Yesterday I had the misfortune of receiving a letter from certain gentlemen (as their bookseller expresses it), who have taken the 'Magazine of Magazines' into their hands. ''As you have brought me into a little sort of distress, you must assist me, I believe, to get out of it as well as I can. He thereupon wrote next day to Walpole, as follows: - ''Cambridge, Feb. On the 10th of February, 1751, Gray received a letter from the editors of the ''Magazine of Magazines,'' asking permission to publish it. to Horace Walpole, who circulated it among his friends. In the winter of 1749, after the death of his aunt, Mary Antrobus, Gray resumed it at Cambridge, and finished it at Stoke early in June, 1750 and on the 12th of that month he sent a copy of it in MS. "The ''Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard'' was begun at Stoke-Poges in 1742, probably about the time of the death of Gray's uncle, Jonathan Rogers, who died there on the 21st of October. with an introduction and notes by William Lyon Phelps. 66 and 96 of the latter book." Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Thomas Gray. Gosse curiously contradicts himself on pp. The facts as to its publication, etc., may be found in Gosse's edition of Gray's Works, and in Gosse's Life of Gray, although Mr. Edition followed edition in rapid succession it was translated into living and dead languages and - a sure evidence of popularity - it was repeatedly parodied. The Elegy leaped immediately into enormous popularity. He therefore had it published (anonymously) on February 16, 1751, by the great London publisher, Dodsley. An editor of the Magazine of Magazines, a cheap periodical, sent word to Gray that he was about to print it, and naturally the author did not care to have a poem of this nature make its entrance into the world by so obscure a by-path. After June, 1750, it was circulated in manuscript among his firends, and only an accident hastened its publication. Gray was in no more haste to publish the poem than he had apparently been to complete it. For interesting conjectures as to causes that inspired the poem, see Gosse, Life of Gray, pp. It is not probable that Gray was steadily working at it all these years, even if he did begin it in 1742. At any rate, 1742 is the traditional date we know that it was finished at Stoke Poges, in June, 1750 (see p. At least I am sure that I had the twelve or more first lines from himself above three years after that period, and it was long before he finished it.'' Mason evidently made some satisfactory reply, for two weeks later, 14 December 1773 ( Letters, VI, 31), Walpole writes: ''Your account of the 'Elegy' puts an end to my other criticism.'' Then Mason in 1775 made the statement just quoted above. The 'Churchyard' was, I am persuaded, posterior to West's death at least three or four years, as you will see by my note. Writing to Mason, 1 December 1773 ( Letters, VI, 22), Walpole says, speaking of the forthcoming Memoirs of Gray: ''There are. Mason seems to have had evidence for the 1742 date sufficient to satisfy Walpole, though what that evidence was we do not know. Later editors state positively that it was begun in 1742 (Mitford, Gosse, Bradshaw, Rolfe, etc.). xi, we find: ''It is highly probable that the Elegy in a Country Church-yard was begun also about this time'' (August, 1742). But this is all the genuine evidence I have been able to discover. 157, we find: ''I am inclined to believe that the Elegy in a Country Church-yard was begun, if not concluded, at this time also'' (August, 1742). "Although nearly all the editors state that as a fact that the Elegy was begun in 1742, there seems to be no actual basis for this statement. "" The Works of Thomas Gray: In Prose and Verse.
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