elegy," from which we cull the following paragraphs:

"Gray, having first of all put down the names of three Romans as illustrations of his meaning, afterwards deliberately struck them out and put the names of three Englishmen instead. This is a sign of a change in the taste of the age, a change with which Gray himself had a good deal to do. The deliberate wiping out of the names of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar, to put in the names of Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell, seems to us so obviously a change for the better that there seems to be no room for any doubt about it. It is by no means certain that Gray's own contemporaries would have thought the matter equally clear. We suspect that to many people in his day it must have seemed a daring novelty to draw illustrations from English history, especially from parts of English history which, it must be remembered, were then a great deal more recent than they are now. To be sure, in choosing English illustrations, a poet of Gray's time was in rather a hard strait. If he chose illustrations from the century or two before his own time, he could only choose names which had hardly got free from the strife of recent politics. If, in a poem of the nature of the Elegy, he had drawn illustrations from earlier times of English history, he would have found but few people in his day likely to understand him....

"The change which Gray made in this well-known stanza is not only an improvement in a particular poem, it is a sign of a general improvement in taste. He wrote first according to the vicious taste of an earlier time, and he then changed it according to his own better taste. And of that better taste he was undoubtedly a prophet to others. Gray's poetry must have done a great deal to open men's eyes to the fact that they were Englishmen, and that on them, as Englishmen, English things had a higher claim than Roman, and that to them English examples ought to be more speaking than Roman ones. But there is another side of the case not to be forgotten. Those who would have regretted the change from Cato, Tully, and Cæsar to Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell, those who perhaps really did think that the bringing in of Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell was a degradation of what they would have called the Muse, were certainly not those who had the truest knowledge of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar. The 'classic' taste from which Gray helped to deliver us was a taste which hardly deserves to be called a taste. Pardonable perhaps in the first heat of the Renaissance, when 'classic' studies and objects had the charm of novelty, it had become by his day a mere silly fashion."]

In 18th stanza, "Or _crown_ the shrine," etc.

After this stanza, the MS. has the following four stanzas, now omitted:

"The thoughtless world to Majesty may bow,
Exalt the brave, and idolize success;
But more to innocence their safety owe
Than Pow'r, or Genius, e'er conspir'd to bless.

"And thou who, mindful of the unhonour'd Dead,
Dost in these notes their artless tale relate,
By night and lonely contemplation led
To wander in the gloomy walks of fate:

"Hark! how the sacred Calm, that breathes around,
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whisp'ring from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

"No more, with reason and thyself at strife,
Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;
But through the cool sequester'd vale of life
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom."[5]

[Footnote 5: We follow Mason (ed. 1778) in the text of these stanzas. The _North American Review_ has "Power _and_ Genius" in the first, and "_linger_ in the _lonely_ walks" in the second.]

The second of these stanzas has been remodelled and used as the 24th of the present version. Mason thought that there was a pathetic melancholy in all four which claimed preservation. The third he considered equal to any in the whole _Elegy_. The poem was originally intended to end here, the introduction of "the hoary-headed swain" being a happy after-thought.

In the 19th stanza, the MS. has "never _learn'd_ to stray."

In the 21st stanza, "fame and _epitaph_," etc.

In the 23d stanza, the last line reads,

"And buried ashes glow with social fires."

"Social" subsequently became "wonted," and other changes were made (see p. 74, foot-note) before the line took its present form.

The 24th stanza reads,

"If chance that e'er some pensive Spirit more,
By sympathetic musings here delay'd,
With vain, though kind inquiry shall explore
Thy once-lov'd haunt, this long-deserted shade."[6]

[Footnote 6: Mitford (Eton ed.) gives "sympathizing" in the second line, and for the last,

"Thy ever loved haunt--this long deserted shade."

The latter is obviously wrong (Gray was incapable of such metre), and the former is probably wrong also.]

The last line of the 25th stanza reads,

"On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn."

Then comes the following stanza, afterwards omitted:

"Him have we seen the greenwood side along,
While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done,
Oft as the woodlark pip'd her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun."[7]

Mason remarked: "I rather wonder that he rejected this stanza, as it not only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms us peculiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the account of his whole day; whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we have only his morning walk, and his noontide repose."

[Footnote 7: Here also we follow Mason; the _North American Review_ reads "our _labours_ done."]

The first line of the 27th stanza reads,

"With gestures quaint, now smiling as in scorn."

After the 29th stanza, and before the Epitaph, the MS. contains the following omitted stanza:

"There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen are frequent violets found;
The robin loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."

This--with two or three verbal changes only[8]--was inserted in all the editions up to 1753, when it was dropped. The omission was not made from any objection to the stanza in itself, but simply because it was too long a parenthesis in this place; on the principle which he states in a letter to Dr. Beattie: "As to description, I have always thought that it made the most graceful ornament of poetry, but never ought to make the subject." The part was sacrificed for the good of the whole. Mason very justly remarked that "the lines, however, are in themselves exquisitely fine, and demand preservation."

[Footnote 8: See next page. The writer in the _North American Review_ is our only authority for the stanza as given above. He appears to have had the photographic reproduction of the Wrightson MS., but we cannot vouch for the accuracy of his transcripts from it.]

The first line of the 31st stanza has "and his _heart_ sincere."

The 32d and last stanza is as follows:

"No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Nor seek to draw them from their dread abode--
(His frailties there in trembling hope repose);
The bosom of his Father and his God."[9]

[Footnote 9: The above are all the variations from the present text in the Wrightson MS. which are noted by the authorities on whom we have depended; but we suspect that the following readings, mentioned by Mitford as in the MS., belong to _that_ MS., as they are _not_ found in the other: in the 7th stanza, "sickles" for "sickle;" in 18th, "shrines" for "shrine." Two others (in stanzas 9th and 27th) are referred to in our account of the Pembroke MS. below.]

The Pembroke MS. has the following variations from the present version:

In the 1st stanza, "wind" for "winds."

2d stanza, "_Or_ drowsy," etc.

5th stanza, "_and_ the ecchoing horn."

6th stanza, "_Nor_ climb his knees."

9th stanza, "_Awaits_ alike." Probably this is also the reading of the Wrightson MS. Mitford gives it as noted by Mason, and it is retained by Gray in the ed. of 1768.

The 10th stanza begins,

"_Forgive_, ye Proud, _th' involuntary_ fault
If Memory _to these_," etc.,

the present readings ("Nor you," "impute to these," and "Mem'ry o'er their tomb") being inserted in the margin.

The 12th stanza has "_reins_ of empire," with "rod" in the margin.

In the 15th stanza, the word "lands" has been crossed out, and "fields" written above it.

The 17th has "_Or_ shut the gates," etc.

In the 21st we have "fame and _epitaph_ supply."

The 23d has "_And_ in our ashes _glow_," the readings "Ev'n" and "live" being inserted in the margin.

The 27th stanza has "_would he_ rove." We suspect that this is also the reading of the Wrightson MS., as Mitford says it is noted by Mason.

In the 28th stanza, the first line reads "_from_ the custom'd hill."

In the 29th a word which we cannot make out has been erased, and "aged" substituted.

Before the Epitaph, two asterisks refer to the bottom of the page, where the following stanza is given, with the marginal note, "Omitted in 1753:"

"There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the Year,
By Hands unseen, are Show'rs of Violets found;
The Red-breast loves to build, and warble there,
And little Footsteps lightly print the Ground."

The last two lines of the 31st stanza (see note below) are pointed as follows:

"He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a Tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a Friend."

Some of the peculiarities of spelling in this MS. are the following: "Curfeu;" "Plowman;" "Tinkleings;" "mopeing;" "ecchoing;" "Huswife;" "Ile" (aisle); "wast" (waste); "village-Hambden;" "Rhimes;" "spell't;" "chearful;" "born" (borne); etc.

Mitford, in his Life of Gray prefixed to the "Eton" edition of his Poems (edited by Rev. John Moultrie, 1847), says: "I possess many curious variations from the printed text, taken from a copy of it in his own handwriting." He adds specimens of these variations, a few of which differ from both the Wrightson and Pembroke MSS. We give these in our notes below. See on 12, 24, and 93.

Several localities have contended for the honor of being the scene of the _Elegy_, but the general sentiment has always, and justly, been in favor of Stoke-Pogis. It was there that Gray began the poem in 1742; and there, as we have seen, he finished it in 1750. In that churchyard his mother was buried, and there, at his request, his own remains were afterwards laid beside her. The scene is, moreover, in all respects in perfect keeping with the spirit of the poem.

According to the common Cambridge tradition, Granchester, a parish about two miles southwest of the University, to which Gray was in the habit of taking his "constitutional" daily, is the locality of the poem; and the great bell of St. Mary's is the "curfew" of the first stanza. Another tradition makes a similar claim for Madingley, some three miles and a half northwest of Cambridge. Both places have churchyards such as the _Elegy_ describes; and this is about all that can be said in favor of their pretensions. There is also a parish called Burnham Beeches, in Buckinghamshire, which one writer at least has suggested as the scene of the poem, but for no better reason than that Gray once wrote a description of the place to Walpole, and casually mentioned the existence of certain "beeches," at the foot of which he would "squat," and "there grow to the trunk a whole morning." Gray's uncle had a seat in the neighborhood, and the poet often visited here, but the spot was not hallowed to him by the fond and tender associations that gathered about Stoke.

1. _The curfew_. Hales remarks: "It is a great mistake to suppose that the ringing of the curfew was, at its institution, a mark of Norman oppression. If such a custom was unknown before the Conquest, it only shows that the old English police was less well-regulated than that of many parts of the Continent, and how much the superior civilization of the Norman-French was needed. Fires were the curse of the timber-built towns of the Middle Ages: 'Solae pestes Londoniae sunt stultorum immodica potatio et _frequens incendium_' (Fitzstephen). The enforced extinction of domestic lights at an appointed signal was designed to be a safeguard against them."

Warton wanted to have this line read

"The curfew tolls!--the knell of parting day."

It is sufficient to say that Gray, as the manuscript shows, did not want it to read so, and that we much prefer his way to Warton's.

Mitford says that _toll_ is "not the appropriate verb," as the curfew was rung, not tolled. We presume that depended, to some extent, on the fancy of the ringer. Milton (_Il Pens._ 76) speaks of the curfew as

"Swinging slow with sullen roar."

Gray himself quotes here Dante, _Purgat._ 8:

--"squilla di lontano
Che paia 'l giorno pianger, che si muore;"

and we cannot refrain from adding, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with Italian, Longfellow's exquisite translation:

--"from far away a bell
That seemeth to deplore the dying day."

Mitford quotes (incorrectly, as often) Dryden, _Prol. to Troilus and Cressida_, 22:

"That tolls the knell for their departed sense."

On _parting_=departing, cf. Shakes. _Cor._ v. 6: "When I parted hence;" Goldsmith, _D. V._ 171: "Beside the bed where parting life was laid," etc.

2. _The lowing herd wind_, etc. _Wind_, and not _winds_, is the reading of the MS. (see fac-simile of this stanza on p. 73) and of _all_ the early editions--that of 1768, Mason's, Wakefield's, Mathias's, etc.--but we find no note of the fact in Mitford's or any other of the more recent editions, which have substituted _winds_. Whether the change was made as an amendment or accidentally, we do not know;[10] but the original reading seems to us by far the better one. The poet does not refer to the herd as an aggregate, but to the animals that compose it. He sees, not _it_, but "_them_ on their winding way." The ordinary reading mars both the meaning and the melody of the line.

[Footnote 10: Very likely the latter, as we have seen that _winds_ appears in the unauthorized version of the _London Magazine_ (March, 1751), where it may be a misprint, like the others noted above.

We may remark here that the edition of 1768--the _editio princeps_ of the _collected_ Poems--was issued under Gray's own supervision, and is printed with remarkable accuracy. We have detected only one indubitable error of the type in the entire volume. Certain peculiarities of spelling were probably intentional, as we find the like in the fac-similes of the poet's manuscripts. The many quotations from Greek, Latin, and Italian are correctly given (according to the received texts of the time), and the references to authorities, so far as we have verified them, are equally exact. The book throughout bears the marks of Gray's scholarly and critical habits, and we may be sure that the poems appear in precisely the form which he meant they should retain. In doubtful cases, therefore, we have generally followed this edition. Mason's (the _second_ edition: York, 1778) is also carefully edited and printed, and its readings seldom vary from Gray's. All of Mitford's that we have examined swarm with errors, especially in the notes. Pickering's (1835), edited by Mitford, is perhaps the worst of all. The Boston ed. (Little, Brown, & Co., 1853) is a pretty careful reproduction of Pickering's, with all its inaccuracies.]

3. The critic of the _N. A. Review_ points out that this line "is quite peculiar in its possible transformations. We have made," he adds, "twenty different versions preserving the rhythm, the general sentiment and the rhyming word. Any one of these variations might be, not inappropriately, substituted for the original reading."

Luke quotes Spenser, _F. Q._ vi. 7, 39: "And now she was uppon the weary way."

6. _Air_ is of course the object, not the subject of the verb.

7. _Save where the beetle_, etc. Cf. Collins, _Ode to Evening_:

"Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum."

and _Macbeth_, iii. 2:

"Ere the bat hath flown
His cloister'd flight; ere to black Hecate's summons
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,
Hath rung night's yawning peal," etc.

10. _The moping owl_. Mitford quotes Ovid, _Met._ v. 550: "Ignavus bubo, dirum mortalibus omen;" Thomson, _Winter_, 114:

"Assiduous in his bower the wailing owl
Plies his sad song;"

and Mallet, _Excursion_:

"the wailing owl
Screams solitary to the mournful moon."

12. _Her ancient solitary reign_. Cf. Virgil, _Geo._ iii. 476: "desertaque regna pastorum." A MS. variation of this line mentioned by Mitford is, "Molest and pry into her ancient reign."

13. "As he stands in the churchyard, he thinks only of the poorer people, because the better-to-do lay interred inside the church. Tennyson (_In Mem._ x.) speaks of resting

'beneath the clover sod
That takes the sunshine and the rains,
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God.'

In Gray's time, and long before, and some time after it, the former resting-place was for the poor, the latter for the rich. It was so in the first instance, for two reasons: (i.) the interior of the church was regarded as of great sanctity, and all who could sought a place in it, the most dearly coveted spot being near the high altar; (ii.) when elaborate tombs were the fashion, they were built inside the church for the sake of security, 'gay tombs' being liable to be 'robb'd' (see the funeral dirge in Webster's _White Devil_). As these two considerations gradually ceased to have power, and other considerations of an opposite tendency began to prevail, the inside of the church became comparatively deserted, except when ancestral reasons gave no choice" (Hales).

17. Cf. Milton, _Arcades_, 56: "the odorous breath of morn;" _P. L._ ix. 192:

"Now when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers that breath'd
Their morning incense," etc.

18. Hesiod ([Greek: Erg.] 568) calls the swallow [Greek: orthogoê chelidôn.] Cf. Virgil, _Æn._ viii. 455:

"Evandrum ex humili tecto lux suscitat alma,
Et matutini volucrum sub culmine cantus."

19. _The cock's shrill clarion_. Cf. Philips, _Cyder_, i. 753:

"When chanticleer with clarion shrill recalls
The tardy day;"

Milton, _P. L._ vii. 443:

"The crested cock, whose clarion sounds
The silent hours;"

_Hamlet_, i. 1:

"The cock that is the trumpet to the morn;"

Quarles, _Argalus and Parthenia_:

"I slept not till the early bugle-horn
Of chaunticlere had summon'd in the morn;"

and Thomas Kyd, _England's Parnassus_:

"The cheerful cock, the sad night's trumpeter,
Wayting upon the rising of the sunne;
The wandering swallow with her broken song," etc.

20. _Their lowly bed_. Wakefield remarks: "Some readers, keeping in mind the 'narrow cell' above, have mistaken the 'lowly bed' in this verse for the grave--a most puerile and ridiculous blunder;" and Mitford says: "Here the epithet 'lowly,' as applied to 'bed,' occasions some ambiguity as to whether the poet meant the bed on which they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid, which in poetry is called a 'lowly bed.' Of course the former is designed; but Mr. Lloyd, in his Latin translation, mistook it for the latter."

21. Cf. Lucretius, iii. 894:

"Jam jam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor
Optima nee dulces occurrent oscula nati
Praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent;"

and Horace, _Epod._ ii. 39:

"Quod si pudica mulier in partem juvet
Domum atque dulces liberos
* * * * * * *
Sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum
Lassi sub adventum viri," etc.

Mitford quotes Thomson, _Winter_, 311:

"In vain for him the officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire
With tears of artless innocence."

Wakefield cites _The Idler_, 103: "There are few things, not purely evil, of which we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, _this is the last_."

22. _Ply her evening care_. Mitford says, "To _ply a care_ is an expression that is not proper to our language, and was probably formed for the rhyme _share_." Hales remarks: "This is probably the kind 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 Saturday Night_, 21:

"Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee."

24. Among Mitford's MS. variations we find "coming kiss." Wakefield compares 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 Elizabethan writers. 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 imperfect rhyme;" and the same might be said of _toil_ and _smile_.

33. Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind these verses from his friend 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."

Hurd compares Cowley:

"Beauty, and strength, and wit, and wealth, and power,
Have their short flourishing hour;
And love to see themselves, and smile,
And joy in their pre-eminence a while:
Even so in the same land
Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers together stand;
Alas! Death mows down all with an impartial hand."

35. _Awaits_. The reading of the ed. of 1768, as of the Pembroke (and probably the other) MS. _Hour_ is the subject, not the object, of the verb.

36. Hayley, in the Life of Crashaw, _Biographia Britannica_, says that this line is "literally translated from the Latin prose of Bartholinus in his Danish Antiquities."

39. _Fretted_. The _fret_ is, strictly, an ornament used in classical architecture, formed by small fillets intersecting each other at right angles. Parker (_Glossary of Architecture_) derives the word from the Latin _fretum_, a strait; and Hales from _ferrum_, iron, through the Italian _ferrata_, an iron grating. It is more likely (see Stratmann and Wb.) from the A. S. _frætu_, an ornament.

Cf. _Hamlet_, ii. 2:

"This majestical roof fretted with golden fire;"

and _Cymbeline_, ii. 4:

"The roof o' the chamber
With golden cherubins is fretted."

40. _The pealing anthem_. Cf. _Il Penseroso_, 161:

"There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high, and anthem clear," etc.

41. _Storied urn_. Cf. _Il Pens._ 159: "storied windows richly dight." On _animated bust_, cf. Pope, _Temple of Fame_, 73: "Heroes in animated marble frown;" and Virgil, _Æn._ vi. 847: "spirantia aera."

43. _Provoke_. Mitford considers this use of the word "unusually bold, to say the least." It is simply the etymological meaning, _to call forth_ (Latin, _provocare_). See Wb. Cf. Pope, _Ode_:

"But when our country's cause provokes to arms."

44. _Dull cold ear_. Cf. Shakes. _Hen. VIII._ iii. 2: "And sleep in dull, cold marble."

46. _Pregnant with celestial fire_. This phrase has been copied by Cowper in his _Boadicea_, which is said (see notes of "Globe" ed.) to have been written after reading Hume's History, in 1780:

"Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre."

47. Mitford quotes Ovid, _Ep._ v. 86:

"Sunt mihi quas possint sceptra decere manus."

48. _Living lyre_. Cf. Cowley:

"Begin the song, and strike the living lyre;"

and Pope, _Windsor Forest_, 281:

"Who now shall charm the shades where Cowley strung
His living harp, and lofty Denham sung?"

50. Cf. Browne, _Religio Medici_: "Rich with the spoils of nature."

51. "_Rage_ is often used in the post-Elizabethan writers of the 17th century, and in the 18th century writers, for inspiration, enthusiasm" (Hales). Cf. Cowley:

"Who brought green poesy to her perfect age,
And made that art which was a rage?"

and Tickell, _Prol._:

"How hard the task! How rare the godlike rage!"

Cf. also the use of the Latin _rabies_ for the "divine afflatus," as in _Æneid_, vi. 49.

53. _Full many a gem_, etc. Cf. Bishop Hall, _Contemplations_: "There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowells of the earth, many a fair pearle in the bosome of the sea, that never was seene, nor never shall bee."

_Purest ray serene_. As Hales remarks, this is a favourite arrangement of epithets with Milton. Cf. _Hymn on Nativity_: "flower-inwoven tresses torn;" _Comus_: "beckoning shadows dire;" "every alley green," etc.; _L'Allegro_: "native wood-notes wild;" _Lycidas_: "sad occasion dear;" "blest kingdoms meek," etc.

55. _Full many a flower_, etc. Cf. Pope, _Rape of the Lock_, iv. 158:

"Like roses that in deserts bloom and die."

Mitford cites Chamberlayne, _Pharonida_, ii. 4:

"Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent
Of odours in unhaunted deserts;"

and Young, _Univ. Pass._ sat. v.:

"In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,
She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green;
Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,
And waste their music on the savage race;"

and Philip, _Thule_:

"Like woodland flowers, which paint the desert glades,
And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades."

Hales quotes Waller's

"Go, lovely rose,
Tell her that's young
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide
Thou must have uncommended died."

On _desert air_, cf. _Macbeth_, iv. 3: "That would be howl'd out in the desert air."

57. It was in 1636 that John Hampden, of Buckinghamshire (a cousin of Oliver Cromwell), refused to pay the ship-money tax which Charles I. was levying without the authority of Parliament.

58. _Little tyrant_. Cf. Thomson, _Winter_:

"With open freedom little tyrants raged."

The artists who have illustrated this passage (see, for instance, _Favourite English Poems_, p. 305, and _Harper's Monthly_, vol. vii. p. 3) appear to understand "little" as equivalent to _juvenile_. If that had been the meaning, the poet would have used some other phrase than "of his fields," or "his lands," as he first wrote it.

59. _Some mute inglorious Milton_. Cf. Phillips, preface to _Theatrum Poetarum_: "Even the very names of some who having perhaps been comparable to Homer for heroic poesy, or to Euripides for tragedy, yet nevertheless sleep inglorious in the crowd of the forgotten vulgar."

60. _Some Cromwell_, etc. Hales remarks: "The prejudice against Cromwell was extremely strong throughout the 18th century, even amongst the more liberal-minded. That cloud of 'detractions rude,' of which Milton speaks in his noble sonnet to our 'chief of men' as in his own day enveloping the great republican leader, still lay thick and heavy over him. His wise statesmanship, his unceasing earnestness, his high-minded purpose, were not yet seen."

After this stanza Thomas Edwards, the author of the _Canons of Criticism_, would add the following, to supply what he deemed a defect in the poem:

"Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charms
Shone with attraction to herself alone;
Whose beauty might have bless'd a monarch's arms,
Whose virtue cast a lustre on a throne.

"That humble beauty warm'd an honest heart,
And cheer'd the labours of a faithful spouse;
That virtue form'd for every decent part
The healthful offspring that adorn'd their house."

Edwards was an able critic, but it is evident that he was no poet.

63. Mitford quotes Tickell:

"To scatter blessings o'er the British land;"

and Mrs. Behn:

"Is scattering plenty over all the land."

66. _Their growing virtues_. That is, the growth of their virtues.

67. _To wade through slaughter_, etc. Cf. Pope, _Temp. of Fame_, 347:

"And swam to empire through the purple flood."

68. Cf. Shakes. _Hen. V._ iii. 3:

"The gates of mercy shall be all shut up."

70. _To quench the blushes_, etc. Cf. Shakes. _W. T._ iv. 3:

"Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself."

73. _Far from the madding crowd's_, etc. Rogers quotes Drummond:

"Far from the madding worldling's hoarse discords."

Mitford points out "the ambiguity of this couplet, which indeed gives a sense exactly contrary to that intended; to avoid which one must break the grammatical construction." The poet's meaning is, however, clear enough.

75. Wakefield quotes Pope, _Epitaph on Fenton_:

"Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,
Content with science in the vale of peace."

77. _These bones_. "The bones of these. So _is_ is often used in Latin, especially by Livy, as in v. 22: '_Ea_ sola pecunia,' the money derived from that sale, etc." (Hales).

84. _That teach_. Mitford censures _teach_ as ungrammatical; but it may be justified as a "construction according to sense."

85. Hales remarks: "At the first glance it might seem that _to dumb Forgetfulness a prey_ was in apposition to _who_, and the meaning was, 'Who that now lies forgotten,' etc.; in which case the second line of the stanza must be closely connected with the fourth; for the question of the passage is not 'Who ever died?' but 'Who ever died without wishing to be remembered?' But in this way of interpreting this difficult stanza (i.) there is comparatively little force in the appositional phrase, and (ii.) there is a certain awkwardness in deferring so long the clause (virtually adverbal though apparently coördinate) in which, as has just been noticed, the point of the question really lies. Perhaps therefore it is better to take the phrase _to dumb Forgetfulness a prey_ as in fact the completion of the predicate _resign'd_, and interpret thus: Who ever resigned this life of his with all its pleasures and all its pains to be utterly ignored and forgotten?=who ever, when resigning it, reconciled himself to its being forgotten? In this case the second half of the stanza echoes the thought of the first half."

We give the note in full, and leave the reader to take his choice of the two interpretations. For ourself, we incline to the first rather than the second. We prefer to take _to dumb Forgetfulness a prey_ as appositional and proleptic, and not as the grammatical complement of _resigned_: Who, yielding himself up a prey to dumb Forgetfulness, ever resigned this life without casting a longing, lingering look behind?

90. _Pious_ is used in the sense of the Latin _pius_. Ovid has "piae lacrimae." Mitford quotes Pope, _Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady_, 49:

"No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier;
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd."

"In this stanza," says Hales, "he answers in an exquisite manner the two questions, or rather the one question twice repeated, of the preceding stanza.... What he would say is that every one while a spark of life yet remains in him yearns for some kindly loving remembrance; nay, even after the spark is quenched, even when all is dust and ashes, that yearning must still be felt."

91, 92. Mitford paraphrases the couplet thus: "The voice of Nature still cries from the tomb in the language of the epitaph inscribed upon it, which still endeavours to connect us with the living; the fires of former affection are still alive beneath our ashes."

Cf. Chaucer, _C. T._ 3880:

"Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken."

Gray himself quotes Petrarch, _Sonnet_ 169:

"Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco,
Fredda una lingua e due begli occhi chiusi,
Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville,"

translated by Nott as follows:

"These, my sweet fair, so warns prophetic thought,
Clos'd thy bright eye, and mute thy poet's tongue,
E'en after death shall still with sparks be fraught,"

the "these" meaning his love and his songs concerning it. Gray translated this sonnet into Latin elegiacs, the last line being rendered,

"Ardebitque urna multa favilla mea."

93. On a MS. variation of this stanza given by Mitford, see p. 80, footnote.

95. _Chance_ is virtually an adverb here = perchance.

98. _The peep of dawn_. Mitford quotes _Comus_, 138: