SELECT POEMS OF THOMAS GRAY
BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE



SELECT POEMS OF THOMAS GRAY.


EDITED, WITH NOTES,
BY
WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M.,
FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.


_WITH ENGRAVINGS_.




_NEW YORK_:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1883.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.




PREFACE.


Many editions of Gray have been published in the last fifty years,
some of them very elegant, and some showing considerable editorial
labor, but not one, so far as I am aware, critically exact either in
text or in notes. No editor since Mathias (A.D. 1814) has given the
2d line of the _Elegy_ as Gray wrote and printed it; while Mathias's
mispunctuation of the 123d line has been copied by his successors,
almost without exception. Other variations from the early editions
are mentioned in the notes.

It is a curious fact that the most accurate edition of Gray's
collected poems is the _editio princeps_ of 1768, printed under his
own supervision. The first edition of the two Pindaric odes, _The
Progress of Poesy_ and _The Bard_ (Strawberry-Hill, 1757), was
printed with equal care, and the proofs were probably read by the
poet. The text of the present edition has been collated, line by
line, with that of these early editions, and in no instance have I
adopted a later reading. All the MS. variations, and the various
readings I have noted in the modern editions, are given in the notes.

Pickering's edition of 1835, edited by Mitford, has been followed
blindly in nearly all the more recent editions, and its many errors
(see pp. 84 and 105, foot-notes) have been faithfully reproduced.
Even its blunders in the "indenting" of the lines in the
corresponding stanzas of the two Pindaric odes, which any careful
proof-reader ought to have corrected, have been copied again and
again--as in the Boston (1853) reprint of Pickering, the pretty
little edition of Bickers & Son (London, n. d.), the fac-simile of
the latter printed at our University Press, Cambridge (1866), etc.

Of former editions of Gray, the only one very fully annotated is
Mitford's (Pickering, 1835), already mentioned. I have drawn freely
from that, correcting many errors, and also from Wakefield's and
Mason's editions, and from Hales's notes (_Longer English Poems_,
London, 1872) on the _Elegy_ and the Pindaric odes. To all this
material many original notes and illustrations have been added.

The facts concerning the first publication of the _Elegy_ are not
given correctly by any of the editors, and even the "experts" of
_Notes and Queries_ have not been able to disentangle the snarl of
conflicting evidence. I am not sure that I have settled the question
myself (see p. 74 and foot-note), but I have at least shown that Gray
is a more credible witness in the case than any of his critics. Their
testimony is obviously inconsistent and inconclusive; he may have
confounded the names of two magazines, but that remains to be
proved.[1]

[Footnote 1: Since writing the above to-day, I have found by the
merest chance in my own library another bit of evidence in the case,
which fully confirms my surmise that the _Elegy_ was printed in _The
Magazine of Magazines_ before it appeared in the _Grand Magazine of
Magazines_. _Chambers's Book of Days_ (vol. ii. p. 146), in an
article on "Gray and his Elegy," says:

"It first saw the light in _The Magazine of Magazines_, February,
1751. Some imaginary literary wag is made to rise in a convivial
assembly, and thus announce it: 'Gentlemen, give me leave to soothe
my own melancholy, and amuse you in a most noble manner, with a full
copy of verses by the very ingenious Mr. Gray, of Peterhouse,
Cambridge. They are stanzas written in a country churchyard.' Then
follow the verses. A few days afterwards, Dodsley's edition
appeared," etc.

The same authority gives the four stanzas omitted after the 18th (see
p. 79) as they appear in the _North American Review_, except that the
first line of the third is "Hark how the sacred calm that _reigns_
around," a reading which I have found nowhere else. The stanza "There
scattered oft," etc. (p. 81), is given as in the review. The reading
on p. 82 must be a later one.]

I have retained most of the "parallel passages" from the poets given
by the editors, and have added others, without regard to the critics
who have sneered at this kind of annotations. Whether Gray borrowed
from the others, or the others from him, matters little; very likely,
in most instances, neither party was consciously the borrower. Gray,
in his own notes, has acknowledged certain debts to other poets, and
probably these were all that he was aware of. Some of these he
contracted unwittingly (see what he says of one of them in a letter
to Walpole, quoted in the note on the _Ode on the Spring_, 31), and
the same may have been true of some apparently similar cases pointed
out by modern editors. To me, however, the chief interest of these
coincidences and resemblances of thought or expression is as studies
in the "comparative anatomy" of poetry. The teacher will find them
useful as pegs to hang questions upon, or texts for oral instruction.
The pupil, or the young reader, who finds out who all these poets
were, when they lived, what they wrote, etc., will have learned no
small amount of English literary history. If he studies the
quotations merely as illustrations of style and expression, or as
examples of the poetic diction of various periods, he will have
learned some lessons in the history and the use of his mother-tongue.

The wood-cuts on pp. 9, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 34, 36, 39, 40, 41, 42,
45, 50, and 61 are from Birket Foster's designs; those on pp. 29, 31,
33, 35, 37, and 38 are from the graceful drawings of "E. V. B." (the
Hon. Mrs. Boyle); the rest are from various sources.

  _Cambridge_, Feb. 29, 1876.




CONTENTS.

                                                     PAGE
THE LIFE OF THOMAS GRAY, BY ROBERT CARRUTHERS . . . .   9

STOKE-POGIS, BY WILLIAM HOWITT  . . . . . . . . . . .  16

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD . . . . . . . .  23

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43

  ON THE SPRING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45

  ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT . . . . . . . . . .  48

  ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE . . . . . . .  50

  THE PROGRESS OF POESY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  55

  THE BARD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  61

  HYMN TO ADVERSITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  68

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  71

  APPENDIX TO NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145




[Illustration: STOKE-POGIS CHURCH.]


THE LIFE OF THOMAS GRAY.

BY ROBERT CARRUTHERS.


Thomas Gray, the author of the celebrated _Elegy written in a Country
Churchyard_, was born in Cornhill, London, December 26, 1716. His
father, Philip Gray, an exchange broker and scrivener, was a wealthy
and nominally respectable citizen, but he treated his family with
brutal severity and neglect, and the poet was altogether indebted for
the advantages of a learned education to the affectionate care and
industry of his mother, whose maiden name was Antrobus, and who, in
conjunction with a maiden sister, kept a millinery shop. A brother of
Mrs. Gray was assistant to the Master of Eton, and was also a fellow
of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Under his protection the poet was
educated at Eton, and from thence went to Peterhouse, attending
college from 1734 to September, 1738. At Eton he had as
contemporaries Richard West, son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland,
and Horace Walpole, son of the triumphant Whig minister, Sir Robert
Walpole. West died early in his 26th year, but his genius and virtues
and his sorrows will forever live in the correspondence of his
friend. In the spring of 1739, Gray was invited by Horace Walpole to
accompany him as travelling companion in a tour through France and
Italy. They made the usual route, and Gray wrote remarks on all he
saw in Florence, Rome, Naples, etc. His observations on arts and
antiquities, and his sketches of foreign manners, evince his
admirable taste, learning, and discrimination. Since Milton, no such
accomplished English traveller had visited those classic shores. In
their journey through Dauphiny, Gray's attention was strongly
arrested by the wild and picturesque site of the Grande Chartreuse,
surrounded by its dense forest of beech and fir, its enormous
precipices, cliffs, and cascades. He visited it a second time on his
return, and in the album of the mountain convent he wrote his famous
Alcaic Ode. At Reggio the travellers quarrelled and parted. Walpole
took the whole blame on himself. He was fond of pleasure and
amusements, "intoxicated by vanity, indulgence, and the insolence of
his situation as a prime minister's son"--his own confession--while
Gray was studious, of a serious disposition, and independent spirit.
The immediate cause of the rupture is said to have been Walpole's
clandestinely opening, reading, and resealing a letter addressed to
Gray, in which he expected to find a confirmation of his suspicions
that Gray had been writing unfavourably of him to some friends in
England. A partial reconciliation was effected about three years
afterwards by the intervention of a lady, and Walpole redeemed his
youthful error by a life-long sincere admiration and respect for his
friend. From Reggio Gray proceeded to Venice, and thence travelled
homewards, attended by a _laquais de voyage_. He arrived in England
in September, 1741, having been absent about two years and a half.
His father died in November, and it was found that the poet's fortune
would not enable him to prosecute the study of the law. He therefore
retired to Cambridge, and fixed his residence at the university.
There he continued for the remainder of his life, with the exception
of about two years spent in London, when the treasures of the British
Museum were thrown open. At Cambridge he had the range of noble
libraries. His happiness consisted in study, and he perused with
critical attention the Greek and Roman poets, philosophers,
historians, and orators. Plato and the Anthologia he read and
annotated with great care, as if for publication. He compiled tables
of Greek chronology, added notes to Linnжus and other naturalists,
wrote geographical disquisitions on Strabo; and, besides being
familiar with French and Italian literature, was a zealous
archжological student, and profoundly versed in architecture, botany,
painting, and music. In all departments of human learning, except
mathematics, he was a master. But it follows that one so studious, so
critical, and so fastidious, could not be a voluminous writer. A few
poems include all the original compositions of Gray--the
quintessence, as it were, of thirty years of ceaseless study and
contemplation, irradiated by bright and fitful gleams of inspiration.
In 1742 Gray composed his _Ode to Spring_, his _Ode on a Distant
Prospect of Eton College_, and his _Ode to Adversity_--productions
which most readers of poetry can repeat from memory. He commenced a
didactic poem, _On the Alliance of Education and Government_, but
wrote only about a hundred lines. Every reader must regret that this
philosophical poem is but a fragment. It is in the style and measure
of Dryden, of whom Gray was an ardent admirer and close student. His
_Elegy written in a Country Churchyard_ was completed and published
in 1751. In the form of a sixpenny _brochure_ it circulated rapidly,
four editions being exhausted the first year. This popularity
surprised the poet. He said sarcastically that it was owing entirely
to the subject, and that the public would have received it as well if
it had been written in prose. The solemn and affecting nature of the
poem, applicable to all ranks and classes, no doubt aided its sale;
it required