(Vol. ii., pp. 264. 301.)
I only recur to the subject of Gray's Elegy to remark, that although your
correspondents, A HERMIT AT HAMPSTEAD, and W.S., have given me a good deal
of information, for which I thank them, they have not answered either of my
Queries.
I never doubted as to the true reading of the third line of the second
stanza of Gray's Elegy, but merely remarked that in one place the
penultimate word was printed _drony_, and other authorities _droning_. With
reference to this point, what I wanted to know was merely, whether, in any
good annotated edition of the poem, it had been stated that when Dodsley
printed it in his _Collection of Poems_, 1755, vol. iv., the epithet
applied to flight was _drony_, and not _droning_? I dare say the point has
not escaped notice; but if it have, the fact is just worth observation.
Next, any doubt is not at all cleared up respecting the date of publication
of Dodsley's Collection. The Rev. J. Mitford, in his Aldine edition of
Gray, says (p. xxxiii.) that the first three volumes came out in 1752,
whereas my copy of "the _second edition_" bears the date of 1748. Is that
the true date, or do editions vary? If the second edition came out in 1748,
what was the date of the first edition? I only put this last question
because, as most people are aware, some poems of note originally appeared
in Dodsley's _Collection of Poems_, and it is material to ascertain the
real year when they first came from the press.