_Gray and Burns._--
"Authors, before they write, should read."
So thought Matthew Prior; and if that rule had been attended to, neither
would Lord Byron have deemed it worth notice that "_the knell of parting
day_," in Gray's Elegy, "was adopted from Dante;" nor would Mr. Cary have
remarked upon "this plagiarism," if indeed _he_ used the term. (I refer to
"NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. iii., p. 35.) The truth is, that in every good
edition of Gray's _Works_, there is a note to the line in question, _by the
poet himself_, expressly stating that the passage is "_an imitation of the
quotation from Dante_" thus brought forward.
I could furnish you with various _notes_ on Gray, pointing out remarkable
coincidences of sentiment and expression between himself and other writers;
but I cannot allow _Gray_ to be a plagiary, any more than I can allow
_Burns_ to be so designated, in the following instances:--