NOTES.

Other abbreviations (names of books in the Bible, plays of Shakespeare, works of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace, etc.) need no explanation.

This poem was begun in the year 1742, but was not finished until 1750, when Gray sent it to Walpole with a letter (dated June 12, 1750) in which he says: "I have been here at Stoke a few days (where I shall continue good part of the summer), and having put an end to a thing, whose beginning you have seen long ago, I immediately send it you. You will, I hope, look upon it in the light of a thing with an end to it: a merit that most of my writings have wanted, and are like to want." It was shown in manuscript to some of the author's friends, and was published in 1751 only because it was about to be printed surreptitiously.

February 11, 1751, Gray wrote to Walpole that the proprietors of "the Magazine of Magazines" were about to publish hisElegy, and added, "I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character; he must correct the press himself,1and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; and the title must be—'Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard.' If he would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better." Walpole did as requested, and wrote an advertisement to the effect that accident alone brought the poem before the public, although an apology was unnecessary to any but the author. On which Gray wrote, "I thank you for your advertisement, which saves my honour."

1Dodsley's proof-reading must have been somewhat careless, for there are many errors of the press in thiseditio princeps. Gray writes to Walpole, under date of "Ash-Wednesday, Cambridge, 1751," as follows: "Nurse Dodsley has given it a pinch or two in the cradle, that (I doubt) it will bear the marks of as long as it lives. But no matter: we have ourselves suffered under her hands before now; and besides, it will only look the more careless and byaccidentas it were." Again, March 3, 1751, he writes: "I do not expect any more editions; as I have appeared in more magazines than one. The chief errata weresacredforsecret;hiddenforkindred(in spite of dukes and classics); and 'frowningas in scorn' forsmiling. I humbly propose, for the benefit of Mr. Dodsley and his matrons, that takeawake[in line 92, which at first read "awake and faithful to her wonted fires"] for a verb, that they should readasleep, and all will be right." Other errors were, "Theirharrowoft the stubborn glebe," "And read theirdestinyin a nation's eyes," "With uncouth rhymes and shapelessculturedecked," "Slow through the churchwaypass," and many of minor importance.

A writer inNotes and Queries, June 12, 1875, states that the poem first appeared in theLondon Magazine, March, 1751, p. 134, and that "the Magazine of Magazines" is "a gentle term of scorn used by Gray to indicate" that periodical, and not the name of any actual magazine. But in the next number ofNotes and Queries(June 19, 1875) Mr. F. Locker informs us that he has in his possession a title-page of theGrand Magazine of Magazines, and the page of the number for April, 1751, which contains theElegy. The magazine is said to be "collected and digested by Roger Woodville, Esq.," and "published by Cooper at the Globe, in Pater Noster Row."

Gray says nothing in his letters of the appearance of theElegyin theLondon Magazine. The full title of that periodical was "The London Magazine: or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer." The editor's name was not given; the publisher was "R. Baldwin, jun. at the Rose in Pater-Noster Row." The volume for 1751 was the 20th, and the Preface (written at the close of the year) begins thus: "As the two most formidable Enemies we have ever had, are now extinct, we have great Reason to conclude, that it is only the Merit, and real Usefulness of our COLLECTION, that hath supported its Sale and Reputation for Twenty Years." A foot-note informs us that the "Enemies" are the "Magazine of MagazinesandGrand Magazine of Magazines;" from which it would appear that there were two periodicals of similar name published in London in 1751.2

2May not theElegyhave been printed in both of these? We do not know how otherwise to reconcile the conflicting statements concerning the "Magazine of Magazines," as Gray calls it. In the first place, Gray appears (from other portions of his letter to Walpole) to be familiar with this magazine, and would not be likely to confound it with another of similar name. Then, as we have seen, he writesearly in Marchto Walpole that the poem has been printed "in more magazines than one." This cannot refer to theGrand Magazine of Magazines, if, as Mr. Locker states, it was theAprilnumber of that periodical in which the poem appeared. Nor can it refer to theLondon Magazine, as it is clear from internal evidence that the March number, containing theElegy, was not issued until early in April. It contains a summary of current news down to Sunday, March 31, and the price of stocks in the London market for March 30. TheFebruarynumber, in its "monthly catalogue" of new books, records the publication of theElegyby Dodsley thus: "An Elegy wrote in a Church-yard, pr. 6d. Dodsley."

If, then, theElegydid not appear in either theLondon Magazineor theGrand Magazine of Magazinesuntil more than a month (in the case of the latter, perhaps two months) after Dodsley had issued it, in what magazine was it that itdidappear just before he issued it? TheN. A. Reviewsays that "it was a close race between the Magazine and Dodsley; but the former, having a little the start, came out a few days ahead." If so, it must have been theMarchnumber; or theFebruaryone, if it was published, like theLondon, at the end of the month. Gray calls it "the Magazine of Magazines," and we shall take his word for it until we have reason for doubting it. What else was included in his "more magazines than one" we cannot even guess.

We have not been able to find theMagazine of Magazinesor theGrand Magazine of Magazinesin the libraries, and know nothing about either "of our own knowledge." TheLondon Magazineis in the Harvard College Library, and the statements concerning that we can personally vouch for.

The author's name is not given with theElegyas printed in theLondon Magazine. The poem is sandwiched between an "Epilogue toAlfred, a Masque" and some coarse rhymes entitled "Strip-Me-Naked, or Royal Gin for ever." There is not even a printer's "rule" or "dash" to separate the title of the latter from the last line of theElegy. The poem is more correctly printed than in Dodsley's authorized edition; though, queerly enough, it has "winds" in the second line and the parenthesis "(all he had)" in the Epitaph. Of Dodsley's misprints noted above it has only "Theirharrowoft" and "shapelessculture." These four errors, indeed, are the only ones worth noting, except "Orwaketo extasy the living lyre."

The "Magazine of Magazines" (as the writer in theNorth American Reviewtells us) printed theElegywith the author's name. The authorized though anonymous edition was thus briefly noticed byThe Monthly Review, the critical Rhadamanthus of the day: "An Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 4to. Dodsley's. Seven pages.—The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity."

"Soon after its publication," says Mason, "I remember, sitting with Mr. Gray in his College apartment, he expressed to me his surprise at the rapidity of its sale. I replied:

'Sunt lacrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.'

He paused awhile, and taking his pen, wrote the line on a printed copy of it lying on his table. 'This,' said he, 'shall be its future motto.' 'Pity,' cried I, 'that Dr. Young's Night Thoughts have preoccupied it.' 'So,' replied he, 'indeed it is.'" Gray himself tells the story of its success on the margin of the manuscript copy of theElegypreserved at Cambridge among his papers, and reproduced infac-similein Mathias's elegant edition of the poet. The following is a careful transcript of the memorandum:

"publish'd inFeb:ry, 1751.by Dodsley: &went thro' fourEditions; in twomonths; and af-terwards a fifth6th7th& 8th9th& 10th& 11thprinted also in 1753with MrBentley'sDesigns, of wchthere is a 2dEdition& again by Dodsleyin his Miscellany,Vol: 4th& in aScotch Collectioncall'dthe Union.translated intoLatin by Chr: AnsteyEsq, & the RevdMrRoberts, & publish'din 1762; & againin the same yearby Rob: Lloyd, M: A:"

"One peculiar and remarkable tribute to the merit of theElegy," says Professor Henry Reed, "is to be noticed in the great number of translations which have been made of it into various languages, both of ancient and modern Europe. It is the same kind of tribute which has been rendered toRobinson Crusoeand toThe Pilgrim's Progress, and is proof of the same universality of interest, transcending the limits of language and of race. To no poem in the English language has the same kind of homage been paid so abundantly. Of what other poem is there a polyglot edition? Italy and England have competed with their polyglot editions of theElegy:Torri's, bearing the title, 'Elegia di Tomaso Gray sopra un Cimitero di Campagna, tradotta dall' Inglese in più lingue: Verona, 1817; Livorno, 1843;' and Van Voorst's London edition." Professor Reed adds a list of the translations (which, however, is incomplete), including one in Hebrew, seven in Greek, twelve in Latin, thirteen in Italian, fifteen in French, six in German, and one in Portuguese.

"Had Gray written nothing but hisElegy," remarks Byron, "high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is the cornerstone of his glory."

The tribute paid the poem by General Wolfe is familiar to all, but we cannot refrain from quoting Lord Mahon's beautiful account of it in hisHistory of England. On the night of September 13th, 1759, the night before the battle on the Plains of Abraham, Wolfe was descending the St. Lawrence with a part of his troops. The historian says: "Swiftly, but silently, did the boats fall down with the tide, unobserved by the enemy's sentinels at their posts along the shore. Of the soldiers on board, how eagerly must every heart have throbbed at the coming conflict! how intently must every eye have contemplated the dark outline, as it lay pencilled upon the midnight sky, and as every moment it grew closer and clearer, of the hostile heights! Not a word was spoken—not a sound heard beyond the rippling of the stream. Wolfe alone—thus tradition has told us—repeated in a low tone to the other officers in his boat those beautiful stanzas with which a country churchyard inspired the muse of Gray. One noble line,

'The paths of glory lead but to the grave,'

must have seemed at such a moment fraught with mournful meaning. At the close of the recitation Wolfe added, 'Now, gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec.'"

Hales, in his Introduction to the poem, remarks: "TheElegyis perhaps the most widely known poem in our language. The reason of this extensive popularity is perhaps to be sought in the fact that it expresses in an exquisite manner feelings and thoughts that are universal. In the current of ideas in theElegythere is perhaps nothing that is rare, or exceptional, or out of the common way. The musings are of the most rational and obvious character possible; it is difficult to conceive of any one musing under similar circumstances who should not muse so; but they are not the less deep and moving on this account. The mystery of life does not become clearer, or less solemn and awful, for any amount of contemplation. Such inevitable, such everlasting questions as rise on the mind when one lingers in the precincts of Death can never lose their freshness, never cease to fascinate and to move. It is with such questions, that would have been commonplace long ages since if they could ever be so, that theElegydeals. It deals with them in no lofty philosophical manner, but in a simple, humble, unpretentious way, always with the truest and the broadest humanity. The poet's thoughts turn to the poor; he forgets the fine tombs inside the church, and thinks only of the 'mouldering heaps' in the churchyard. Hence the problem that especially suggests itself is the potential greatness, when they lived, of the 'rude forefathers' that now lie at his feet. He does not, and cannot solve it, though he finds considerations to mitigate the sadness it must inspire; but he expresses it in all its awfulness in the most effective language and with the deepest feeling; and his expression of it has become a living part of our language."

The writer in theNorth American Review(vol. 96) from whom we have elsewhere quoted says of theElegy:"It is upon this that Gray's fame as a poet must chiefly rest. By this he will be known forever alike to the lettered and the unlettered. Many, in future ages, who may never have heard of his classic Odes, his various learning, or his sparkling letters, will revere him only as the author of theElegy. For this he will be enshrined through all time in the hearts of the myriads who shall speak our English tongue. For this his name will be held in glad remembrance in the far-off summer isles of the Pacific, and amidst the waste of polar snows. If he had written nothing else, his place as a leading poet in our language would still be assured. Many have asserted, with Johnson, that he was a mere mechanical poet—one who brought from without, but never found within; that the gift of inspiration was not native to him; that his imagination was borrowed finery, his fancy tinsel, and his invention the world's well-worn jewels; that whatever in his verse was poetic was not new, and what was new was not poetic; that he was only an unworldly dyspeptic, living amid many books, and laboriously delving for a lifetime between musty covers, picking out now and then another's gems and bits of ore, and fashioning them into ill-compacted mosaics, which he wrongly called his own. To all this theElegyis a sufficient answer. It is not old—it is not bookish; it is new and human. Books could not make its maker: he was born of the divine breath alone. Consider all the commentators, the scholiasts, the interpreters, the annotators, and other like book-worms, from Aristarchus down to Döderlein; and may it not be said that, among them all, 'Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum?'

"Gray wrote but little, yet he wrote that little well. He might have done far more for us; the same is true of most men, even of the greatest. The possibilities of a life are always in advance of its performance. But we cannot say that his life was a wasted one. Even this littleElegyalone should go for much. For, suppose that he had never written this, but instead had done much else in other ways, according to his powers: that he had written many learned treatises; that he had, with keen criticism, expounded and reconstructed Greek classics; that he had, perchance, sat upon the woolsack, and laid rich offerings at the feet of blind Justice;—taking the years together, would it have been, on the whole, better for him or for us? Would he have added so much to the sum of human happiness? He might thus have made himself a power for a time, to be dethroned by some new usurper in the realm of knowledge; now he is a power and a joy forever to countless thousands."

Two manuscripts of theElegy, in Gray's handwriting, still exist. Both were bequeathed by the poet, together with his library, letters, and many miscellaneous papers, to his friends the Rev. William Mason and the Rev. James Browne, as joint literary executors. Mason bequeathed the entire trust to Mr. Stonhewer. The latter, in making his will, divided the legacy into two parts. The larger share went to the Master and Fellows of Pembroke Hall. Among the papers, which are still in the possession of the College, was found a copy of theElegy. An excellent fac-simile of this manuscript appears in Mathias's edition of Gray, published in 1814. In referring to it hereafter we shall designate it as the "Pembroke" MS.

The remaining portion of Gray's literary bequest, including the other manuscript of theElegy, was left by Mr. Stonhewer to his friend, Mr. Bright. In 1845 Mr. Bright's sons sold the collection at auction. The MS. of theElegywas bought by Mr. Granville John Penn, of Stoke Park, forone hundred pounds—the highest sum that had ever been known to be paid for a single sheet of paper. In 1854 this manuscript came again into the market, and was knocked down to Mr. Robert Charles Wrightson, of Birmingham, for £131. On the 29th of May, 1875, it was once more offered for sale in London, and was purchased by Sir William Fraser for £230, or about $1150. A photographic reproduction of it was published in London in 1862. For convenience we shall refer to it as the "Wrightson" MS.

There can be little doubt that the Wrightson MS. is the original one, and that the Pembroke MS. is a fair copy made from it by the poet. The former contains a greater number of alterations, and varies more from the printed text. It bears internal evidence of being the rough draft, while the other represents a later stage of the poem. We will give the variations of both from the present version.3

3For the readings of the Wrightson MS. we have had to depend on Mason, Mitford, and other editors of the poem, and on the article in theNorth American Review, already referred to. The readings of the Pembroke MS. are taken from the engraved fac-simile in Mathias's edition.

The two stanzas of which a fac-simile is givenaboveare from the Pembroke MS., but the wood-cut hardly does justice to the feminine delicacy of the poet's handwriting.

The Wrightson MS. has in thefirst stanza, "The lowing herdwindslowly," etc. See our note on this line,below.

In the2d stanza, it reads, "Andnowthe air," etc.

The5th stanzais as follows:

In8th stanza, "Theirrusticjoys," etc.

In10th stanza, the first two lines read,

In12th stanza, "Hands that thereinsof empire," etc.

In13th stanza, "Chill Penurydepress'd," etc.

The15th stanzareads thus:

4TheSaturday Reviewfor June 19, 1875, has a long article on the change made by Gray in this stanza, entitled, "A Lesson from Gray's Elegy," from which we cull the following paragraphs:

"Gray, having first of all put down the names of three Romans as illustrations of his meaning, afterwards deliberately struck them out and put the names of three Englishmen instead. This is a sign of a change in the taste of the age, a change with which Gray himself had a good deal to do. The deliberate wiping out of the names of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar, to put in the names of Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell, seems to us so obviously a change for the better that there seems to be no room for any doubt about it. It is by no means certain that Gray's own contemporaries would have thought the matter equally clear. We suspect that to many people in his day it must have seemed a daring novelty to draw illustrations from English history, especially from parts of English history which, it must be remembered, were then a great deal more recent than they are now. To be sure, in choosing English illustrations, a poet of Gray's time was in rather a hard strait. If he chose illustrations from the century or two before his own time, he could only choose names which had hardly got free from the strife of recent politics. If, in a poem of the nature of the Elegy, he had drawn illustrations from earlier times of English history, he would have found but few people in his day likely to understand him....

"The change which Gray made in this well-known stanza is not only an improvement in a particular poem, it is a sign of a general improvement in taste. He wrote first according to the vicious taste of an earlier time, and he then changed it according to his own better taste. And of that better taste he was undoubtedly a prophet to others. Gray's poetry must have done a great deal to open men's eyes to the fact that they were Englishmen, and that on them, as Englishmen, English things had a higher claim than Roman, and that to them English examples ought to be more speaking than Roman ones. But there is another side of the case not to be forgotten. Those who would have regretted the change from Cato, Tully, and Cæsar to Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell, those who perhaps really did think that the bringing in of Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell was a degradation of what they would have called the Muse, were certainly not those who had the truest knowledge of Cato, Tully, and Cæsar. The 'classic' taste from which Gray helped to deliver us was a taste which hardly deserves to be called a taste. Pardonable perhaps in the first heat of the Renaissance, when 'classic' studies and objects had the charm of novelty, it had become by his day a mere silly fashion."

In18th stanza, "Orcrownthe shrine," etc.

After this stanza, the MS. has the following four stanzas, now omitted:

5We follow Mason (ed. 1778) in the text of these stanzas. TheNorth American Reviewhas "PowerandGenius" in the first, and "lingerin thelonelywalks" in the second.

The second of these stanzas has been remodelled and used as the 24th of the present version. Mason thought that there was a pathetic melancholy in all four which claimed preservation. The third he considered equal to any in the wholeElegy. The poem was originally intended to end here, the introduction of "the hoary-headed swain" being a happy after-thought.

In the19th stanza, the MS. has "neverlearn'dto stray."

In the21st stanza, "fame andepitaph," etc.

In the23d stanza, the last line reads,

"And buried ashes glow with social fires."

"Social" subsequently became "wonted," and other changes were made (seeabove, foot-note) before the line took its present form.

The24th stanzareads,

6Mitford (Eton ed.) gives "sympathizing" in the second line, and for the last,

"Thy ever loved haunt—this long deserted shade."

The latter is obviously wrong (Gray was incapable of such metre), and the former is probably wrong also.

The last line of the25th stanzareads,

"On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn."

Then comes the following stanza, afterwards omitted:

Mason remarked: "I rather wonder that he rejected this stanza, as it not only has the same sort of Doric delicacy which charms us peculiarly in this part of the poem, but also completes the account of his whole day; whereas, this evening scene being omitted, we have only his morning walk, and his noontide repose."

7Here also we follow Mason; theNorth American Reviewreads "ourlaboursdone."

The first line of the27th stanzareads,

"With gestures quaint, now smiling as in scorn."

After the29th stanza, and before the Epitaph, the MS. contains the following omitted stanza:

This—with two or three verbal changes only8—was inserted in all the editions up to 1753, when it was dropped. The omission was not made from any objection to the stanza in itself, but simply because it was too long a parenthesis in this place; on the principle which he states in a letter to Dr. Beattie: "As to description, I have always thought that it made the most graceful ornament of poetry, but never ought to make the subject." The part was sacrificed for the good of the whole. Mason very justly remarked that "the lines, however, are in themselves exquisitely fine, and demand preservation."

8Seebelow. The writer in theNorth American Reviewis our only authority for the stanza as given above. He appears to have had the photographic reproduction of the Wrightson MS., but we cannot vouch for the accuracy of his transcripts from it.

The first line of the31st stanzahas "and hisheartsincere."

The32d and last stanzais as follows:

9The above are all the variations from the present text in the Wrightson MS. which are noted by the authorities on whom we have depended; but we suspect that the following readings, mentioned by Mitford as in the MS., belong tothatMS., as they arenotfound in the other: in the7th stanza, "sickles" for "sickle;" in18th, "shrines" for "shrine." Two others (in stanzas 9th and 27th) are referred to in our account of the Pembroke MS. below.

The Pembroke MS. has the following variations from the present version:

In the1st stanza, "wind" for "winds."

2d stanza, "Ordrowsy," etc.

5th stanza, "andthe ecchoing horn."

6th stanza, "Norclimb his knees."

9th stanza, "Awaitsalike." Probably this is also the reading of the Wrightson MS. Mitford gives it as noted by Mason, and it is retained by Gray in the ed. of 1768.

The10th stanzabegins,

the present readings ("Nor you," "impute to these," and "Mem'ry o'er their tomb") being inserted in the margin.

The12th stanzahas "reinsof empire," with "rod" in the margin.

In the15th stanza, the word "lands" has been crossed out, and "fields" written above it.

The17thhas "Orshut the gates," etc.

In the21stwe have "fame andepitaphsupply."

The23dhas "Andin our ashesglow," the readings "Ev'n" and "live" being inserted in the margin.

The27th stanzahas "would herove." We suspect that this is also the reading of the Wrightson MS., as Mitford says it is noted by Mason.

In the28th stanza, the first line reads "fromthe custom'd hill."

In the29tha word which we cannot make out has been erased, and "aged" substituted.

Before the Epitaph, two asterisks refer to the bottom of the page, where the following stanza is given, with the marginal note, "Omitted in 1753:"

The last two lines of the31st stanza(see notebelow) are pointed as follows:

Some of the peculiarities of spelling in this MS. are the following: "Curfeu;" "Plowman;" "Tinkleings;" "mopeing;" "ecchoing;" "Huswife;" "Ile" (aisle); "wast" (waste); "village-Hambden;" "Rhimes;" "spell't;" "chearful;" "born" (borne); etc.

Mitford, in his Life of Gray prefixed to the "Eton" edition of his Poems (edited by Rev. John Moultrie, 1847), says: "I possess many curious variations from the printed text, taken from a copy of it in his own handwriting." He adds specimens of these variations, a few of which differ from both the Wrightson and Pembroke MSS. We give these in our notes below. See on12,24, and93.

Several localities have contended for the honor of being the scene of theElegy, but the general sentiment has always, and justly, been in favor of Stoke-Pogis. It was there that Gray began the poem in 1742; and there, as we have seen, he finished it in 1750. In that churchyard his mother was buried, and there, at his request, his own remains were afterwards laid beside her. The scene is, moreover, in all respects in perfect keeping with the spirit of the poem.

According to the common Cambridge tradition, Granchester, a parish about two miles southwest of the University, to which Gray was in the habit of taking his "constitutional" daily, is the locality of the poem; and the great bell of St. Mary's is the "curfew" of the first stanza. Another tradition makes a similar claim for Madingley, some three miles and a half northwest of Cambridge. Both places have churchyards such as theElegydescribes; and this is about all that can be said in favor of their pretensions. There is also a parish called Burnham Beeches, in Buckinghamshire, which one writer at least has suggested as the scene of the poem, but for no better reason than that Gray once wrote a description of the place to Walpole, and casually mentioned the existence of certain "beeches," at the foot of which he would "squat," and "there grow to the trunk a whole morning." Gray's uncle had a seat in the neighborhood, and the poet often visited here, but the spot was not hallowed to him by the fond and tender associations that gathered about Stoke.

1.The curfew. Hales remarks: "It is a great mistake to suppose that the ringing of the curfew was, at its institution, a mark of Norman oppression. If such a custom was unknown before the Conquest, it only shows that the old English police was less well-regulated than that of many parts of the Continent, and how much the superior civilization of the Norman-French was needed. Fires were the curse of the timber-built towns of the Middle Ages: 'Solae pestes Londoniae sunt stultorum immodica potatio etfrequens incendium' (Fitzstephen). The enforced extinction of domestic lights at an appointed signal was designed to be a safeguard against them."

Warton wanted to have this line read

"The curfew tolls!—the knell of parting day."

It is sufficient to say that Gray, as the manuscript shows, did not want it to read so, and that we much prefer his way to Warton's.

Mitford says thattollis "not the appropriate verb," as the curfew was rung, not tolled. We presume that depended, to some extent, on the fancy of the ringer. Milton (Il Pens.76) speaks of the curfew as

"Swinging slow with sullen roar."

Gray himself quotes here Dante,Purgat.8:

—"squilla di lontanoChe paia 'l giorno pianger, che si muore;"

and we cannot refrain from adding, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with Italian, Longfellow's exquisite translation:

—"from far away a bellThat seemeth to deplore the dying day."

Mitford quotes (incorrectly, as often) Dryden,Prol. to Troilus and Cressida, 22:

"That tolls the knell for their departed sense."

Onparting=departing, cf. Shakes.Cor.v. 6: "When I parted hence;" Goldsmith,D. V.171: "Beside the bed where parting life was laid," etc.

2.The lowing herd wind, etc.Wind, and notwinds, is the reading of the MS. (see fac-simile of this stanzaabove) and ofallthe early editions—that of 1768, Mason's, Wakefield's, Mathias's, etc.—but we find no note of the fact in Mitford's or any other of the more recent editions, which have substitutedwinds. Whether the change was made as an amendment or accidentally, we do not know;10but the original reading seems to us by far the better one. The poet does not refer to the herd as an aggregate, but to the animals that compose it. He sees, notit, but "themon their winding way." The ordinary reading mars both the meaning and the melody of the line.

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