The record-union., 1892-10-26

,DCC9f - oSeus 10 the IIgll, Lne REMAINING
huge gables and chimneys, almost COM
pletely covered with ivy, of old Stoke
Hail, the ancient manor house. Here
once lived the noble families of the
Huntlngdons, the Cokes and the Cob
hams. where Queen Elizabeth became
enamored OF her one time regal enter
talnment. DAVIS chatter about the old
chlmneys and gossip in the branches of
the lolty trees. Ancient greatness and
stateiiness with picturesque and even
Wlnsone decay charm the onlooker in
every view OF old Stoke Hall.
To the left, and somewhat further
away, across gently rolling and velvety
lawns, the beautiful vista being bounded
on either side by some of the richest park
forestry in England, is seen the daz-
zllngly white outlines Of the splendid
Stoke Hall Of to-day. Before it and still
10 the south, CLEAN of shimmering blue
hints OF an extensive artificial sheet of
water. Behind it, to the right, is lofty
pillar nearly 100 feet in hight, surmounted
by heroic figure of Sir Edward Coke,
Elizabeth's attorney and Chief Justice of
the Kings Bench, whose career and writ
ings are familiar TO the legal profession
throughout the world. Through marriage
he was once Lord of Stoke Manor. But
the prlncely manor house which ends the
vista, and whose white colonnades gives
the impression that lawn and forest en-
palace built by fair hands, was the work
OF the Penn family, principally OF John
Penn, the Founders second son by his
second wife. An Americans vivid fancy
prompts proprietary, or kindred, feel
ing here; and you are heartily glad you
can lind in England better memorial of
this great family than the tablet to Ad-
miral Penn in St. Mary Radcliffe Church,
Bristol, or the gTass-choked grave Of the
grand old Quaker, William Penn, in
lone Jordan's Meeting house grave garth.
Squarely before you, to the west, not
five hundred yards away, an exquisite
gem OF scenic reality in the setting of this
unequaled rural picture, stands Old Stoke
Poges church, surrounded by its hall
lowed churchyard, fadeless in the mem
ory and heart of man for just four lines of
the tenderest poetry ever penned:
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew trees
shade,
Where heaves the turf in many mold'ring
heap
Each ia his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers OF the hamlet sleep.
At no old world shrine will your heart
so leap and thrill with supremely graft
fed expectancy. There is elation, indeed
intoXication, in the perfection of your re-
allZation. | am sure your expectation is
an universal one. Expressions falling
from the lips of different types of Ameri-
CtlliS III my BiGSGltt. OIl NlllGl6lI OCCo-
sions, fully illustrate this. one was by
prim Ohio matron who looked upon the
old and new manor houses and then the
little church and yard in a matter-of-tact
way for a time, and then said briskly to
her handsome daughter standing near:
If Gray had ever written about this
place different than he did, he would have
been plaguy fool; and that's all I've got
to say about it ~
A plain New England schoolma'am
came. She had walked from Slough to
save carriage hire. She had toiled and
scrimped many Il year to get to a few of
these old world shrines.
"Oh," she said with tears of joy filling
her gray, fine eyes, ito have worked and
saved my whole life, with the surety of
finding it so true to my heart picture of it
all, would have indeed been lifelong
pleasureD
4 wealthy ranchman from Wyoming,
who came IN carriage, mind you, and
tipped" everything and everybody from
Slough to Stoke, not forgetting myself in
his kindly feeling, because | was able to
point out few trifling things he might
have overlooked, voiced the same idea in
different way.
II used TO parse that stuff of Gray's
when l was boy, down in our Mohawk
Valley village school, till the internal
'glimmering landscape of every kind of
-
sight. But it worked up a regular long
ing TO sometime come and sort of stand
around where Gray loafed. Now that
I'm here the whole thing takes hold of
me hard. My friend, that fellow, Gray,
rounded up things here squareW ~
And so he did. Poetry is truly revela-
ton through melodiouS words. But it
must be true, not false, revealment, or
you ana L and the Wyoming genuine
critic are certain to stop at the ugly bars
Of unreality and flaw.
You will saunter lovingly among the
graves for a little, meantime getting ac-
quainted with old Joseph Lowell, for
many, many years the sexton here, and
his wife, both nearly seventy years of
age, but chirpy as crickets and brown and
hard as nuts. They are making bit of
hay among the.mounds, as is their right,
and their only fee aside from that for
burials, for which Joseph gets flour bob
(shillings) fur the big uns, am two for the
little uns."
The church itself is little old tumble
of stone and wood, low and wide, with
two low gables facing the east and grad
ually merging into one peak at the west
end. 1t has one of the oldest south
porches to be found in England. On the
north side is q huge, low tower, nearly as
large as the body OF the church, from the
top of whose crumbling Norman battle
ments rises tall and very slender wooden
spire. The entire church to above the
base of the spire is massed and matted
with ivy, and is an inspiring picture of
mellow antiquity and hallowed repose.
Atthe east end, just beneath the vestry
window and but a few feet from the
church wall, is the ancient low altar tomb
OF the Grays. On the slab is cut the
famous inscription by Gray himself in
memory of his aunt, Mary Antrobus, and
his mother, Dorothy Gray, ''the tender.
careful mother of many children, one Of
whom alone had the misfortune to SUR
vive her." In this most humble tomb
Gray lies. He was buried here on the 9Th
own request in his will made at Cam !
bridge, but no mark upon the stone which |
covers bis dust ever served to denote his |
resting place. Again the friendly hand |
of a Penn is seen in the tablet opposite in |
the old church wall, recording the fact of |
Gray's burial here. John Penn set this |
tablet here eighteen years after Gray's |
burial; and ii was the first record made |
in stone that Thomas Gray had lived and |
and sung in England.
The old south porch is one of few re-
naming curious examples along with |
that at Grasmere Church where Words |
worth is buried-ofthe very ancient stone |
porches attached to country churches, |
IN olden times they were the gathering |
places OF villagers. With the room form
erly over them called the Parrise the |
whole, with the stone side seats and Pi- |
selma, formed a tiny chapel, in which |
rustic marriages were solemnized. Illus |
bands at Chirche-door have | had five.'' |
says Chaucer's Wife Of Bath; and as this |
church and porch are fully 600 years old |
many such cerenonials have doubtless |
been witnessed here. You will hnger |
long within it, for it not only coniures |
oden wraiths of this ill, but you are sit !
ting in the very shade OF that ''yew tree' !
commemorated in the "Elegy." Its |