_Gray's Elegy_.--In reply to the Query of your correspondent "J.F.M."
(No. 7. p. 101.), as well as in allusion to remarks made by others
among your readers in the following numbers on the subject of Gray's
_Elegy_, I beg to state that, in addition to the versions in foreign
languages of this fine composition therein enumerated, there is one
printed among the poem, original and translated, by C.A. Wheelwright,
B.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, published by Longman & Co. 1811.
(2d. edition, 1812.) If I mistake not, the three beautiful stanzas,
given by Mason in his notes to Gray, viz. those beginning,--
"The thoughtless world to majesty may bow,"
"Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around,"
"Him have we seen," &c.
(the last of which is so remarkable for its Doric simplicity, as well
as being essential to mark the concluding period of the contemplative
man's day) have not been admitted into any edition of the _Elegy_.
With the regard to the last stanza of the epitaph, its meaning is
certainly involved in some degree of obscurity, though it is, I think,
hardly to be charged with irreverence, according to the opinion of
your correspondent "S.W." (No. 10. p. 150.). By the words _trembling
hope_, there can be no doubt, that Petrarch's similar expression,
_paventosa speme_, quoted in Mason's note, was embodied by the English
poet. In the omitted version, mentioned in the beginning of this
notice, the epitaph is rendered into Alcaics. The concluding stanza is
as follows:--
"Utra sepulti ne meritis fane,
Et parce culpas, invide, proloqui,
Spe nunc et incerto timore
Numinis in gremio quiescunt."