real evidence of work on the poem
before this time. Walpole evidently inclined to 1746 as the date of
commencement, and it may be pointed out that Mason himself is not so
sure of 1742 as have been his Victorian successors. All he says is, "I
am inclined to believe that the Elegy ... was begun, if not concluded,
at this time [1742] also." Gray's reputation for extreme leisurely
composition depends largely on the "inclination" to believe that the
"Elegy" was begun in 1742 and on a later remark by Walpole concerning
Gray's project for a History of Poetry. In a letter of 5 May 1761
Walpole joked to Montagu saying that Gray, "if he rides Pegasus at his
usual foot-pace, will finish the first page two years hence." Not
really so slow as this remark suggests, Gray finally sent his "Elegy"
to Walpole in June of 1750, and in December he sent perhaps an earlier
form of the poem to Dr. Wharton. Naturally delighted with the
perfected utterance of this finely chiseled work, these two friends
passed it about in manuscript, and allowed copies to be taken.

Publication, normally abhorrent to Gray, thus became inevitable,
though apparently not contemplated by Gray himself. The private
success of the poem was greater than he had anticipated, and in
February of 1751 he was horrified to receive a letter from the editor
of a young and undistinguished periodical, "The Magazine of
Magazines," who planned to print forthwith the "ingenious poem,
call'd Reflections in a Country-Churchyard." Gray hastily wrote to
Walpole (11 February), insisting that he should "make Dodsley print it
immediately" from Walpole's copy, without Gray's name, but with good
paper and letter. He prescribed the titlepage as well as other
details, and within four days Dodsley had the poem in print, and
anticipated the piratical "Magazine" by one day. But the "Magazine"
named Gray as the author, and success without anonymity was the fate
of the "Elegy." Edition followed edition, and the poem was almost from
birth an international classic.

One of the author's prescriptions for publication concerned the verse
form. He told Walpole that Dodsley must "print it without any Interval
between the Stanza's, because the Sense is in some Places continued
beyond them." In the Egerton MS Gray had written the poem with no
breaks to set off quatrains, but in the earlier MS (Eton College),
where the poem is entitled, "Stanza's, wrote in a Country
Church-Yard," the quatrains are spaced i