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ELEGY

WRITTEN IN

A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

WITH VERSIONS IN THE

GREEK. LATIN, GERMAN, ITALIAN. AND FRENCH

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BODLE

LONDON:

PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,

Bangor House, Shoe Lane.

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THE great improvement that has taken place, within a few years, in the art of Engraving on Wood, as well as its general adoption, in some measure superseding the use of Copper and Steel, led to the present attempt to apply this mode of embellishment to a Poem of such general and deserved celebrity, and which appeared to afford the greatest scope for the talents of the artist.

The ELEGY itself has long been universally acknowledged as one of the most elegant compositions which the English language ever produced.

The following testimony to its great merit is not, perhaps, generally known, and will not here be inappropriately introduced.

General Wolfe received a copy on the eve of the assault on Quebec; he was so struck with its beauty, that he is said to have exclaimed, that he would have preferred being its author, to that of being the victor in the projected attack in which he so gloriously lost his life.

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