"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:

"'Save where the beetle wheels his _droning_ flight.'"

From the autograph the Elegy appears to have been written in 1750; and
the margin states, published in Feb. 1751, by Dodsley, and went through
four editions in two months; and afterwards a fifth, sixth, seventh and
eighth, ninth and tenth, and eleventh; printed also in 1753, with Mr.
Bentley's designs, of which there is a second edition; and again by