By permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College, the
manuscript preserved in the library of Eton College is also
reproduced. This manuscript once belonged to Gray's friend,
biographer, and editor, William Mason. In spite of its dimness, due to
creases in the paper and to the fact that the ink shows through from
the other side of the paper, this manuscript is chosen for
reproduction because it preserves the quatrains discarded before
printing the poem, and has other interesting variants in text. Two
other MSS of the poem in Gray's hand are known to exist. One is
preserved in the British Museum (Egerton 2400, ff. 45-6) and the other
is the copy made by Gray in Volume II of his Commonplace Books. This,
is appropriately preserved in the library of Pembroke College,
Cambridge. Sir William Fraser bequeathed to Eton College the MS there
found, which in certain editions of the poem is called "the Fraser
manuscript."




AN

ELEGY

WROTE IN A

Country Church Yard.



_LONDON:_