 A kinship between Gray ’ s Elegy and Oliver Goldsmith ’ s “ The Deserted Village ” has been recognised , although the latter was more openly political in its treatment of the rural poor and used heroic couplets , where the elegist poets kept to cross @-@ rhymed quatrains . At first it was collected in various editions along with Gray ’ s poem and other topographical works , but from 1873 a number of editions appeared which contained just the Elegy and “ The Deserted Village ” , though sometimes with the inclusion of Goldsmith ’ s “ The Traveller ” or some other single work as well . At that period an anonymous review in the The Academy ( 12 December 1896 ) claimed that " Gray 's ' Elegy ' and Goldsmith 's ' The Deserted Village ' shine forth as the two human poems in a century of artifice . " 
