MISCELLANIES.
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.
W.L.M.
[The latter emendation "would he rove," which is neither in the Aldine edition of the Rev. J. Mitford, nor in Mr. Van Voorst's beautifully illustrated Polyglot edition, should clearly be introduced, in future, as harmonising more perfectly with the "would he stretch" of the preceding stanza.]
Gray's Elegy.—To the list of German translations of Gray's Elegy should be added the version by Kosegarten, which is said by Mr. Thimm, in his View of German Literature, to be "very spirited." The edition of Kosegarten i have now before me was printed at Greifswald, in 12 vols. in 1824, and contains numerous translations from English poets.
J.M.
Oxford, Jan. 16.
Gregori's Italian Version of "Gray's Elegy."—In answer to the query of "J.F.M.," respecting the translations of Gray's Elegy, I beg to mention that, besides those already possessed by your correspondent, and those in Torri's polyglot edition, there is one in Italian by Domenico Gregori, published in the first volume of his Scelta di Poesie di più celebri Autori Inglesi, recati in Versi Italiani, and printed at Rome in 1821, in 2 vols. small 8vo.
M.
Oxford, Jan. 17. 1850.
Name of Shylock.—When Mr. Knight says that Scialac was "the name of a Marionite (Maronite?) of mount Libanus," he appears to consider the term peculiar, or nearly so, to that personage; but Upton, as long ago as 1748, in his Critical Observations, 2nd ed. p. 299., remarked, that Scialac was the generic name, and Shylock merely a corruption. I may also remark, that Mr. Knight dismisses Dr. Farmer's theory as worthless, without sufficient consideration. It by no means follows that 1607 is the date of the first edition of Caleb Shillocke, merely because Boswell saw a copy bearing that date.
J.O. HALLIWELL.