GRAY'S ELEGY.—DRONING.—DODSLEY'S POEMS.
(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.
THE HERMIT OF HOLYPORT.