literally walled off, and quite set apart from the plebeian portion of
the sanctuary, was carpeted, and finished with comfortable arm-chairs,
and in the middle of it was a stove. The occupants could look out and
over at the altar, but the rustics could not look in and at them. The
Squire might have smoked or read novels, or my lady might have worked
worsted or petted her poodle through the service, without much scandal.
The pew monopolized so much room that there was little left for the
remainder of the "miserable offenders," but I suspect that there was
quite enough for all who came to pray. For it was, as I have said,
literally a country church; and those who sleep near it were peasants.

It is difficult to comprehend the whole physiognomy of the poem, if I
may use the expression, without seeing the spot which it commemorates. I
take it for granted that the reader is familiar with it. There are
"those rugged elms," and there is "that yew tree's shade." There are
"the frail memorials," "with uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
decked;" there "the name, the years, spelt by the unlettered muse;" and
the holy texts strewn round "that teach the rustic moralist to die."
There is still "the ivy-mantled tower," tho the "moping owl" that
evening did not "to the moon complain," partly because there was no moon
to complain to, and possibly because there was no moping owl in the
tower. But there was one little circumstance which I may be pardoned for
mentioning. Gray, somehow, has the reputation of being an artificial
poet, yet for one who wrote so little poetry he makes a good many
allusions to childhood and children. As I passed through the Park on my
way to the churchyard, I encountered a group of merry boys and girls
playing about the base of the monument; and I recalled that verse which
Gray wrote for the Elegy, and afterward discarded, under the impression
that it made the parenthesis too long.