e forty pounds for two short poems and a letter from the
illustrious poet on the death of his father.

The truthfulness of the pictures presented to the imagination in the
Elegy could not be denied, for there, on the very spot where, beyond
all question, it was composed, and after a lapse of nearly one hundred
years, the images which impressed the mind of the inspired poet came
fresh at every turn. It is true the curfew did not toll, but the
"lowing herd" were as distinctly audible as the beetle wheeling his
droning flight. The yew tree's shade--that identical tree, to which,
to a moral certainty, the poet had reference--is represented in the
cut, in the corner of the inclosure, as distinctly as the smallness of
the scale admitted, underneath its shade the "turf lies in many a
mouldering heap," and the "rugged elms" are outside the inclosure, but
their outstretched arms overspread many a "narrow cell and frail
memorial," where the "rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," and
where also "their name and years are spelt by th' unlettered muse." A
singular error in spelling _the name_ of one of those humble persons,
was however committed by the poet himself in his "Long Story," very
pardonable in him, however, as the party was then alive; but that the
error should have been perpetuated in ALL EDITIONS save one, down to
that entitled "The Eton," being printed there, and edited by a
reverend clergyman resident in the college, is somewhat singular;
moreover the _second_ edition of the Eton Gray appeared this very
year, and the error remains, although the name is correctly given on
the grave-stone. The excepted edition, in which alone it is correctly
given, was published in 1821, and edited by the present writer for his
friend Mr. John Sharpe. The circumstance will be noticed presently.

The Elegy of Gray was evidently written under the influence of strong
feeling, and vivid impressions of the beautiful in the scenery around
him, and when his sensitive mind was overspread with melancholy, in
consequence of the death of his young, amiable and accomplished friend
West, to whom, in June, 1742, he addressed his lovely Ode to Spring,
which was written at Stoke; but before it reached his friend he was
numbered with the dead! So true was the friendship subsisting between
them, that the poet of Stoke was overpowered with a melancholy which,
although subdued, lasted during a great part of his life.

The scenes amid which the Elegy was