ich, if not in Spring Gardens, "may be found in
_Bury Street_. It was used when _Billy_ was ill." From the familiarity
of the word "Billy," he must be speaking of his son. These facts are
certainly corroborative of the old dowager's statement.

M(2).

* * * * *

QUERIES.

GRAY'S ELEGY AND DODSLEY POEMS.

I have here, in the country, few editions of Gray's works by me, and
those not the best; for instance, I have neither of those by the Rev. J.
Mitford (excepting his Aldine edition, in one small volume), which,
perhaps, would render my present Query needless. It relates to a line,
or rather a word in the _Elegy_, which is of some importance. In the
second stanza, as the poem is usually divided (though Mason does not
give it in stanzas, because it was not so originally written), occurs,

"Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight."

And thus the line stands in all the copies (five) I am able at this
moment to consult. But referring to Dodsley's _Collection of Poems_,
vol. iv., where it comes first, the epithet applied to "flight" is not
"droning," but _drony_--

"Save where the beetle wheels his _drony_ flight."

Has anybody observed upon this difference, which surely is worthy of a
Note? I cannot find that the circumstance has been remarked upon, but,
as I said, I am here without the means of consulting the best
authorities. The _Elegy_, I presume, must have been first separately
printed, and from thence transferred to Dodsley's _Collection_; and I
wish to be informed by some person who has the earliest impression, how
the line is there given? I do not know any one to whom I can appeal on
such a point with greater confidence than to MR. PETER CUNNINGHAM, who,
I know, has a large assemblage of the first editions of our most
celebrated poets from the reign of Anne downwards, and is so well able
to make use of them. It would be extraordinary, if _drony_ were the
epithet first adopted by Gray, and subsequently altered by him to
"droning," that no notice should have been taken of the substitution by
any of the poet's editors. I presume, therefore, that it has been
mentioned, and I wish to know where?

Now, a word or two on Dodsley's _Collection of Poems_, in the fourth
volume of which, as I have {265} stated, Gray's-_Elegy_ comes first.
Dodsley's is a popular and well-known work, and yet I cannot find _that
anybody has given the dates connected with it accurately_. If Gra