THE BICENTENARY OF THOMAS GRAY.
[TO TH1 EDITOR OF TER " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—There is no need for me to remind you that next December witnesses the bicentenary of that delightful rural genius, Thomas Gray. Learned papers like yours will doubtless have something to say about Gray, his Odes and his Elegy. But why is nothing of a popular and lasting nature done for Thomas Gray? Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth all have buildings dedicated to them; Gray has nothing to show his lyric powers, his Pindaric strength. From Stoke Poges in Bucks emanated several of his Odes, as also his Elegy; why, then, should we not have something to interest and instruct the public at Stoke Poges, to keep alive his personality and make the ordinary man pause and think awhile on England's great classical and rural genius? For twenty years I have tried to help on the author of " The Bard," " Ode to Spring," and all else. Hoping thereby to public interest in Gray, I have just lately sent to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society at the Royal Academy half-a-dozen objects which form part of a big and varied collection which I have got together to do honour to the poet of country ways; the genius of Cornhill, London. Should you go to visit the Arts and Crafts Exhibition, might I ask you to note the few things I have there sent, and see whether you think them at all worthy to go towards the bicentenary commemoration of our great disciple of Erato and Euterpe ? Anyway, please don't forget Gray, Thomas Gray, who has poured out his very soul for the rural ways of dear old England.—I am, Sir, Sze.,
STEPHEN SPRINGALL.
3 Enfield Place, Greenway, Uxbridge.
[That Gray was a great and true patriot is proved by his letters as well as by his poems. Together they form an imperishable monument. All the same, we agree that it would be good to see a physical memorial erected in the churchyard of Stoke Poges. —En. Spectator.]
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