The record-union., 1892-10-19
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright, 1921


whose manner, ways and character bore
most striking resemblance to that poet
VINO wrote the most perfect elegy in the
English tongue, Thomas Gray.
He was a little, dainty man with sill
vered hair and a rounded paunch-his
most striking physical Characteristic if
his fine, pensiye blue eyes were not BEAM
ing upon you. His clothing was faultless.
His manners were courtly. His very
pensiveness was benignant and restiul.
He seemed to exhale an aroma of musk
and mignonette, and, as l used to look at
him for an eighteenth century remain
der, the grOtesque notion always came
that his melancholy sighs of pleasure or
disapproval, as he fed upon the musty
tones before him, could they be given
physical aspect, would conform to the
pearly lavender of his ample stock and
spotless trousers.
By and by l missed him. His little
paunch had gone riot and overcome his
stomach with gout or something, and the
dainty and learned little old bookworm
had turned from The tones of the Astor
and Mercantile to the endless tome of
Eternity. | was sure that here was an
other Gray. Yes he had been, l found,
supported in academy, college, university
and in travel by the thrift and trade Of
two women who blindly believed that i'll
time he would astonish the world with
the product of his genius. Like Gray he
never earned a penny; his unconscious
Wlnsomeness conquered all; his learning
was vast, and his Incidence was aStound-
ing. He had spent a lifetime in exhaust
ing the historic, scientific and philosophic
researches and product OF others. He left
tons of beginnings of great endeavors. II
IEa hnH into
ment, as was Gray at Stoke Poges, he
might have given the world an idyl or an
elegy, and then the likeness would have
been complete.
The very accident of rural retiracy COM
PEELED or induced Thomas Gray to create
the one bit of verse which gave him
place among the immort2ls. From l727,
at the age of 10, when his mother placed
him in Eton, and where. tradition has it,
he at once began to versify, until he eX-
pired of inertia and gout IN the arms of
Or. James Brown, Master Of picturesque
old Pembroke College, Cambridge, on
the 30th Of uly, l77l, period OF A years,
he was as continuously in an atmosphere
of books as any man who ever lived.
For his day and time he was the most
variously and penetratingly learned man
in Europe.
He was practically mad for and from
book knowledge. His devotion to re-
S6dTGu SGBulbQ an GHQlGSS luOO&1cdLlOn OF
requirement for the thing or fact encom-
passed, rather than that healthful acqui-
sitiOn of knowledge Tor the uses to which
IL may be wisely put.
Precisely as with thousands of so-called
scholars in our own time, he allowed
study and learning getting to become q
disease instead OF making 1t Su bSerVient
to wise living and noble accomplishment.
You could fill a score of volumes with his
erudite notes, his wonderful inGiceS, his
exact and beautiful commentaries upon
the works of others less learned and con-
sequently more creative minds, frag-
ments OF stately tragedies, dissertations
upon art and painting, Alcaic fragments,
Latin Lines" Greek epigrams, Pindaric
Odes, brilliant dead age "ImitationS' and
finished whatnots. But you could not
make one thin little volume of one hun
dred pages comfortably filed with what
Thomas Gray's great genius left to pos
terity for its own monument. The
thirty-tyyo stanzas of the "Elegy," the
brief Morse poem called ''The Fatal Sis
ters, "The Bard, F" "On a Distant Pros
pect of Eton College, and, perhaps, a
half-dozen sonnets, altogether not 1000
lines, comprise all that would have ever
interested the world at large, which,
after all, is the final arbiter OF either true
poetry or prose, except for Gray's Iowa
bic, interesting, erratic and often curious
personality.
1t is, no doubt, also true that had he not
written the 'Elegy'' his place in the BIZ
Ographies would have been no more than
"Thonlas Gray, erudite annotator, ac-
complished translator and sometime COM
panion of Horace Walpole." Because his
surprising genius, through the blessed
incident of rural inspiration, for once
burst the fetters of sodden bookish en-
slavement and its consequent physical in
dolence, he attained fame and left us our
81 aIr&T -
tions and introSpectlOnS to the universal
human heart. The malignancy of John
SOD is quite forgiven for the one honest
sentence he ever wrote about Gray:
Had Gray written often thus" said the
cantankerous master of words, sit had
been vain to blame and useless to praise
him."
For these and other reasons the one
place in all the world, Stoke Poges, which
prompted single Incompatible example
of what Gray might have been to litera-
ture had he been shut away from the
deadening influence of Cambridge books,
and perhaps compelled to earn his own
living, becomes doubly interesting. Be-
sides, the poet resided here for frequent
intervals from 1742 TO 1853. His grave is
here. A stupendous monument stands
almost within sight Of his cid home. The
very church in which he worshiped and
the churchyard rendered dear to the
UGdIlS Ol All men ny Ills IncLOQlOUS.
mournful elegy, remain to-day just as he
saw and knew them IN life. The place,
too, has some historic Importance, and the
manor of Stoke Park was once the home
of the descendants of William Penn.
many of whom are buried in the family
vault in the nave OF the old messy
church.
But better than all else, you will find
the place a marvellous revelation OF the
elegy, as you have already felt the elegy
TO be perfect Interpretation of those eX-
ouisite emotions which only the rarest
scene and associative condition can inn
part. Our New World affections cling
very tenderiy to certain Old World
shrines. They fold about them a fiimy
plamor ofloying idealty and cradle them
in the soft and misty cOrrieS OF the heart
i can recall but few which are not better
for the distant, sightless lullaby, and this
is one.
Stoke PogeS is a thinly-settled village,
ora rathichly-settleds sylvan parish OF Buck
inphalnshire, not over twenty-five miles
west of London. and about two miles
north of the railway station OF Slough,
which is in turn the same distance north
ofWindsor and Castle. 1t derives its un-
poetic name from Anicia de Stoke, who
brought the manor in marriage to a GER
tainIRobert Pogeis, knight of the shire,
in the twelfth century. In the time of
Edward III. the estate passed into the
possession of Sir John MOlyns. lie had
q license from the King to fortity and en-
battle a mansion here, and il was he who
built the picturesque old church made ia
NOUS by Gray's elegy. The manor de-
scended through female heirs to the great
Earls of Huntington, one of whom rebuilt
the manor house early in the reign of
Elizabeth. Then Sir Edward Coke pos
sessed it, and sumptuously entertained
Elizabeth here. Remains OF this splendid