Excerpt from From the Poetry and Prose of Thomas Gray: Edited With an Introduction and Notes
The Prose has been taken from Mr. Gosse"s four-volume edition of Gray, mentioned above. I greatly regret that the Rev. D. C. Tovey"s edition of Gray"s Letters, already announced by Macmillan, has not yet appeared. Mr. Tovey is so accurate a scholar, and so sensible an editor, that anything he undertakes is sure to be done well.
Gray"s own notes to those of his poems published in 1768, have been exactly reproduced (misprints, mistakes and all) in this volume, and will be found, where he himself had them printed, as foot-notes to the text; but in my notes exact line references have been given for all of Gray"s quotations, and the errors or misprints are corrected there.
In most cases indebtedness to previous editors is mentioned wherever it occurs; but for some commonplace references and references to other passages of Gray it has not been thought necessary in every instance to give the names of editors who have also noted these points. A considerable number of parallel passages will be found in the notes; this does not imply that the editor is insinuating a lack of originality on Gray"s part, nor on the other hand is any attempt made at a pedantic display. In the case of so eclectic a poet, the most striking parallel passages are particularly interesting. Gray himself gives a few parallel passages in his own foot-notes; but the similarities in these are usually not so noticeable as in those he does not give. Gray"s poems reflect his reading; but to accuse him of plagiarism would be, as Mr. Lowell said, like finding fault with a man for pillaging the dictionary.
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