Note 365-22 — ELEGY
Reading edition
At first this stanza was written thus:
“Some village Cato, who with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute, inglorious Tully here may rest; Some Caesar guiltless of his country’s blood.”
It is interesting to notice that at his first writing Gray selected three of the famous men of antiquity, but in his revision he substituted the names of three of his own countrymen. Who were Hampden, Milton and Cromwell?