GOLDSMITH AND GRAY'S ELEGY.

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writer in the Edinburgh Review more than a quarter of a century ago, when the Review was at its best, says: "Gray can at once appreciate Goldsmith, Goldsmith. cannot appreciate Gray. In spite of Mr. Forster, we must think that Goldsmith's praise to a Lyrist unsurpassed and an Elegiast unequalled in modern literature was as niggard and cold as it could well be; while his indirect sneers at Gray imply unequivocal disdain, and he actually thinks that Parnell's Night-Piece upon Death (which we fear Death has long since kindly accepted) 'might be made to surpass all the churchyard scenes that have since appeared.'" He clubs Gray with Hurd and Mason, and if we believe Mr. Cradock (and there is no reason why we should not), he actually proposes to amend his matchless Elegy by leaving out an idle word in every line, as thus

"The curfew tolls the knell of day,

The lowing herd winds o'er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his way."

It seems almost incredible that such a genius as Goldsmith should have had so little appreciation; but if we look at his equally celebrated Deserted Village, we shall see that he relies entirely for descriptive phrases on things we can see, and such a beautiful expression as "glimmering landscape" would find no place in his

work. If Goldsmith was resolved to make a telegraphic announcement, so as to save the words in the message, he might have shortened the verse into

"Curfew tolls,

Lowing Herd winds o'er lea,

Weary Ploughman homeward plods,"

and in this, every circumstance is portrayed; but here I must again quote the Edinburgh of now nearly forty years: "Goldsmith's systematic aversion to epithets is indeed a sign of defect in the imaginative faculty. For the epithet is often (and in no poet more than Gray) precisely that word in a verse which addresses itself most to the imagination of the reader, and tests most severely that of the author. Shakespeare has a line made up of epithets 'The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day.' Our amender would have thought

he rid it of impertinent superfluities by reducing the line to the day""!

I searched the churchyard for inscriptions that might have inspired Gray's poem, but found very few. There was one which Gray must often have seen, beginning with

"If brief to speak thy praise, let it suffice,

Thou wert a wife most modest, loving, wise."

STOKE POGIS MANOR-HOUSE.

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But this is much obliterated, though it only dates back to 1745. Perhaps the "uncouth rhyme" may have struck Gray's eye.

"The

The history of the ancient manor-house is extremely interesting. It was visible from the church, and was near the present Italian building that was designed by Wyatt for Mr. Penn. Wyatt was the architect for the Pantheon, and succeeded Sir W. Chambers as SurveyorGeneral to the Board of Works. He was, I believe, the only architect that ever arrived at the presidential chair of the Royal Academy. The ancient manorhouse was the subject of Gray's Long Story. dim windows that excluded the light were filled with the arms of the family of the Hastings and its alliances, those of Sir Edward Coke, and many of his contemporaries in the law." We learn from Lysons that Coke entertained Queen Elizabeth here very sumptuously, and even made her presents of jewels that were valued at more than £1000. Coke had held the manor as a tenant of the Crown, but in the year 1621 the feesimple was conveyed to him. He seems to have fallen out of favour, however, and was committed to the Tower by James, and remained there till August 1622, when he was ordered to confine himself to his house at Stoke Pogis, and not visit the English Court again