Select Poems Of Thomas Gray Part 8

"_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" subst.i.tuted.

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 "const.i.tutional" 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 a.s.sociations 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 inst.i.tution, 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 ma.n.u.script 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 subst.i.tuted _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 ma.n.u.scripts. 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, subst.i.tuted 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:

"a.s.siduous 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.