high poetic sensibility and a cultivated taste to
appreciate the rapid transitions, the figurative language, and
lyrical magnificence of the odes; but the elegy went home to all
hearts; while its musical harmony, originality, and pathetic train of
sentiment and feeling render it one of the most perfect of English
poems. No vicissitudes of taste or fashion have affected its
popularity. When the original manuscript of the poem was lately
(1854) offered for sale, it brought the almost incredible sum of 131
pounds. The two great odes of Gray, _The Progress of Poetry_ and _The
Bard_, were published in 1757, and were but coldly received. His
name, however, stood high, and on the death of Cibber, the same year,
he was offered the laureateship, which he wisely declined. He was
ambitious, however, of obtaining the more congenial and dignified
appointment of Professor of Modern History in the University of
Cambridge, which fell vacant in 1762, and, by the advice of his
friends, he made application to Lord Bute, but was unsuccessful. Lord
Bute had designed it for the tutor of his son-in-law, Sir James
Lowther. No one had heard of the tutor, but the Bute influence was
all-prevailing. In 1765 Gray took a journey into Scotland,
penetrating as far north as Dunkeld and the Pass of Killiecrankie;
and his account of his tour, in letters to his friends, is replete
with interest and with touches of his peculiar humour and graphic
description. One other poem proceeded from his pen. In 1768 the
Professorship of Modern History was again vacant, and the Duke of
Grafton bestowed it upon Gray. A sum of 400 pounds per annum was thus
added to his income; but his health was precarious--he had lost it,
he said, just when he began to be easy in his circumstances. The
nomination of the Duke of Grafton to the office of Chancellor of the
University enabled Gray to acknowledge the favour conferred on
himself. He thought it better that gratitude should sing than
expectation, and he honoured his grace's installation with an ode.
Such occasional productions are seldom happy; but Gray preserved his
poetic dignity and select beauty of expression. He made the founders
of Cambridge, as Mr. Hallam has remarked, "pass before our eyes like
shadows over a magic glass." When the ceremony of the installation
was over, the poet-professor went on a tour to the lakes of
Cumberland and Westmoreland, and few of the beauties of the
lake-country, since so famous, escaped his observation. This was to
be his last excursion. While at dinner one day in the college-hall he
was seized with an attack of gout in his stomach, which resisted all
the powers of medicine, and proved fatal in less than a week. He died
on the 30th of July, 1771, and was buried, according to his own
desire, beside the remains of his mother at Stoke-Pogis, near Slough,
in Buckinghamshire, in a beautiful sequestered village churchyard
that is supposed to have furnished the scene of his elegy.[1] The
literary habits and personal peculiarities of Gray are familiar to us
from the numerous representations and allusions of his friends. It is
easy to fancy the recluse-poet sitting in his college-chambers in the
old quadrangle of Pembroke Hall. His windows are ornamented with
mignonette and choice flowers in China vases, but outside may be
discerned some iron-work intended to be serviceable as a fire-escape,
for he has a horror of fire. His furniture is neat and select; his
books, rather for use than show, are disposed around him. He has a
harpsichord in the room. In the corner of one of the apartments is a
trunk containing his deceased mother's dresses, carefully folded up
and preserved. His fastidiousness, bordering upon effeminacy, is
visible in his gait and manner--in his handsome features and small,
well-dressed person, especially when he walks abroad and sinks the
author and hard student in "the gentleman who sometimes writes for
his amusement." He writes always with a crow-quill, speaks slowly and
sententiously, and shuns the crew of dissonant college revellers, who
call him "a prig," and seek to annoy him. Long mornings of study, and
nights feverish from ill-health, are spent in those chambers; he is
often listless and in low spirits; yet his natural temper is not
desponding, and he delights in employment. He has always something to
learn or to communicate--some sally of humour or quiet stroke of
satire for his friends and correspondents--some note on natural
history to enter in his journal--some passage of Plato to unfold and
illustrate--some golden thought of classic inspiration to inlay on
his page--some bold image to tone down--some verse to retouch and
harmonize. His life is on the whole innocent and happy, and a feeling
of thankfulness to the Great Giver is breathed over all.

[Footnote 1: A claim has been put up for the churchyard of
Granchester, about two miles from Cambridge, the great bell of St.
Mary's serving for the "curfew." But Stoke-Pogis is more likely to
have been the spot, if any individual locality were indicated. The
poet often visited the village, his aunt and mother residing there,
and his aunt was interred in the churchyard of the place. Gray's
epitaph on his mother is characterized not only by the tenderness
with which he always regarded her memory, but by his style and cast
of thought. It runs thus: "Beside her friend and sister here sleep
the remains of Dorothy Gray, widow, the careful, tender mother of
many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her.
She died March 11, 1753, aged 72." She had lived to read the _Elegy_,
which was perhaps an ample recompense for her maternal cares and
affection. Mrs. Gray's will commences in a similar touching strain:
"In the name of God, amen. This is the last will and desire of
Dorothy Gray to her son Thomas Gray." [Cunningham's edit. of
_Johnson's Lives_.] They were all in all to each other. The father's
cruelty and neglect, their straitened circumstances, the sacrifices
made by the mother to maintain her son at the university, her pride
in the talents and conduct of that son, and the increasing gratitude
and affection of the latter, nursed in his scholastic and cloistered
solitude--these form an affecting but noble record in the history of
genius.

[One would infer from the above that Mrs. Gray was _not_ "interred in
the churchyard of the place," though the epitaph given immediately
after shows that she _was_. Gray in his will directed that he should
be laid beside her there. The passage in the will reads thus: "First,
I do desire that my body may be deposited in the vault, made by my
dear mother in the churchyard of Stoke-Pogeis, near Slough in
Buckinghamshire, by her remains, in a coffin of seasoned oak, neither
lined nor covered, and (unless it be inconvenient) I could wish that
one of my executors may see me laid in the grave, and distribute
among such honest and industrious poor persons in said parish as he
thinks fit, the sum of ten pounds in charity."--_Ed_.]]

Various editions of the collected works of Gray have been published.
The first, including memoirs of his life and his correspondence,
edited by his friend, the Rev. W. Mason, appeared in 1775. It has
been often reprinted, and forms the groundwork of the editions by
Mathias (1814) and Mitford (1816). Mr. Mitford, in 1843, published
Gray's correspondence with the Rev. Norton Nicholls; and in 1854
another collection of Gray's letters was published, edited also by
Mr. Mitford. Every scrap of the poet's MSS. is eagerly sought after,
and every year seems to add to his popularity as a poet and
letter-writer.

     *     *     *     *     *     *

In 1778 a monument to Gray was erected in Westminster Abbey by Mason,
with the following inscription:

  No more the Grecian muse unrivall'd reigns,
    To Britain let the nations homage pay;
  She felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains,
    A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray.

The cenotaph afterwards erected in Stoke Park by Mr. Penn is
described below.




[Illustration: WEST-END HOUSE.]


STOKE-POGIS.

FROM HOWITT'S "HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE BRITISH POETS."[1]

[Footnote 1: Harper's edition, vol. i. p. 314 foll.]


It is at Stoke-Pogis that we seek the most attractive vestiges of
Gray. Here he used to spend his vacations, not only when a youth at
Eton, but during the whole of his future life, while his mother and
his aunts lived. Here it was that his _Ode on a Distant Prospect of
Eton College_, his celebrated _Elegy written in a Country
Churchyard_, and his _Long Story_ were not only written, but were
mingled with the circumstances and all the tenderest feelings of his
own life.

His mother and aunts lived at an old-fashioned house in a very
retired spot at Stoke, called West-End. This house stood in a hollow,
much screened by trees. A small stream ran through the garden, and it
is said that Gray used to employ himself when here much in this
garden, and that many of the trees still remaining are of his
planting. On one side of the house extended an upland field, which
was planted round so as to give a charming retired walk; and at the
summit of the field was raised an artificial mound, and upon it was
built a sort of arcade or summer-house, which gave full prospect of
Windsor and Eton. Here Gray used to delight to sit; here he was
accustomed to read and write much; and it is just the place to
inspire the _Ode on Eton College_, which lay in the midst of its fine
landscape, beautifully in view. The old house inhabited by Gray and
his mother has just been pulled down, and replaced by an Elizabethan
mansion by the present proprietor, Mr. Penn, of Stoke Park, just
by.[2] The garden, of course, has shared in the change, and now
stands gay with its fountain and its modern greenhouse, and,
excepting for some fine trees, no longer reminds you of Gray. The
woodland walk still remains round the adjoining field, and the
summer-house on its summit, though now much cracked by time, and only
held together by iron cramps. The trees are now so lofty that they
completely obstruct the view, and shut out both Eton and Windsor.

[Footnote 2: This was written (or published, at least) in 1846; but
Mitford, in the Life of Gray prefixed to the "Eton edition" of his
Poems, published in 1847, says: "The house, which is now called
_West-End_, lies in a secluded part of the parish, on the road to
Fulmer. It has lately been much enlarged and adorned by its present
proprietor [Mr. Penn], but the room called 'Gray's' (distinguished by
a small balcony) is still preserved; and a shady walk round an
adjoining meadow, with a summer-house on the rising land, are still
remembered as favourite places frequented by the poet."--_Ed_.]

     *     *     *     *     *     *

Stoke Park is about a couple of miles from Slough. The country is
flat, but its monotony is broken up by the noble character and
disposition of its woods. Near the house is a fine expanse of water,
across which the eye falls on fine views, particularly to the south,
of Windsor Castle, Cooper's Hill, and the Forest Woods. About three
hundred yards from the north front of the house stands a column,
sixty-eight feet high, bearing on the top a colossal statue of Sir
Edward Coke, by Rosa. The woods of the park shut out the view of
West-End House, Gray's occasional residence, but the space is open
from the mansion across the park, so as to take in the view both of
the church and of a monument erected by the late Mr. Penn to Gray.
Alighting from the carriage at a lodge, we enter the park just at the
monument. This is composed of fine freestone, and consists of a large
sarcophagus, supported on a square pedestal, with inscriptions on
each side. Three of them are selected from the _Ode on Eton College_
and the _Elegy_. They are:

  Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
    Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
  Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
    Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

  One morn I miss'd him on the