y made, and the consequence was that
many visits to Stoke afterward took place, and the whole of the
interesting scenery carefully sketched. He kindly pointed out all that
was most worthy of attention about the estate and neighborhood, and
made tender of his company to visit West-End, and show the house which
Gray, and his mother and aunt had for many years occupied. The
proprietor he said was Captain Salter, in whose family it had remained
for a great many generations. Latterly the house has been purchased,
enlarged, and put into complete repair by Mr. Granville John Penn, the
present proprietor, nephew of John Penn, Esq., who died in June, 1834.
After "a hasty" breakfast at Stoke Green, the church-yard was again
visited, and there was not a grave-stone in it which was not examined
and read. The error formerly alluded to was immediately detected. The
passages in the Long Story, describing the mock trial at the "Great
House," before Lady Cobham, may be worth transcribing.

Fame, in the shape of Mr. Purt,[3]
(By this time all the parish know it,)
Had told that thereabouts there lurked
A wicked imp they call a poet:
Who prowled the country far and near,
Bewitched the children of the peasants,
Dried up the cows and lamed the deer,
And sucked the eggs and killed the pheasants.

* * * * *

The court was sat, the culprit there,
Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping,
The Lady Janes and Joans repair,
And from the gallery stand peeping:
Such in the silence of the night
Come (sweep) along some winding entry,
(Styack has often seen the sight,)
Or at the chapel-door stand sentry:
In peaked hoods and mantles tarnished
Sour visages enough to scare ye,
High dames of honor once who garnished
The drawing-room of fierce Queen Mary.

* * * * *

The bard with many an artful fib
Had in imagination fenced him,
Disproved the arguments of Squib
And all that Groom could urge against him.

[Footnote 3: In all editions but that published by Mr. John Sharpe the
initial _only_ of this name has been given--"Mr. P."--even the Eton
edition of this year has it so. It seems folly to continue what may
have been very proper nearly a hundred years ago, when the individual
was alive; but the Rev. Robert Purt died in April, 1752!]

Finding on the stone alluded to, that