Query: Who was the author of the above?
F.H.
GRAY'S ELEGY.
J.F.M. (Vol. i., p. 101.) remarks, "I would venture to throw out a hint, that an edition of this Elegy, exhibiting all the known translations, arranged in double columns, might be made a noble monument to the memory of Gray." It has been asserted that there is scarcely a thought in this Elegy that Gray has not borrowed from some writer, ancient or modern and if this be true, I would take the liberty of adding a hint to that of J.F.M., namely, that the proposed edition should contain a third column, exhibiting all the known plagiarisms in this famous Elegy. To begin with the first line—
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day."
Lord Byron, in his notes to the third canto of Don Juan, says that this was adopted from the following passage in Dante's Purgatory, canto viii.:
—— "si ode squilla di lontano
Che paja 'l giorno pianger che si muore."
And it is worthy of notice that this passage corresponds with the first line of Giannini's translation of the Elegy, as quoted by J.F.M.:—