"Social" subsequently became "wonted," and other changes were made (see p. 74, foot-note) before the line took its present form. The 24th stanza reads, "If chance that e'er some pensive Spirit more, By sympathetic musings here delay'd, With vain, though kind inquiry shall explore Thy once-lov'd haunt, this long-deserted shade."[6] [Footnote 6: Mitford (Eton ed.) gives "sympathizing" in the second line, and for the last, "Thy ever loved haunt--this long deserted shade." The latter is obviously wrong (Gray was incapable of such metre), and the former is probably wrong also.] The last line of the 25th stanza reads, "On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn." Then comes the following stanza, afterwards omitted: "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."[7] Mason remarked: "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 completes the account of his whole day; whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we have only his morning walk, and his noontide repose." [Footnote 7: Here also we follow Mason; the _North American Review_ reads "our _labours_ done."] The first line of the 27th stanza reads, "With gestures quaint, now smiling as in scorn." After the 29th stanza, and before the Epitaph, the MS. contains the following omitted stanza: "There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are frequent violets found; The robin loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground." This--with two or three verbal changes only[8]--was inserted in all the editions up to 1753, when it was dropped. The omission was not made from any objection to the stanza in itself, but simply because it was too long a parenthesis in this place; on the principle which he states in a letter to Dr. Beattie: "As to description, I have always thought that it made the most graceful ornament of poetry, but never ought to make the subject." The part was sacrificed for the good of the whole. Mason very justly remarked that "the lines, however, are in themselves exquisitely fine, and demand preservation." [Footnote 8: See next page. The writer in the _North American Review_ is our only authority for the stanza as given above. He appears to have had the photographic reproduction of the Wrightson MS., but we cannot vouch for the accuracy of his transcripts from it.] The first line of the 31st stanza has "and his _heart_ sincere." The 32d and last stanza is as follows: "No farther seek his merits to disclose, Nor seek to draw them from their dread abode-- (His frailties there in trembling hope repose); The bosom of his Father and his God."[9]