[Engraving by John Pye, from drawing by Robert Balmanno, printed by John Johnson (of the Lee Priory Press).] Engraving of 'Cenotaph erected at Stoke Park, to the Memory of the Poet Gray.' With text including the 'Inscriptions on the Cenotaph'.

On 34 x 27 cm unwatermarked laid paper. Dimensions of plate 34 x 23 cm. Dimensions of print 5.1 x 7.4 cm. Dimensions of print and text 15 x 7.4 cm. In fair condition, lightly aged, spotted and creased, with stub from album adhering to one margin. This is an early state of a print of which the British Library has a copy (acquired in 1867) of the undated third state, dated to 1820, carrying only four lines of text rather than the substantial amount present here. The present copy has, engraved in small letters immediately beneath the print: 'Robt. Balmanno delt. 1818. Jno. Pye sculpt.' Below this, in larger type is the text, with one footnotes, and beneath the text is the printer's slug: 'Johnson, Typ.' The text is headed 'Cenotaph erected at Stoke Park, to the Memory of the Poet Gray.', and begins: 'The delightful scenery of the Church Yard, and of Stoke Old Mansion, seen among the trees, are admirably described in the Elegy and the Long Story; but the once magnificent 'Ancient Pile,' is now a ruin. The lines on a Prospect of Eton College (distant about four miles) were written on this spot.' Next are given, in double column, the 'Inscriptions on the Cenotaph', which include four stanzas from the Elegy and the first eight lines of the Eton College ode. The body of the text concludes, regarding the engraving: 'The column in the distance is dedicated to Sir Edward Coke, and is another of those chaste ornaments with which the Proprietor, John Penn, Esq. has adorned this classic spot.' Above the printer's slug is the footnote, concerning the placement of Gray's tombstone in the print: 'Represented in the View under the church window, to the left.' The British Library copy of the third state carries only a four-line quotation from the twenty-ninth stanza of the Elegy ('with dirges [...] aged thorn.'). The British Library copy of the 1820 state of the engraving has all of the text present in this 1818 version removed. It has, beneath the four-line poetic quotation, another engraving, not present on the present copy, being a 'profile portrait of the poet in an oval'. Balmanno's letters and those of his wife Mary, to the Philadelphia engraver John Sartain, are in the New York Public Library.