Hark! how the sacred Calm, that breathes around,
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;

In still small accents whispering from the ground,
A 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 life
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom.

And here the Poem was originally intended to conclude, before the happy idea of the hoary-headed Swain, &c. suggested itself to him. I cannot help hinting to the reader, that I think the third of these rejected stanzas equal to any in the whole Elegy.

4. Ev'n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires.

L. 92.

IMITATION.

Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco,
Fredda una lingua, & due begli occhi chiusi

Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville.

Petrarch. Son. 169. G.

VARIATION.

Awake and faithful to her wonted fires.

Thus it stood in the first and some following editions, and I think rather better; for the authority of Petrarch does not destroy the appearance of quaintness in the other: the thought, however, is rather obscurely expressed in both readings. He means to say, in plain prose, that we wish to be remembered by our friends after our death, in the same manner as when alive we wished

ل

to be remembered by them in our absence: this would be expressed clearer, if the metaphorical term fires was rejected, and the line ran thus:

Awake and faithful to her first desires.

I do not put this alteration down for the idle vanity of aiming to amend the passage, but purely to explain it.

5. To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

L. 100.

VARIATION.

On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn.

After which, in his first manuscript, followed this stanza:
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.

I rather wonder that he rejected this stanza, as it not only has the same sort of Doric delicacy, which charms us peculiarly in this part of the Poem, but also compleats the account of his whole day: whereas, this Evening scene being omitted, we have only his Morning walk, and his Noon-tide repose.

6. Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.

L. 116.

Between this line and the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted; because he thought (and in my own opinion very justly) that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines however are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation.

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.

7. There they alike in trembling hope repose.

L. 127.

IMITATION.

paventosa speme.

Petrarch. Son. 114. G.

END OF THE NOTES, &c.

MEMOIRS

OF THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

MR. GRAY.