"The change which Gray made in this well-known stanza is not only an improvement in a particular poem, it is a sign of a general improvement in taste. He wrote first according to the vicious taste of an earlier time, and he then changed it according to his own better taste. And of that better taste he was undoubtedly a prophet to others. Gray's poetry must have done a great deal to open men's eyes to the fact that they were Englishmen, and that on them, as Englishmen, English things had a higher claim than Roman, and that to them English examples ought to be more speaking than Roman ones. But there is another side of the case not to be forgotten. Those who would have regretted the change from Cato, Tully, and Cæsar to Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell, those who perhaps really did think that the bringing in of Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell was a degradation of what they would have called the Muse, were certainly not those who had the truest knowledge of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar. The 'classic' taste from which Gray helped to deliver us was a taste which hardly deserves to be called a taste. Pardonable perhaps in the first heat of the Renaissance, when 'classic' studies and objects had the charm of novelty, it had become by his day a mere silly fashion."] In 18th stanza, "Or _crown_ the shrine," etc. After this stanza, the MS. has the following four stanzas, now omitted: "The thoughtless world to Majesty may bow, Exalt the brave, and idolize success; But more to innocence their safety owe Than 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 led To 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 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."[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 24th of the present version. Mason thought that there was a pathetic melancholy in all four which claimed preservation. The third he considered equal to any in the whole _Elegy_. The poem was originally intended 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."