A. S., Anglo-Saxon. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. Arc., Milton's Arcades. C. T., Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Cf. (confer), compare. D. V., Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Ep., Epistle, Epode. Foll., following. F. Q., Spenser's Faërie Queene. Gosse, Mr. Edmund Gosse's Works of Thomas Gray (London, 1884). H., Haven's Rhetoric (Harper's edition). Hales, Longer English Poems, edited by Rev. J. W. Hales (London, 1872). Samson Agonistes. Shakes. Gr., Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar (the reterences are to sections, not pages). Shep. Kal., Spenser's Shepherd's Kalendar. st., stanza. Wb., Webster's Dictionary (last revised quarto eaition). Worc., Worcester's Dictionary (quarto edition). Other abbreviations (names of books in the Bible, plays of Shakespeare, works of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace, etc.) need no explanation. NOTES. Day, ver the Lea, The Curfene rolls the Knell of parting & to Barkness weary Way. No farther seek his Merits to disclose. Or draw his Frailties from their dread Abode, (There they alike in trembling Ho ope repose) The Bovor of his Father, & his god. ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. This poem was begun in the year 1742, but was not finished until 1750, when Gray sent it to Walpole with a letter (dated June 12, 1750) in which he says: "I have been here at Stoke a few days (where I shall continue good part of the summer), and having put an end to a thing, whose beginning you have seen long ago, I immediately send it you. You will, I hope, look upon it in the light of a thing with an end to it: a merit that most of my writings have wanted, and are like to want." It was shown in manuscript to some of the author's friends, and was published in 1751 only because it was about to be printed surreptitiously. February 11, 1751, Gray wrote to Walpole that the proprietors of "the Magazine of Magazines" were about to publish his Elegy, and added, “I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character; he must correct the press himself, and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; and the title must be― Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard.' If he would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better." Walpole did as requested, and wrote an advertisement to the effect that accident alone brought the poem before the public, although an apology was unnecessary to any but the author. On which Gray wrote, "I thank you for your advertisement, which saves my honour." Dodsley's proof-reading must have been somewhat careless, for there are many errors of the press in this editio princeps. Gray writes to Walpole, under date of "Ash-Wednesday, Cambridge, 1751," as follows: "Nurse Dodsley has given it a pinch or two in the cradle, that (I doubt) it will bear the marks of as long as it lives. But no matter: we have ourselves suffered under her hands before now; and besides, it will only look the more careless and by accident as it were." Again, March 3, 1751, he writes: "I do not expect any more editions; as I have appeared in more magazines than one. The chief errata were sacred for secret; hidden for kindred (in spite of dukes and classics); and 'frowning as in scorn' for smiling. I humbly propose, for the benefit of Mr. Dodsley and his matrons, that take awake [in line 92, which at first read "awake and faithful to her wonted fires "] for a verb, that they should read asleep, and all will be right." A writer in Notes and Queries, June 12, 1875, states that the poem first appeared in the London Magazine, March, 1751, p. 134, and that “the Magazine of Magazines" is "a gentle term of scorn used by Gray to indicate that periodical, and not the name of any actual magazine. But in the next number of Notes and Queries (June 19, 1875) Mr. F. Locker informs us that he has in his possession a title-page of the Grand Magazine of Magazines, and the page of the number for April, 1751, which contains the Elegy. The magazine is said to be "collected and digested by Roger Woodville, Esq.," and "published by Cooper at the Globe, in Pater Noster Row." The facts are, that the poem was first published by Dodsley on the 16th of February, 1751 (Gosse, vol. i. p. 72); that it appeared in the Magazine of Magazines for February, issued at the end of that month, according to the custom of the time;* that it was next printed in the London Magazine for March; and again in the Grand Magazine of Magazines for April. In the Magazine of Magazines, the poem is introduced as follows (Chambers's Book of Days, vol. ii. p. 146): "Some imaginary literary wag is made to rise in a convivial assembly, and thus announce it: 'Gentlemen, give me leave to soothe my own melancholy, and amuse you in a most noble manner, with a full copy of verses by the very ingenious Mr. Gray, of Peterhouse, Cambridge. They are stanzas written in a country churchyard.' Then follow the verses.' Ignorance or oversight of this custom has led the editors, with the single exception of Gosse, to assume that the appearance of the poem in the February number of the magazine must have been earlier than Dodsley's publication of it on the 16th of February. But we find the latter chronicled in the "monthly catalogue" of new books in the February number of the London Magazine thus: "An Elegy wrote in a Church-yard, pr. 6d. Dodsley." In the March number of the same magazine we find a summary of current news down to Sunday, March 31. Gray says nothing in his letters of the appearance of the Elegy in the London Magazine. The full title of that periodical was "The London Magazine: or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer." The editor's name was not given; the publisher was R. Baldwin, jun. at the Rose in PaterNoster Row." The volume for 1751 was the 20th, and the Preface (written at the close of the year) begins thus: "As the two most formidable Enemies we have ever had, are now extinct, we have great Reason to conclude, that it is only the Merit, and real Usefulness of our COLLEC TION, that hath supported its Sale and Reputation for Twenty Years." A foot-note informs us that the "Enemies" are the "Magazine of Magazines and Grand Magazine of Magazines." The author's name is not given with the Elegy as printed in the London Magazine. The poem is sandwiched between an "Epilogue to Alfred, a Masque" and some coarse rhymes entitled "Strip-Me-Naked, or Royal Gin for ever." There is not even a printer's "rule" or "dash" to separate the title of the latter from the last line of the Elegy. The poem is more correctly printed than in Dodsley's authorized edition; though, queerly enough, it has "winds" in the second line and the parenthesis (all he had)" in the Epitaph. The only other misprints worth noting are, "Their harrow oft," "Or wake to extasy the living lyre," and 'shapeless culture deck'd."* 66 66 The authorized though anonymous edition was thus briefly noticed by The Monthly Review, the critical Rhadamanthus of the day: "An Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 4to. Dodsley's. Seven pages.-The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity." "Soon after its publication," says Mason, "I remember, sitting with Mr. Gray in his College apartment, he expressed to me his surprise at the rapidity of its sale. I replied: Sunt lacrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.' He paused awhile, and taking his pen, wrote the line on a printed copy of it lying on his table. This,' said he, shall be its future motto.'Pity,' cried I, 'that Dr. Young's Night Thoughts have preoccupied it.' 'So,' replied he, 'indeed it is."" Gray himself tells the story of its success on the margin of the manuscript copy of the Elegy preserved at Cambridge among his papers, and reproduced in fac-simile in Mathias's elegant edition of the poet. The following is a careful transcript of the memorandum : "publish'd in Feb: ". 1751. | by Dodsley: & | went thro' four | Editions; in two months; and af- terwards a fifth, | 6th 7th & 8th 9th & 10th & 11th printed also in 1753, | with Mr Bentley's | Designs, of wch there is a 2d Edition | & again by Dodsley | in his Miscellany, | Vol: 4th & in a Scotch Collection call'd the Union. | translated into | Latin by Chr: Anstey | Esq, & the Revd Mr | Roberts, & publish'd | in 1762; & again in the same year | by Rob: Lloyd, M: A:" *We have not been able to find the Magazine of Magazines or the Grand Magazine of Magazines in the libraries, and know nothing about either "of our own knowledge.' The London Magazine is in the Harvard College Library, and the statements concerning that we can personally vouch for. |