_Gray's Elegy._--Your correspondent, "A. GRAYAN" (No. 10., p. 150.), in
writing on the _Elegy in a Country Church-yard_, suggests the existence
of error or obscurity in the last stanza of the epitaph; and that, if
the reading, as it now stand, be faulty, "some amendment" should be
suggested.
At the sale of Mason's collection of Gray's books and MSS., in December,
1845, I purchased Gray's copy of Dodsley's collection (2nd edition,
1758), with corrections, names of authors, &c., in his own hand. The
_Elegy_ is the first poem in vol. iv. In the 2nd stanza, the beetle's
"_drony_ flight" is printed and corrected in the margin into "droning."
In the 25th stanza, an obvious misprint of "the upland land" is
corrected into "upland lawn;" and, in the 27th stanza, "he would rove"
is altered into "would he rove." These are the only emendations in the
_Elegy_. The care displayed in marking them seems to me indicate that
the author had no others to insert, and that the common reading is as he
finally left it.
To say that a man's merits and frailties repose in trembling hope before
God, is surely not irreverent; and this is, I think, all that Gray
intended to convey in the words to which your correspondent objects.