ABSTRACT
‘Very early youth’, unless intentionally misleading, must indicate 15–16 years of age, possibly April-May 1808. An Eton friend recalled of S. that ‘Another of his favourite rambles was Stoke Park, and the picturesque churchyard, where Gray is said to have written his Elegy, of which he was very fond’, and that ‘his speculations were then… of the world beyond the grave’ (Hogg i 43). Lines 1 and 7 suggest late spring; see also note on lines 3–4 below. Apart from its debts to Gray’s Elegy the content is guesswork, but perhaps concerns S.’s cousin 5Harriet Grove, whom he had first met probably at Easter 1805 and whose response may not have suited his boyish ardour before her presumed visit to Field Place in August 1808, after which they corresponded. See F. L. Jones’s Introduction to the Diary of Harriet G., SC i 475–506, and K. N. Cameron’s commentary on ‘To St Irvyne’, Esd Nbk 305–9.
