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24 INTEODUCTORY ESSAY.

the still night, on his way to Ms heroic death, re-
peating in low tones to his brother officers the Elegy,
the tender pathos of which seemed to his heart an
achievement more glorious than victory, is a picture
for all time; as often as it recurs to the memory, we
find it hard to call that a prosaic age, which produced
this most striking of all authentic testimonies to the
power of song. This is the soldier's tribute to the
poet; and what is the companion picture? Why,
briefly this; and if the contrast is a little shocking,
let us blame, not the unconscious Gray, gossiping with
a light heart, not knowing what would be expected of
him, but rather the last development of the higher
criticism:

" [Pitt's] second speech was a studied and puerile
. declamation on funeral honours (on proposing a
monument for Wolfe). In the course of it he wiped
his eyes with one handkerchief, and Beckford (who
seconded him) cried too, and wiped with two hand-
kerchiefs at once, which was very moving."

It was thus that Gray talked of ' Chatham's elo-
quence' in connection with 'Wolfe's great name.'
This is the Walpolean not the Wordsworthian spirit,
and what alchemy can convert the one into the other?
In this Gray is, as already said, the true child of his
epoch, and offers not a trace that he belonged, of
spiritual right, to earlier or later days. A wise sentence
of Mr Lowell's should be written in large letters, to



	24 INTEODUCTORY ESSAY. the still night, on his way to Ms heroic death, re- peating in low tones to his brother officers the Elegy, the tender pathos of which seemed to his heart an achievement more glorious than victory, is a picture for all time; as often as it recurs to the memory, we find it hard to call that a prosaic age, which produced this most striking of all authentic testimonies to the power of song. This is the soldier's tribute to the poet; and what is the companion picture? Why, briefly this; and if the contrast is a little shocking, let us blame, not the unconscious Gray, gossiping with a light heart, not knowing what would be expected of him, but rather the last development of the higher criticism: " [Pitt's] second speech was a studied and puerile . declamation on funeral honours (on proposing a monument for Wolfe). In the course of it he wiped his eyes with one handkerchief, and Beckford (who seconded him) cried too, and wiped with two hand- kerchiefs at once, which was very moving." It was thus that Gray talked of ' Chatham's elo- quence' in connection with 'Wolfe's great name.' This is the Walpolean not the Wordsworthian spirit, and what alchemy can convert the one into the other? In this Gray is, as already said, the true child of his epoch, and offers not a trace that he belonged, of spiritual right, to earlier or later days. A wise sentence of Mr Lowell's should be written in large letters, to