yards have had their claims asserted, but its images and reflections were doubtless the suggestions of many scenes and places. In Gray's first MS. of the elegy were the four following stanzas after the verse ending with the "Muse's flame : "" The thoughtless world to majesty may bow, And thou, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, To wander in the gloomy walks of fate : Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around No more with reason and thyself at strife, Give anxious cares and endless wishes room; This was the original close of the poem. After the twenty-fifth stanza, ending with the word "lawn," was the following : Him have we seen the greenwood-side along, In the MS. of Gray, a fac-simile of which is contained in Matthias' edition, the following stanza is added to the poem, and marked by asterisks immediately to precede the epitaph. This was printed in some of the early editions, but afterwards omitted as too long a paren thesis for the place : Page 62. Lady Cobham resided in the old mansion at Stoke, and, having read the To fulfil her desire, a relation, Miss Elegy in manuscript, wished to know the author. Speed, and Lady Schaub, paid a visit to Gray, and left a note on the table. Not even a poetical hermit might disregard such an invitation. He returned the "call," and to divert Lady Cobham and her family the "Long Story" was written. Gray omitted this from his collected poems. Page 62, line 19." paventosa speme."- Petr. Son. cxiv. — Gray. Page 62, line 22. -Sir Edmond Coke's mansion, at Stoke-Pogeis, now the seat of Mr. Penn, was the scene of Gray's Long Story. The antique chimneys have been allowed to remain as vestiges of the poet's fancy, and a column with a statue of Coke marks the former abode of its illustrious inhabitant. — D'Israeli. Page 63, line 7.-Sir Christopher Hatton, promoted by Queen Elizabeth for his graceful person and fine dancing. - Gray. Page 66, line 15. — Styack—The housekeeper. — Gray. Page 63, line 27. — Squib — Groom of the chamber. — Gray. Page 63, line 28. — Groom — The steward. - Gray. Page 67, line 4.-Macleane - A famous highwayman hanged the week before. Gray. ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUde. Page 68. — Left unfinished by Gray. The additions, by Mason, are distinguished by inverted commas. Page 77, line 9. In Gray's MS. Agrippina's was one continued speech from this line to the end of the scene. Mr. Mason informs us that he has altered it to the state in which it now stands. HYMN TO IGNORANCE. Page 81. This is supposed to have been written about the year 1742, when Gray returned to Cambridge. It received its title from Mason. STANZAS TO MR. BENTLEY. Page 86.These lines were written in compliment to Bentley, who made the Designs with which the six poems were published, by way of illustration. The words within inverted commas in the last stanza were supplied by Mason, a corner of the MS. copy having been torn. SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER. Page 87.-"Charles Townshend," to whom Burke alludes as "another luminary," rising before the orb of Chatham was entirely set. "Squire," Bishop of St. David's, of whom Bishop Warburton said that he had made religion his trade, while Dean Tucker had made trade his religion. SONG. Page 88. Written at the request of Miss Speed, to an old air of Geminiani : — the thought from the French. This and the Amatory Lines were presented by Miss Speed, then Countess de Viry, to the Rev. Mr. Leman, of Suffolk, while on a visit at her castle in Savoy, where she died in 1783. TOPHET. Page 89. These verses were intended to illustrate a grotesque etching of Henry Etough, Rector of Therfield, Herts, said to be the ugliest person of that age. He was a Jew, but turned Christian for the sake of a good living. IMPROMPTU. Page 89. — One of the least known of Gray's friends was Mr. William Robinson, a Berkshire clergyman, who had a house - Denton Court - near Canterbury, where the poet twice visited him. On one of these occasions, this impromptu, written and left by the poet, was found in a drawer of his dressing-table. The cause of Gray's antipathy to Lord Holland is not stated; Scott calls him a "thorough-bred statesman of that evil period." THE CANDIDATE. Page 90. Not long before Lord Sandwich canvassed the electors for the High-stewardship of Cambridge, Gray wrote these bitter lines. HYMENEAL.. Page 99. Printed in the Cambridge collection, 1736, folio. In this collection also is a Latin copy of Hendecasyllables, by Horace Walpole. LUNA HABITABILIS. Page 101. Written by desire of the college, in 1737, and printed without the author's name, in Musæ Etonenses, vol. ii., p. 107. It is referred to in Mason's Memoirs. SAPPHIC ODe. Page 104. Mason considered this as the first original production of Gray's Muse; the two former Latin poems being imposed as exercises, by the college. CARMEN AD C. FAVONIUM ZEPHYRINUM. Page 107.-To West, May, 1740, and written after the poet's visit to Frescati and the cascades of Tivoli. FRAGMENT OF A LATIN POEM ON THE GAURUS. Page 108.-Sent by Gray to his friend West, with a reference to Sandys' Travels, for the history of Monte Barbaro and Monte Nuovo. A translation of this poem may be seen in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1775. ALCAIC ODE. Page 111. — In 1789, a French visitor found the Album in the Chartreuse, and copied this ode from it. Not long afterwards, a mob of ruffians from Grenoble broke into the monastery and destroyed the books. DE PRINCIPIIS COGITANDI. Page 114. When Gray was in Florence, in the April of 1741, West sent to him some fragments of a tragedy which he had begun to write on "Pausanias." Gray deferred his opinion of the piece until he had seen the whole, and, by way of letting West have his "revenge," he enclosed fifty-three lines of "De Principiis Cogitandi," which he called a metaphysic poem. Gray elsewhere alludes to it as Tommy Lucretius. GREEK EPIGRAM. Page 122. "I send you an inscription for a wood adjoining to a park of mine (it is on the confines of Mount Citharon, on the left hand, as you go to Thebes): you know I am no friend to hunters, and hate to be disturbed by their noise."— Gray to West, May 27, 1742. FROM THE ANTHOLOGIA GRÆCA. Page 124. — Mr. Gray enriched an interleaved edition of the "Anthologia Græca" (by Henry Stephens, 1566) with notes, parallel passages from various authors, and some conjectural emendations. He translated, or imitated, a few of the epigrams, of which the reader is presented with a specimen. IN AMOREM DORMIENTEM. Page 125.-"Anthol," p. 332. Catullianam illam spirat mollitiem. — Gray. FROM A FRAgment of PLATO. Page 125. — Elegantissimum hercle fragmentum, quod sic Latinè nostro modo adumbravimus. Gray. |
