The 15th stanza reads thus:
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Some village Cato, who, with dauntless breast,The little tyrant of his fields withstood;Some mute inglorious Tully here may rest,Some Cæsar guiltless of his country's blood."[4] [Footnote 4: The _Saturday Review_ for June 19, 1875, has a longarticle on the change made by Gray in this stanza, entitled, "ALesson from Gray's Elegy," from which we cull the followingparagraphs: "Gray, having first of all put down the names of three Romans asillustrations of his meaning, afterwards deliberately struck them outand put the names of three Englishmen instead. This is a sign of achange in the taste of the age, a change with which Gray himself hada good deal to do. The deliberate wiping out of the names of Cato,Tully, and Cæsar, to put in the names of Hampden, Milton, andCromwell, seems to us so obviously a change for the better that thereseems to be no room for any doubt about it. It is by no means certainthat Gray's own contemporaries would have thought the matter equallyclear. We suspect that to many people in his day it must have seemeda daring novelty to draw illustrations from English history,especially from parts of English history which, it must beremembered, were then a great deal more recent than they are now. Tobe sure, in choosing English illustrations, a poet of Gray's time wasin rather a hard strait. If he chose illustrations from the centuryor two before his own time, he could only choose names which hadhardly got free from the strife of recent politics. If, in a poem ofthe nature of the Elegy, he had drawn illustrations from earliertimes of English history, he would have found but few people in hisday likely to understand him.... "The change which Gray made in this well-known stanza is not only animprovement in a particular poem, it is a sign of a generalimprovement in taste. He wrote first according to the vicious tasteof an earlier time, and he then changed it according to his ownbetter taste. And of that better taste he was undoubtedly a prophetto others. Gray's poetry must have done a great deal to open men'seyes to the fact that they were Englishmen, and that on them, asEnglishmen, English things had a higher claim than Roman, and that tothem English examples ought to be more speaking than Roman ones. Butthere is another side of the case not to be forgotten. Those whowould have regretted the change from Cato, Tully, and Cæsar toHampden, Milton, and Cromwell, those who perhaps really did thinkthat the bringing in of Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell was adegradation of what they would have called the Muse, were certainlynot those who had the truest knowledge of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar. The'classic' taste from which Gray helped to deliver us was a tastewhich hardly deserves to be called a taste. Pardonable perhaps in thefirst heat of the Renaissance, when 'classic' studies and objects hadthe charm of novelty, it had become by his day a mere sillyfashion."] In 18th stanza, "Or _crown_ the shrine," etc. After this stanza, the MS. has the following four stanzas, nowomitted: "The thoughtless world to Majesty may bow,Exalt the brave, and idolize success;But more to innocence their safety oweThan Pow'r, or Genius, e'er conspir'd to bless. "And thou who, mindful of the unhonour'd Dead,Dost in these notes their artless tale relate,By night and lonely contemplation ledTo wander in the gloomy walks of fate: "Hark! how the sacred Calm, that breathes around,Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;In still small accents whisp'ring from the groundA grateful earnest of eternal peace. "No more, with reason and thyself at strife,Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;But through the cool sequester'd vale of lifePursue the silent tenor of thy doom."[5] [Footnote 5: We follow Mason (ed. 1778) in the text of these stanzas.The _North American Review_ has "Power _and_ Genius" in the first,and "_linger_ in the _lonely_ walks" in the second.] The second of these stanzas has been remodelled and used as the 24thof the present version. Mason thought that there was a patheticmelancholy in all four which claimed preservation. The third heconsidered equal to any in the whole _Elegy_. The poem was originallyintended to end here, the introduction of "the hoary-headed swain"being a happy after-thought. In the 19th stanza, the MS. has "never _learn'd_ to stray." In the 21st stanza, "fame and _epitaph_," etc. In the 23d stanza, the last line reads, "And buried ashes glow with social fires." "Social" subsequently became "wonted," and other changes were made(see p. 74, foot-note) before the line took its present form. The 24th stanza reads, "If chance that e'er some pensive Spirit more,By sympathetic musings here delay'd,With vain, though kind inquiry shall exploreThy once-lov'd haunt, this long-deserted shade."[6] [Footnote 6: Mitford (Eton ed.) gives "sympathizing" in the secondline, and for the last, "Thy ever loved haunt--this long deserted shade." The latter is obviously wrong (Gray was incapable of such metre), andthe former is probably wrong also.] The last line of the 25th stanza reads, "On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn." Then comes the following stanza, afterwards omitted: "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."[7] Mason remarked: "I rather wonder that he rejected this stanza, as itnot only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms uspeculiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the accountof his whole day; whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we haveonly his morning walk, and his noontide repose." [Footnote 7: Here also we follow Mason; the _North American Review_reads "our _labours_ done."] The first line of the 27th stanza reads, "With gestures quaint, now smiling as in scorn." After the 29th stanza, and before the Epitaph, the MS. contains thefollowing omitted stanza: "There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,By hands unseen are frequent violets found;The robin loves to build and warble there,And little footsteps lightly print the ground." This--with two or three verbal changes only[8]--was inserted in allthe editions up to 1753, when it was dropped. The omission was notmade from any objection to the stanza in itself, but simply becauseit was too long a parenthesis in this place; on the principle whichhe states in a letter to Dr. Beattie: "As to description, I havealways thought that it made the most graceful ornament of poetry, butnever ought to make the subject." The part was sacrificed for thegood of the whole. Mason very justly remarked that "the lines,however, are in themselves exquisitely fine, and demandpreservation." [Footnote 8: See next page. The writer in the _North American Review_is our only authority for the stanza as given above. He appears tohave had the photographic reproduction of the Wrightson MS., but wecannot vouch for the accuracy of his transcripts from it.] The first line of the 31st stanza has "and his _heart_ sincere."
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