306 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 50. 



of satirists. By the way, it is not a littfe curious, 

 that in George Webster's White Devil, or Vittoria 

 Coromhona, almost the same thought is also 

 clothed in two monosyllabic lines : — 

 " His wealth is summ'd, and this is all his store : 

 This poor men get, and great men get no more." 



Was Young dull ? Listen, for it is indeed a 

 " solemn sound :" — 



" Tlie bell strikes one. We take no note of time 

 Save by its loss ; to give it tlien a tongue 

 Was wise in man." 



Was Milton tame ? Hear the " lost archangel " 

 calling upon Hell to receive its new possessor : — 

 " One who brings 

 A mind not to be chang'd by place or time. 

 The mind is its own place, and in itsi-lf' 

 Can make a heav'n of hell,- — a hell of heav'n. 

 Wliat matter where, if I be still tlie same, 

 And what I should be ; all but less than he 

 AVhcm thunder liath made greater? Here at least 

 We shall be free; the Ahnightij hatli not built 

 Here for his envy ; will not drive us hence : 

 Here we may reign secure ; and in my choice 

 To reign is worth ambition, though in hell ; 

 Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n !" 



A great conjunction of little words ! Are mo- 

 nosyllables passionless ? Listen to the widowed 

 Constance : — 

 " Thou mayst, thou shalt ! I will not go with thee! 



I will instruct my sorrows to be proud ; 



For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout ; 



To me, and to the state of my great grief. 



Let kings assemble ; for my grief's so great, 



That no supporter but the huge firm earth 



Can hold it up : here I and sorrow sit ; 



Here is my throne : bid kings come bow to it." 



Six polysyllables only in eight lines ! 



The ingenuity of Pope's line is great, but the 

 criticism false. We applaud it only because we 

 have never taken the trouble to think about the 

 matter, and take it for granted that all monosyl- 

 labic lines must "creep"' like that which he puts I 

 forward as a specimen. The very frequency of 

 monosyllables in the compositions of our language 

 is one grand cause of that ircquency passing un- 

 commented upon by the general reader. The in- 

 vestigation prompted by the criticism will serve j 

 only to show its unsoundness. K. I. P. B. T 



ON gray's elegy. 

 If required to name the most popular English 

 poem of the last century, I should perhaps fix on 

 the Elegy of Gray. According to JLason, it " ran 

 through eleven editions in a very short space of 

 time.'' If he means separate editions, I can point 

 out six other impressions in the life-time of the 

 poet, besides those in miscellaneous collections, 

 viz. : In Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London, 1753. 



Folio — 1765. Folio — anct in Poems hy Mr. Gray, 

 London, 1768. small 8o. — Glasgow, 1768. 4o. — 

 London. A new edition, 1768. small 8o. A new 

 edition, 1770. small 8o. So much has been said 

 of translations and imitations, that I shall confine 

 myself to the text. 



Of the _^rs^ separate edition I am so fortunate as 

 to possess a copy. It is thus entitled : — 



" An elegy wrote in a country church-yard. London : 

 printed for R. Dodsley in Pall-mall ; and sold by M. 

 Cooper in Pater-noster-row, 1751. Price six-pence. 

 4P six leaves. 



Advertisement. 



" The following poem came into my hands by acci- 

 dent, if the general approbation with which this little 

 piece has been spread, may be c.ili'd by so slight a 

 term as accident. It is this approbation which makes 

 it unnecessary for me to make any apology but to the 

 author : as lie cannot but feel some satisfaction in 

 having pleas'd so many readers already, 1 flatter my- 

 self he will forgive my communicating that pleasure to 

 many more. The Editor." 



The history of this publication is given by Gray 

 himself, in a letter to Walpole, dated in 1731, and 

 needs no repetition ; but I must observe, as a 

 remarkable circumstance, that the poem was re- 

 printed anonymously, in its separate form, as late 

 as 1763. 



I have collated the editions of 1751 and 1770, 

 and find variations in stanzas 1. 3. 5. 9. 10. 12. 23. 

 2-r. and 27. All the amendments, however, were 

 adopted as early as 1753, except the correction of 

 a grammatical peccadillo in the ninth stanza. 



I make this communication in the shape of a 

 note, as it may interest men of the world not less 

 than certain hermits. Bolton Cornet. 



GRAY S ELEGY IN PORTUGUESE. 



In several numbers of the "Notes and Que- 

 ries" mention is made of various translations into 

 foreign languages of Gray's Elegy in a Country 

 Clntrch-yard. P. C. S. S. begs leave to add to the 

 list a very elegant translation into Portuguese, by 

 the Chevalier Antonio de Aracejo (afterwards 

 INlinister of Foreign Affairs at Lisbon and at Rio 

 de Janeiro), to whose friendship he was indebted 

 many years ago for a copy of it. It was privately 

 printed at Lisbon towards the close of the last 

 century, and was subsequently reprinted at Paris 

 in 1802, in a work called Traductions interlineaii-es, 

 en six Langues, by A. M. H. Boulard. 



P. C. S. S. 



further kotes on the authorship or 



SHAKSPEARe's henry VIII. 



The Gentleman's Magazine for the present 

 month contains a letter from Mr. Spedding, the 

 author of the essay which appeared in the August 



