The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard
(1751) and The Eton College Manuscript, by Thomas Gray

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Title: An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript

Author: Thomas Gray

Release Date: March 18, 2005 [EBook #15409]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ELEGY WROTE IN A COUNTRY ***

Produced by David Starner, Diane Monico and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

The Augustan Reprint Society

THOMAS GRAY

_An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard_

(1751)

and

_The Eton College Manuscript_

With an Introduction by

George Sherburn

Publication Number 31

Los Angeles
Williams Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1951

GENERAL EDITORS

H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_

ASSISTANT EDITOR

W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_

ADVISORY EDITORS

EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_
LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
LOUIS A. LANDA, _Princeton University_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_
H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

INTRODUCTION

To some the eighteenth-century definition of proper poetic matter is
unacceptable; but to any who believe that true poetry may (if not
"must") consist in "what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed,"
Gray's "Churchyard" is a majestic achievement--perhaps (accepting the
definition offered) the supreme achievement of its century. Its
success, so the great critic of its day thought, lay in its appeal to
"the common reader"; and though no friend of Gray's other work, Dr.
Johnson went on to commend the "Elegy" as abounding "with im