The facts concerning the first publication of the _Elegy_ are not given correctly by any of the editors, and even the "experts" of _Notes and Queries_ have not been able to disentangle the snarl of conflicting evidence. I am not sure that I have settled the question myself (see p. 74 and foot-note), but I have at least shown that Gray is a more credible witness in the case than any of his critics. Their testimony is obviously inconsistent and inconclusive; he may have confounded the names of two magazines, but that remains to be proved.[1] [Footnote 1: Since writing the above to-day, I have found by the merest chance in my own library another bit of evidence in the case, which fully confirms my surmise that the _Elegy_ was printed in _The Magazine of Magazines_ before it appeared in the _Grand Magazine of Magazines_. _Chambers's Book of Days_ (vol. ii. p. 146), in an article on "Gray and his Elegy," says: "It first saw the light in _The Magazine of Magazines_, February, 1751. Some imaginary literary wag is made to rise in a convivial assembly, and thus announce it: 'Gentlemen, give me leave to soothe my own melancholy, and amuse you in a most noble manner, with a full copy of verses by the very ingenious Mr. Gray, of Peterhouse, Cambridge. They are stanzas written in a country churchyard.' Then follow the verses. A few days afterwards, Dodsley's edition appeared," etc. The same authority gives the four stanzas omitted after the 18th (see p. 79) as they appear in the _North American Review_, except that the first line of the third is "Hark how the sacred calm that _reigns_ around," a reading which I have found nowhere else. The stanza "There scattered oft," etc. (p. 81), is given as in the review. The reading on p. 82 must be a later one.]