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churchyard. Next to the author's personal approach to his subject in the opening stanzas, it is probably this picture, drawn not without touches akin to humor, of the poet as he might have appeared to the chance observer, which is remembered most distinctly by the average reader. 95. chance perchance.

97. swain: see note on The Deserted Village, 1. 2.

101. The first draught of the poem had this stanza as follows:

Him have we seen the greenwood side along,
While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done,
Oft as the woodlark pip'd her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun.

"Hard on

105. Hard by: an idiomatic use of hard. So Tennyson's the river," Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 75. Cf. also close by, fast by. 111. Another: i.e. morning.

115. read the ability to read was not so common in the eighteenth century that it could be taken for granted. —lay: is this word wholly appropriate as referring to an epitaph?

116. Here was originally inserted the following stanza, which Gray afterward cut out because he thought it too long a parenthesis in this place:

There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen are show'rs of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.

The epitaph that follows applies in spirit, though not literally perhaps, to the poet himself, in his assumed character as writer of the elegy. In any case the poet seems to have been thinking of himself in

these lines.

119. Science: knowledge, learning. — frowned not: i.e. smiled.

In a letter to G. E. Woodberry, Wendell Phillips Garrison (Letters and Memorials of Wendell Phillips Garrison, pp. 78-79) discusses the meaning of lines 119 and 120 of the Elegy as follows: "What bothers me in the verse in question is the conjunction, since, in your view, Melancholy's marking of Gray would have to be a sort of kindness. Higginson and, I think, most readers, take the opposite view. The youth labored under three disabilities: (1) humble origin, (2) whatever Science did by not frowning, (3) having a melancholy turn of mind. All belong in one category, else I feel the need of a disjunctive but."

APPENDIX

CHARACTER OF THE POOR PARSON

FROM

CHAUCER'S PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES

A good man was ther of religioun,

And was a povre PERSOUN of a toun;

But riche he was of holy thoght and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche;
His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benygne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversitee ful pacient;

And swich he was y-preved ofte sithes.
Ful looth were hym to cursen for his tithes,
But rather wolde he yeven, out of doute,
Unto his povre parisshens aboute

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Of his offryng, and eek of his substaunce.
He coude in litel thyng han suffisaunce.

Wyd was his parisshe, and houses fer asonder,
But he ne lafte nat, for reyn ne thonder,
In siknes nor in meschief to visite

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The ferreste in his parisshe, moche and lite,
Upon his feet, and in his hand a staf.
This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf,

That first he wroghte, and afterward he taughte;
Out of the gospel he tho wordes caughte;
And this figure he added eek therto,

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That if gold ruste, what shal yren do?

For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,
No wonder is a lewed man to ruste;
And shame it is, if a preest take keep,

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A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep.
Wel oghte a preest ensample for to yive,
By his clennesse, how that his sheep shold live.
He sette nat his benefice to hyre,

And leet his sheep encombred in the myre,
And ran to London, unto seynte Poules,
To seken hym a chaunterie for soules,
Or with a bretherhed to been withholde;
But dwelte at hoom, and kepte wel his folde,
So that the wolf ne made it nat myscarie;
He was a shepherde and no mercenarie.
And though he holy were, and vertuous,
He was to synful man nat despitous,
Ne of his speche daungerous ne digne,
But in his techyng discreet and benygne.
To drawen folk to heven by fairnesse

By good ensample, this was his bisynesse :
But it were any persone obstynat,
What so he were, of heigh or low estat,

Hym wolde he snybben sharply for the nonys.
A bettre preest, I trowe that nowher non is.
He wayted after no pompe and reverence,
Ne maked him a spiced conscience,
But Cristes lore, and his apostles' twelve,
He taughte, but first he folwed it hymselve.

THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON

FROM

DRYDEN'S TALES FROM CHAUCER

A parish priest was of the pilgrim train;
An awful, reverend, and religious man,
His eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.

Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor; (As God had clothed his own ambassador ;)

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For such, on earth, his bless'd Redeemer bore.

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Of sixty years he seem'd; and well might last
To sixty more, but that he lived too fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense;
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere.
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see:
But sweet regards; and pleasing sanctity:
Mild was his accent, and his action free.
With eloquence innate his tongue was arm'd;

Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charm'd.
For letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky;

And oft, with holy hymns, he charm'd their ears:
(A music more melodious than the spheres:)
For David left him, when he went to rest,

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His lyre; and after him he sung the best.

He bore his great commission in his look:

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But sweetly temper'd awe; and soften'd all he spoke.

He preach'd the joys of heaven, and pains of hell;
And warn'd the sinner with becoming zeal;
But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

He taught the gospel rather than the law;

And forced himself to drive; but loved to draw,

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For fear but freezes minds; though love, like heat,
Exhales the soul sublime, to seek her native seat.

To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard;
Wrapp'd in his crimes, against the storm prepared;
But, when the milder beams of mercy play,
He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away.
Lightning and thunder (heaven's artillery)
As harbingers before the Almighty fly:
Those but proclaim his style, and disappear;
The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there.

The tithes, his parish freely paid, he took;
But never sued, or cursed with bell and book.
With patience bearing wrong; but offering none;

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