[45] "Letter to Nichols," June 24, 1769.
[46] Dryden's "Annus Mirabilis," Davenant's "Gondibert," and Sir John Davies' "Nosce Teipsum" were written in this stanza, but the universal currency of Gray's poem associated it for many years almost exclusively with elegiac poetry. Shenstone's collected poems were not published till 1764, though some of them had been printed in Dodsley's "Miscellanies." Only a few of his elegies are dated in the collected editions (Elegy VIII, 1745; XIX, 1743; XXI, 1746), but Graves says that they were all written before Gray's. The following lines will recall to every reader corresponding passages in Gray's "Churchyard":
"O foolish muses, that with zeal aspire
To deck the cold insensate shrine with bays!
"When the free spirit quits her humble frame
To tread the skies, with radiant garlands crowned;
"Say, will she hear the distant voice of Fame,
Or hearing, fancy sweetness in the sound?"
—Elegy II.
"I saw his bier ignobly cross the plain."
—Elegy III.
"No wild ambition fired their spotless breast."
—Elegy XV.
"Through the dim veil of evening's dusky shade
Near some lone fane or yew's funereal green," etc.
—Elegy IV.
"The glimmering twilight and the doubtful dawn
Shall see your step to these sad scenes return,
Constant as crystal dews impearl the lawn," etc.
—Ibid.
[47] "Life of Akenside."