Rertfic of Review, lJlo/0 



Leading Articles. 



393 



THE SCENE OF GRAY'S "ELEGY." 



In the Home Counties Magazine for Jul}, Mr. 

 Howard Hensmaii has an article on Gray and Stoke 

 Poges. He notes how the old churchyard still re- 

 tains every feature recorded in "The Elegy,"' and 

 marvels that as a literary shrine the place is visited 

 so little. More jx-ople visit the Gray Memorial, 

 which stands in a meadow, than the tomb of the 

 poet in the churchyard, indeed most of the people 

 who see the memorial from the road wonder why 

 Gray was buried in a field ! 



At Pembroke College, Cambridge, Gray lived the 

 life of a recluse with his books and his harpsichord, 

 but his vacations were spent with his mother nd 

 her two sisters at West End, a tiny hamlet a mile 

 distant from the church at Stoke Poges. The poet 

 often turned his footsteps to the old church, and 

 one summer evening as he was walking homewards 

 . the idea of the Elegy came into his mind. He 

 ^returned to the churchyard, and stood for some 

 time lost in thought. When he reached the cottage 

 the poem was committed to paper. 



The cottage is gone, but the w-riter says the little 

 hamlet is one of the most picturesque in the Home 

 Counties. Stoke Poges Church has many features 

 of interest. A remnant of the old manor-house, in 

 the Elizabethan style, stands in the grounds of Stoke 

 Park. Here Lord Chief Justice Coke entertained 

 Queen Elizabeth " sumptuously and befittingly," 

 and here Charles I. was imprisoned for a short time 

 in 1647. In connection with an excursion to Burn- 

 ham Beeches, Stoke Poges can easily be visited from 

 Sliiugh. 



The Peat Bog as a Fuel Mine. 



The new peat fuel is described by Frederick A. 

 Talbot in the World's Work and Play. It promises 

 to be a .serious rival of coal. The peat is dug up 

 out of the bog by the steam excavator, is cut, 

 kneaded, and the water squeezed out. An electric 

 current is then passed through the peat, which re- 

 leases certain chemical agents and converts the 

 peat into a hard substance closely allied to coai. 

 The peat pa.sCe, before stiffening, is put through the 

 moulding machine, which will turn out some 6000 

 briquettes per hour. In calorific value this electro 

 peat fuel is said to be equal to the Scotch and 

 American coal, though slightly inferior to the Welsh 

 steam coal. It gives off no smoke, it yie'.ds but 

 little ash, burns brightly and with intense heat. It 

 is denser fuel than coal, it is clean to handle, does 

 not crumble, and can be transported without serious 

 loss. The cost of the virgin peat is not more than 

 3s. a ton, and the cost of manufacture 2s. per ton. 

 The average price of coal is 7s. }>er ton at the pit's 

 mouth. For purposes of lighting-gas generation : — 



In this respect it has been fountl to rank with the best 

 coal, with the difference that it is much cheaper. 1000 cubic 

 feet of peat na.s costing 7il.. witli equal if not superior 

 calories, tliereby allowing a saving of from sixty-five to 



seventy-five per cent, in cost per 1000 feet as compareil with 

 coal gas. The residue coke, also, is in great demand for 

 industrial purposes. It is also being adapted for producer 

 gas. now being so widely used for power purposes, and in 

 this instance it is anticipated that the peat will prove a 

 formidable rival to the other materials at present em- 

 ployed. From a domestic point of view the fuel apiiears 

 to offer many advantages. 



It is free from the pungent odour of burning peat. 



IBSEN: AN APPRECIATION. 



By Mr. W. D. Howells. 

 In the North American Revinv for Ju.y, Mr. W. D. 

 Howells publishes his estimate of Ibsen. He main- 

 tains that 



The great and dreadful delight ■ of Ibsen is from his 

 power of dispersing the conventional acceptations by 

 which men live on easy terms with them-selves, and oblig- 

 ing them to examine the grounds of their social and moral 

 opinions. . , , e t- 



To my experience he is a dramatist ol such perteclion, 

 he is a poet of such absolute simplicity and veracity, that 

 vfhen I read him or see him I feel nothing wantins in the 

 aesthetic scheme- , . , t * 



As to the ethical effect of the plays which I permit. 

 myself, in the company of tlieir author, to like best;. 1 

 have my doubts whether it is 30 directly and explicitly 

 his intention as some of the highest critical intelligences 

 have imagined. , , ■ c 



His sole business is to make us feel that the basis ol 

 society, as we now have it. is hypocrisy, though an hypo- 

 crisy now grown almost involuntary and helpless, and it 

 is riot his business to do this by precept, but hy example. 



It is always lijsen's meaning. Do not be a hypocrite, 

 do not be a liar, do not be a humbug: but be very care- 

 ful how and when you are sincere and true and single, 

 lest being virtuous out of time you play the fool and 

 work destruction. 



This is what he is always saying, but this is not the 

 effect to which he is always working. It is his prime 

 business and his main business to show things as they 

 are. so that you shall not only be edified, but also stirred 

 and charmed in such sort as you never were before, and 

 in the measure that you are capable of emotion. With 

 Hawthorne he says. "Be true, be true, lie true!'— but he 

 adds. "Be true in time, be true from the beginning; for 

 later vou shall be true in vain, and your very truth shall 

 become part of that great lie. that world-hypocrisy, in 

 which civilisation lives and moves and has its being." 



Ibsen does not wish to teach so mucli as he wishes to 

 move, to strike with that exalted terror of tragedy which 

 has never hesit.^ted at its means. 



He lived as he has died, "a very imperial anarch, for, 

 more even than agnosticism, the note of this mighty soli- 

 tary, hermited in the midst of men, was anarchism. 

 Solidarities of any sort he would not have. The com- 

 munity was nothing to him. and. if not quite so despicable 

 as the majority, was still a contemptible substitute for 

 the individuality. That was alone precious, and it was 

 like some medicines, in doing good in proportion as it 

 disagreed with the taste of the patient, of the fellow man. 

 Ibsen had really a dread of being acceptable, for in the 

 popular favour he feared the end of his usefulness. 



The Origin of the Sneer. 



In the Open Court Dr. Woods Hutchinson de- 

 scribes, with illustrations, the weajions and tools of 

 the dog. He traces the resemblance in our canine 

 or eve-teeth, and gives this interesting explanation 

 of a common facial contortion : — 



Although we have long ago forgotten that we had ever 

 used our teeth to fight with, yet it yon will stand before 

 the glass and try to look very scornful and angry, yon 

 will e«e vour upper lip curl up just like the dog's when 

 he growl's or snarls. And it curls up precisely at the 

 point where it will show the canine tooth to best advan- 

 tage, so that the " lip of scorn " or the sneer is really a 

 threat of attack, by half drawing your weapon from its 

 slieath. 



Though we never think of biting anyone we dislike noviia- 

 days. yet when we sneer we make a face just as if wo 

 were going to. So hard is it for our muscles to forget old 

 liabits. 



The cynic who sneers apparently deserves his 

 dciggish name. 



