<P> Such publications were followed by multilingual collections, of which the most ambitious was Alessandro Torri's L'elegia di Tommaso Gray sopra un cimitero di campagna tradotta dall'inglese in più lingue con varie cose finora inedite (Verona 1819). This included four translations into Latin, of which one was Christopher Anstey's and another was Costa's; eight into Italian, where versions in prose and terza rima accompanied those already mentioned by Torelli and Cesarotti; two in French, two in German and one each in Greek and Hebrew . Even more translations were eventually added in the new edition of 1843 . By that time, too, John Martin's illustrated edition of 1839 had appeared with translations into Latin, Greek, German, Italian and French, of which only the Torelli version had appeared in previous collections . What we learn from all this activity is that, as the centenary of its first publication approached, interest in Gray's Elegy continued unabated in Europe and new translations of it continued to be made . </P> <P> Many editions of the Elegy have contained illustrations, some of considerable merit, such as those among the Designs by Mr. Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray (1753). But the work of two leading artists is particularly noteworthy . Between 1777 - 8 William Blake was commissioned by John Flaxman to produce an illustrated set of Gray's poems as a birthday gift to his wife . These were in watercolour and included twelve for the Elegy, which appeared at the end of the volume . Another individual book was created in 1910 by the illuminator Sidney Farnsworth, hand written in italic script with a mediaeval decorative surround and more modern - looking inset illustrations . </P> <P> Another notable illuminated edition had been created in 1846 by Owen Jones in a legible blackletter script with one decorative initial per page . Produced by chromolithography, each of its 35 pages was individually designed with two half stanzas in a box surrounded by coloured foliar and floral borders . An additional feature was the cover of deeply embossed brown leather made to imitate carved wood . A little earlier there had been a compositely illustrated work for which the librarian John Martin had been responsible . Having approached John Constable and other major artists for designs to illustrate the Elegy, these were then engraved on wood for the first edition in 1834 . Some were reused in later editions, including the multilingual anthology of 1839 mentioned above . Constable's charcoal and wash study of the "ivy - mantled tower" in stanza 3 is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, as is his watercolour study of Stoke Poges church, while the watercolour for stanza 5, in which the narrator leans on a gravestone to survey the cemetery, is held at the British Museum (see below). </P> <P> While not an illustration in itself, Christopher Nevinson's statement against the slaughter of World War I in his painting Paths of Glory (1917) takes its title from another line in the Elegy, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave". The title had already been used two years before by Irvin S. Cobb in an account of his journalistic experiences at the start of that war . It was then taken up in the unrelated Humphrey Cobb's 1935 anti-war novel, although in this case the name was suggested for the untitled manuscript in a competition held by the publisher . His book also served in its turn as the basis for Stanley Kubrick's film Paths of Glory, released in 1957 . This example is just one more among many illustrating the imaginative currency that certain lines of the poem continue to have, over and above their original significance . </P>

Bring out the theme of gray's elegy written in the country churchyard