A vision of Défago, eternally hunted, driven and pursued across the skiey vastness of those ancient forests fled like a flame across the dark ruin of his thoughts ...

In the autumn of this year, Gray, who was peculiarly susceptible to skiey influences, wrote some of his best poetryhis "Hymn to Adversity," his "Distant Prospect of Eton College," and commenced his "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard."

The passage reads as follows in Mr. White's edition: "A breath thou art, Servile to all the skiey influences That dost this habitation where thou keep'st Hourly afflict.

What meadows, bathed in greenest light, and woods Gigantic, towering from the skiey hills, And od'rous trees in prodigal array, With all the elements divinely calm Our fancy pictures on the infant globe!

Among these northern people, the only approach to anything like protection from the skiey influences that I could discover, was a slight rudely thatched covering, placed on four upright poles, between three and four feet high.