[Footnote 1: Harper's edition, vol. i. p. 314 foll.]
It is at Stoke-Pogis that we seek the most attractive vestiges of
Gray. Here he used to spend his vacations, not only when a youth at
Eton, but during the whole of his future life, while his mother and
his aunts lived. Here it was that his _Ode on a Distant Prospect of
Eton College_, his celebrated _Elegy written in a Country
Churchyard_, and his _Long Story_ were not only written, but were
mingled with the circumstances and all the tenderest feelings of his
own life.
His mother and aunts lived at an old-fashioned house in a very
retired spot at Stoke, called West-End. This house stood in a hollow,
much screened by trees. A small stream ran through the garden, and it
is said that Gray used to employ himself when here much in this
garden, and that many of the trees still remaining are of his
planting. On one side of the house extended an upland field, which
was planted round so as to give a charming retired walk; and at the
summit of the field was raised an artificial mound, and upon it was
built a sort of arcade or summer-house, which gave full prospect of
Windsor and Eton. Here Gray used to delight to sit; here he was
accustomed to read and write much; and it is just the place to
inspire the _Ode on Eton College_, which lay in the midst of its fine
landscape, beautifully in view. The old house inhabited by Gray and
his mother has just been pulled down, and replaced by an Elizabethan
mansion by the present proprietor, Mr. Penn, of Stoke Park, just
by.[2] The garden, of course, has shared in the change, and now
stands gay with its fountain and its modern greenhouse, and,
excepting for some fine trees, no longer reminds you of Gray. The
woodland walk still remains round the adjoining field, and the
summer-house on its summit, though now much cracked by time, and only
held together by iron cramps. The trees are now so lofty that they
completely obstruct the view, and shut out both Eton and Windsor.
[Footnote 2: This was written (or published, at least) in 1846; but
Mitford, in the Life of Gray prefixed to the "Eton edition" of his
Poems, published in 1847, says: "The house, which is now called
_West-End_, lies in a secluded part of the parish, on the road to
Fulmer. It has lately been much enlarged and adorned by its present
proprietor [Mr. Penn], but the room called 'Gray's' (distinguished by
a small balcony) is still preserved; and a shady walk round an
adjoining meadow, with a summer-house on the rising land, are still
remembered as favourite places frequented by the poet."--_Ed_.]
* * * * * *
Stoke Park is about a couple of miles from Slough. The country is
flat, but its monotony is broken up by the noble character and
disposition of its woods. Near the house is a fine expanse of water,
across which the eye falls on fine views, particularly to the south,
of Windsor Castle, Cooper's Hill, and the Forest Woods. About three
hundred yards from the north front of the house stands a column,
sixty-eight feet high, bearing on the top a colossal statue of Sir
Edward Coke, by Rosa. The woods of the park shut out the view of
West-End House, Gray's occasional residence, but the space is open
from the mansion across the park, so as to take in the view both of
the church and of a monument erected by the late Mr. Penn to Gray.
Alighting from the carriage at a lodge, we enter the park just at the
monument. This is composed of fine freestone, and consists of a large
sarcophagus, supported on a square pedestal, with inscriptions on
each side. Three of them are selected from the _Ode on Eton College_
and the _Elegy_. They are:
Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.
The second is from the _Ode_:
Ye distant spires! ye antique towers!
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields belov'd in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow.
The third is again from the _Elegy_:
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
The fourth bears this inscription:
This Monument, in honour of
THOMAS GRAY,
Was erected A.D. 1799,
Among the scenery
Celebrated by that great Lyric and Elegiac Poet.
He died in 1771,
And lies unnoted in the adjoining Church-yard,
Under the Tomb-stone on which he piously
And pathetically recorded the interment
Of his Aunt and lamented Mother.
This monument is in a neatly kept garden-like enclosure, with a
winding walk approaching from the shade of the neighbouring trees. To
the right, across the park, at some little distance, backed by fine
trees, stands the rural little church and churchyard where Gray wrote
his _Elegy_, and where he lies. As you walk on to this, the mansion
closes the distant view between the woods with fine effect. The
church has often been engraved, and is therefore tolerably familiar
to the general reader. It consists of two barn-like structures, with
tall roofs, set side by side, and the tower and finely tapered spire
rising above them at the northwest corner. The church is thickly hung
with ivy, where
"The moping owl may to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign."
The structure is as simple and old-fashioned, both without and
within, as any village church can well be. No village, however, is to
be seen. Stoke consists chiefly of scattered houses, and this is now
in the midst of the park. In the churchyard,
"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
All this is quite literal; and the tomb of the poet himself, near the
southeast window, completes the impression of the scene. It is a
plain brick altar tomb, covered with a blue slate slab, and, besides
his own ashes, contains those of his mother and aunt. On the slab are
inscribed the following lines by Gray himself: "In the vault beneath
are deposited, in hope of a joyful resurrection, the remains of _Mary
Antrobus_. She died unmarried, Nov. 5, 1749, aged sixty-six. In the
same pious confidence, beside her friend and sister, here sleep the
remains of _Dorothy Gray_, widow; the careful, tender mother of many
children, ONE of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her. She
died, March 11, 1753, aged LXXII."
No testimony of the interment of Gray in the same tomb was inscribed
anywhere till Mr. Penn, in 1799, erected the monument already
mentioned, and placed a small slab in the wall, under the window,
opposite to the tomb itself, recording the fact of Gray's burial
there. The whole scene is well worthy of a summer day's stroll,
especially for such as, pent in the metropolis, know how to enjoy the
quiet freshness of the country and the associations of poetry and the
past.
[Illustration: GRAY'S MONUMENT, STOKE PARK.]