Select Poems of Thomas Gray, Thomas Gray [reading list TXT] 📗

must have seemed at such a moment fraught with mournful meaning. At the close of the recitation Wolfe added, 'Now, gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec.'"

Hales, in his Introduction to the poem, remarks: "The Elegy is perhaps the most widely known poem in our language. The reason of this extensive popularity is perhaps to be sought in the fact that it expresses in an exquisite manner feelings and thoughts that are universal. In the current of ideas in the Elegy there is perhaps nothing that is rare, or exceptional, or out of the common way. The musings are of the most rational and obvious character possible; it is difficult to conceive of any one musing under similar circumstances who should not muse so; but they are not the less deep and moving on this account. The mystery of life does not become clearer, or less solemn and awful, for any amount of contemplation. Such inevitable, such everlasting questions as rise on the mind when one lingers in the precincts of Death can never lose their freshness, never cease to fascinate and to move. It is with such questions, that would have been commonplace long ages since if they could ever be so, that the Elegy deals. It deals with them in no lofty philosophical manner, but in a simple, humble, unpretentious way, always with the truest and the broadest humanity. The poet's thoughts turn to the poor; he forgets the fine tombs inside the church, and thinks only of the 'mouldering heaps' in the churchyard. Hence the problem that especially suggests itself is the potential greatness, when they lived, of the 'rude forefathers' that now lie at his feet. He does not, and cannot solve it, though he finds considerations to mitigate the sadness it must inspire; but he expresses it in all its awfulness in the most effective language and with the deepest feeling; and his expression of it has become a living part of our language."

The writer in the North American Review (vol. 96) from whom we have elsewhere quoted says of the Elegy: "It is upon this that Gray's fame as a poet must chiefly rest. By this he will be known forever alike to the lettered and the unlettered. Many, in future ages, who may never have heard of his classic Odes, his various learning, or his sparkling letters, will revere him only as the author of the Elegy. For this he will be enshrined through all time in the hearts of the myriads who shall speak our English tongue. For this his name will be held in glad remembrance in the far-off summer isles of the Pacific, and amidst the waste of polar snows. If he had written nothing else, his place as a leading poet in our language would still be assured. Many have asserted, with Johnson, that he was a mere mechanical poet—one who brought from without, but never found within; that the gift of inspiration was not native to him; that his imagination was borrowed finery, his fancy tinsel, and his invention the world's well-worn jewels; that whatever in his verse was poetic was not new, and what was new was not poetic; that he was only an unworldly dyspeptic, living amid many books, and laboriously delving for a lifetime between musty covers, picking out now and then another's gems and bits of ore, and fashioning them into ill-compacted mosaics, which he wrongly called his own. To all this the Elegy is a sufficient answer. It is not old—it is not bookish; it is new and human. Books could not make its maker: he was born of the divine breath alone. Consider all the commentators, the scholiasts, the interpreters, the annotators, and other like book-worms, from Aristarchus down to Döderlein; and may it not be said that, among them all, 'Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum?'

"Gray wrote but little, yet he wrote that little well. He might have done far more for us; the same is true of most men, even of the greatest. The possibilities of a life are always in advance of its performance. But we cannot say that his life was a wasted one. Even this little Elegy alone should go for much. For, suppose that he had never written this, but instead had done much else in other ways, according to his powers: that he had written many learned treatises; that he had, with keen criticism, expounded and reconstructed Greek classics; that he had, perchance, sat upon the woolsack, and laid rich offerings at the feet of blind Justice;—taking the years together, would it have been, on the whole, better for him or for us? Would he have added so much to the sum of human happiness? He might thus have made himself a power for a time, to be dethroned by some new usurper in the realm of knowledge; now he is a power and a joy forever to countless thousands."

Two manuscripts of the Elegy, in Gray's handwriting, still exist. Both were bequeathed by the poet, together with his library, letters, and many miscellaneous papers, to his friends the Rev. William Mason and the Rev. James Browne, as joint literary executors. Mason bequeathed the entire trust to Mr. Stonhewer. The latter, in making his will, divided the legacy into two parts. The larger share went to the Master and Fellows of Pembroke Hall. Among the papers, which are still in the possession of the College, was found a copy of the Elegy. An excellent fac-simile of this manuscript appears in Mathias's edition of Gray, published in 1814. In referring to it hereafter we shall designate it as the "Pembroke" MS.

The remaining portion of Gray's literary bequest, including the other manuscript of the Elegy, was left by Mr. Stonhewer to his friend, Mr. Bright. In 1845 Mr. Bright's sons sold the collection at auction. The MS. of the Elegy was bought by Mr. Granville John Penn, of Stoke Park, for one hundred pounds—the highest sum that had ever been known to be paid for a single sheet of paper. In 1854 this manuscript came again into the market, and was knocked down to Mr. Robert Charles Wrightson,