To reach Milton, however, we have run off of the track badly. His Eden
is no station on the Great Western. We shall balance this southward
divergence with a corresponding one to the north from Slough, the last
station ere reaching Windsor. We may give a go-by for the moment to
the halls of kings, do homage to him who treated them similarly, and
point, in preference, to where,

in many a mouldering heap,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

They show Gray's tomb in Stoke Pogis church, and his house, West End
Cottage, half a mile distant. The ingredients of his _Elegy_--actually
the greatest, but in his judgment among the least, of his few
works--exist all around. "The rugged elm," "the ivy-mantled tower,"
and "the yew tree's shade," the most specific among the simple
"properties" of his little spectacle, are common to so many places
that there are several competitors for the honor of having furnished
them. The cocks, ploughmen, herds and owls cannot, of course, at this
late day be identified. Gray could not have done it himself. He
drew from general memory, in his closet, and not bit by bit on
his thumb-nail from chance-met objects as he went along. Had
his conception and rendering of the theme been due to the direct
impression upon his mind of its several aspects and constituents,
he would have more thoroughly appreciated his work. He could not
understand its popularity, any more than Campbell could that of _Ye
Mariners of England_, which he pronounced "d----d drum-and-trumpet
verses." Gray used to say, "with a good deal of acrimony," that the
_Elegy_ "owed its popularity entirely to the subject, and the public
would have received it as well had it been written entirely in prose."
Had it been written in prose or in the inventory style of poetry, it