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,1 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."

 

CONTENTS

 

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."

Gray 

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