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STOKE CHURCH,

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

THIS Church has become very celebrated since the time of Gray, the poet, of whose beautiful poem, "The Elegy in a Country Churchyard," it is known to be the scene. The Church is a plain, rustic edifice of some antiquity, with a low tower and conical-shaped spire, but has none of those strongly marked features by which it is so admirably characterized in the poem.

Stoke, or Stoke Pogis, is a large scattered village, distant about twenty-one miles from London. In the time of Gray, Stoke Park belonged to lady Cobham, and in 1747 it was the scene of his poem called the "Long Story." The old manor-house and the fantastic manners of queen Elizabeth's time, in whose reign it was erected, are thus humourously described in the opening of this piece.

"In Britain's isle, no matter where,
An ancient pile of building stands;
The Huntingdons and Hattons there
Employ'd the power of fairy hands,
To raise the cielings fretted height;

STOKE CHURCH.

Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.
Full oft within the spacious walls,
When he had fifty winters o'er him,
My grave lord-keeper led the brawls,

The seals and maces danc'd before him:
His bushy beard and shoe-strings green,
His high-crown'd hat and satin doublet,
Mov'd the stout heart of England's queen,

Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it.

there,

Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping,

The lady Janes and Joans repair,

And from the gallery stand peeping,

In peaked hoods and mantles tarnish'd,
Sour visages enough to scare ye,

High dames of honour, once that garnish'd
The drawing-room of fierce queen Mary."

On the site of this old mansion is erected a most magnificent house, by Mr. Penn, the proprietor: it is chiefly built with brick, and covered with stucco.

The burial-place of the poet is without side the Church, just beneath the eastern window. Here his remains lay unhonoured till the year 1799, when Mr. Penn erected a monument to his memory, in a field adjoining the Church. It consists of a large sarcophagus, supported on a square pedestal, with inscriptions on each side.

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