Stoke Pogis. 91 



time immemorial. Formerly the king's swanherd made 

 an annual expedition up the river to mark them. He 

 and his assistants chased the poor frightened birds in 

 boats, caught them roughly with long hooks, with little 

 deference to their beautiful plumage, and marked them 

 by cutting one or more nicks in the upper mandible of 

 their beaks. This expedition, called swan-upping (cor- 

 rupted into swan-hopping), is still made by the deputies 

 of the Dyers' and Vintners' companies, now the principal 

 swan owners on the Thames, the mark of the former 

 being one nick and of the latter two nicks on the bill. 



Stoke Pogis is a few miles out of our direct road, but 

 who would miss that, even were the detour double 

 what the ordnance survey makes it ? Besides, had not 

 a dear friend, a stay-at-home, told us that one of the 

 happiest days of her life was that spent in making a 

 pilgrimage to the shrine of the poet from this very 

 Windsor? Gray's was the first shrine at which we 

 stopped to worship, and the beauty, the stillness, the 

 peace of that low, quaint, ivy-covered church, and its 

 old-fashioned graveyard, sank into our hearts. Surely 

 no one could revive memories more sweetly English 

 than he who gave us the Elegy. Some lines, and even 

 verses of that gem, will endure, it may safely be pre- 

 dicted, as long as anything English does, and that is 

 saying much. We found just such a churchyard as 

 seemed suited to the ode. Gray is fortunate in his 

 resting-place. Earth has no prettier, calmer spot to 



