When the Renaissance found its way to England, the word "elegy" was introduced by readers of Ovid and Propertius. But from the beginning of the 16th century, it was used in English, as it has been ever since, to describe a funeral song or lament. One of the earliest poems in English which bears the title of elegy is _The Complaint of Philomene_, which George Gascoigne began in 1562, and printed in 1576. The _Daphnaida_ of Spenser (1591) is an elegy in the strict modern sense, namely a poem of regret pronounced at the obsequies of a particular person. In 1579 Puttenham had defined an elegy as being a song "of long lamentation." With the opening of the 17th century the composition of elegies became universal on every occasion of public or private grief. Dr Johnson's definition, "_Elegy_, a short poem without points or turns," is singularly inept and careless. By that time (1755) English literature had produced many great elegies, of which the _Lycidas_ of Milton is by far the most illustrious. But even Cowley's on Crashaw, Tickell's on Addison, Pope's on an Unfortunate Lady, those of Quarles, and Dryden, and Donne, should have warned Johnson of his mistake. Since the 18th century the most illustrious examples of elegy in English literature have been the _Adonais_ of Shelley (on Keats), the _Thyrsis_ of Matthew Arnold (on Clough), and the _Ave atque Vale_ of Mr Swinburne (on Baudelaire). It remains for us to mention what is the most celebrated elegy in English, that written by Gray in a Country Churchyard. This, however, belongs to a class apart, as it is not addressed to the memory of any particular person. A writer of small merit, James Hammond (1716-1742), enjoyed a certain success with his _Love Elegies_ in which he endeavoured to introduce the erotic elegy as it was written by Ovid and Tibullus. This experiment took no hold of English literature, but was welcomed in France in the amatory works of Parny (1753-1814), in those of Chênedollé (1769-1833), and of Millevoye (1782-1816). The melancholy and sentimental elegies of the last named are the typical examples of this class of poetry in French literature. Lamartine must be included among the elegists, and his famous "Le Lac" is as eminent an elegy in French as Gray's "Country Churchyard" is in English. The elegy has flourished in Portugal, partly because it was cultivated with great success by Camoens, the most illustrious of the Portuguese poets. In Italian, Chiabrera and Filicaia are named among the leading national elegists. In German literature, the notion of elegy as a poem of lamentation does not exist. The famous Roman Elegies of Goethe imitate in form and theme those of Ovid; they are not even plaintive in character.