Dr. Johnson's Dictionary does not insert the word "droning" or "drony;" but among his Illustrations attached to the verb "to drone," there are two from Dryden, each, it may be seen, using the word "droning." There is no quotation containing the word "drony." Gray's language is:
"Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds."
Johnson's second quotation from Dryden may be worth repeating, as showing that Gray's language is not wholly different from his predecessor's:—
"Melfoil and honeysuckles pound,
With these alluring savours strew the ground,
And mix with tinkling brass the cymbal's droning sound."
It is perhaps hardly worth noticing, that there is not uniformity even in the title. Johnson calls it, Elegy in the Church-yard; Dodsley (1753) styles it, Elegy written in a Country Church-yard.
A HERMIT AT HAMPSTEAD.
Gray's Elegy (Vol. ii., p. 264.).—The HERMIT OF HOLYPORT is referred to the 4to. edit. of the Works of Gray, by Thos. Jas. Mathias, in which, vol. i. at the end of the Elegy, in print, he will find "From the original in the handwriting of Thos. Gray: