i 4 THE MUSIC OF WILD FLOWERS 



or the following lines which, in the same poem, reveal 

 the poet's longing for the flowers of spring : 



" Dip down upon the northern shore, 

 O sweet new-year delaying long ; 

 Thou dost expectant nature wrong ; 

 Delaying long, delay no more. 



Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 



The little speedwell's darling blue, 



Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew, 

 Laburnums, dropping wells of fire." 



But it is probably unknown to most readers of the 

 famous Elegy in a Country Churchyard that the favourite 

 study of the poet Gray, during the last ten years of 

 his life, was the study of natural history. After the 

 manner of Gilbert White, who, unknown to the poet, 

 was making similar observations at Selborne, Gray kept 

 a calendar in which he noted the opening of flowers and 

 the arrival of birds. Thus on I2th February 1763 

 crocuses and hepatica were blossoming through the 

 snow in the garden of Pembroke College, Cambridge ; 

 on 2ist February the first white butterfly appeared ; 

 on 5th March he heard the thrush sing and a few days 

 later the skylark. In botany he took a special interest. 

 He studied the subject in Hudson's Flora Anglica and 

 in the Sy sterna Nature of Linnaeus. A copy of this 

 latter work, the tenth edition, published in 1758, Gray 

 had interleaved, and this volume, with voluminous 

 notes and beautifully illustrated with pen-and-ink 

 sketches, eventually came into the possession of Mr 

 Ruskin. On Ruskin's death this copy passed to Mrs 

 Arthur Severn, who presented it to Charles Eliot 



