SSS 
reconciliation, seems never to have 
_remeved to Pembroke H. 
a GRAY. 
masiy y charged himself, parted the travellers at Reg- 
gio, and: their broken friendship, in —_ of a formal 
entirely ce- 
mented. Gray returned to London in 1741, in the 
‘same year in which his father died. _ His mother, with 
a very small fortune, had retired to)live with her sister 
‘at Stoke, near Windsor. Mr Gray, therefore, found his 
 ceprgred too small to enable him to prosecute the stu- 
y 
the law; and his mother and aunt would 
undoubtedly have contributed all in their power to as- 
sist him, he could not brook the idea of becoming a bur- 
then to them. Yet such was his delicacy, that he could 
not peremptorily declare to his relations his resolution 
of abandoning his ar om he therefore pretended 
to change the line of it, and accordingly he went 
_to Cambridge, where he took a bachelor’s degree in ci- 
villaw. In the same in which he graduated, 
1742,) he lost his friend West, with whom his friend- 
ip had commenced at Eton, and had continued with 
unabated warmth after had gone to different uni- 
versities. The sorrow which the death of this amiable 
young man left upon our poet’s mind, and the tender- 
ness with which he honoured his memory, form oye of 
the most interesting traits of his character. * 
On his second return to Cambridge, he applied him- 
self for about six years with the most intense assiduity 
to the perusal of Greek authors, and made himself a con- 
summate scholar and critic in that language. In1747,he 
appeared for the first time as an author, by the publica- 
tion of his Ode on the prospect of Eton College, of which 
it would seem that at first little notice was taken. His 
Qde to Spring had been already written at Cambridge ; 
and soon after the publication just mentioned, he sent 
to Dr Wharton of Durham, his poem on the Alliance of 
Education and-Government, which he never pursued 
much farther. -In 1749, he finished his Elegy, which 
he had begun seven years before, and which when pub- 
lished obtained immediate popularity. 
In 1754 and 1755, he appears to have written his 
beautiful lines on the Pleasures arising from: Vicissi- 
tude, his Ode on the Progress of Poetry, the Bard, and 
probably some of those fragments with which ‘he seems 
to have amused himself, without much oe of coms 
pletion. About this period, he complains of listlessness 
and depression of spirits, which prevented his applica- 
tion to poetry ; and from this time we may trace the 
course of that hereditary disease in his constitution, 
which the temperance and regularity of a whole life 
could not subdue. Next year, he left Peterhouse at 
Cambridge, where he had resided above twenty years, 
on account of some incivilities which he met with, and 
which Mason thus mentions. Two or three young men 
of fortune, who lived on the same staircase, had for some 
time intentionally disturbed him with their riots, and 
carried their ill behaviour so far as to awaken him at 
midnight. After having borne a considerable time with 
their insults, Gray complained to the governing part of 
the Society, and not thinking that his remonstrance was 
sufficiently attended to, quitted the College. He now 
» which he describes “as an 
eta in a life so barren in events as his.” 
Inthe July of 1757, he took his Odes to London to 
be published. “ I found Gray (says H. Walpole) in 
town last week. He brought his two Odes to be printed. 
I snatched them out of Dodsley’s hands, and they are 
to be the first fruits of my press.” Although the geni- 
457 
us of Gray was now jn its’ firm and mature age, and 
though his poetical reputation was deservedly high, it 
is plain that these Odes were not favourably received. 
** His friends (he says) write to him’ that they do not 
succeed.” Yet there were some better jadges who ad- 
mired them. Garrick wrote lines in their praise ; and 
Warburton, while he bestowed his honest applause on 
them, shewed his indignation at those who condemned 
without being able to understand them. In this year 
Cibber died, and the laureatship was offered by the 
Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Chamberlain, to Gray, 
with a remarkable and honourable privilege to bold it 
as a mere sinecure. This offer he respectfully declined ; 
and ima letter to Mr Mason, he gives some of his rea 
sons for declining it. ‘ The office itself (he says) has 
always humbled the possessor hitherto :—if he were a 
r writer, by making him more conspicuous ; and if 
e were a good one, by setting him at war with the lit- 
tle fry of his own profession : for there are poets little 
enough even to envy a poet laureat.” In 1758, Gray de- 
scribes himself “ as composing for his own amusement 
the little book, which: he calls a Catalogue of the Anti- 
uities, Houses, &c. in England and Wales.” + About 
this time, the study of architecture seems to have em- 
ployed much of his time, in which his profitiency (as 
In every branch of study which he pursued) was: accu- 
rate and deep. Early in the next year the British Mu- 
seum was opened to the public, and he went to Londoiy 
to read and transcribe the MSS. which were there col+ 
lected from the Cottonian and Harleian libraries. A 
folio volume of his transcripts was left among his pa- 
pers. No other remarkable date occurs in the peaceful 
tenor of our poet’s days, till in 1762, the professorship 
of modern history being vacant, by the advice of his 
friends, he applied to Lord Bute for the place through 
the medium of’ Sir Henry Erskine. He was refused, 
and the professorship was given to another ; and ‘so 
(says pes I have made my fortune like Sir Francis 
ronghead.” ° 
In the summer of 1765; he took'a journey into Scot- 
land to improve his health, which was then weak, and 
to gratify his curiosity with the romantic scenery of the 
north. He went through Edinburgh and Perth to 
Glammis castle, the residence of Lord Strathmore, where 
he stayed some time: Thence he took a-short excur- 
sion into the Highlands, crossing Perthshire by Loch 
Tay, and pursuing the road from Dunkeld to Inverness, 
as far as the pass. of Killikrankie. Then returning to 
Dunkeld, he travelled on the Stirling road to Edinburgh. 
In Scotland, his general shyness to men of letters was 
felt and complained of ; but he formed an acquaintance 
with Dr Beattie, which was kept up by subsequent 
correspondence. The university of Aberdeen was dis- 
posed to confer on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; 
but he refused it, lest it should seem a slight to his own 
university. At Dr Beattie’s desire, a new edition of his 
poems was published by Foulis at Glasgow, whilst 
Dodsley at the same time was printing them in Lon- 
don. In both these editions the long story was omit- 
ted, and some Welch and Norwegian fragments insert- 
ed in their place. To his Odes, Gray now found it ne- 
cessary to add some notes; “ partly,” he says, “from 
justice to acknowledge a debt when I had borrowed any 
thing; partly from ill temper, just to tell the gentle 
reader, that Edward I. was not Oliver Cromwell, nor 
Queen Elizabeth the witch of Endor.” 
* Richard West was the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and grandson by the mother’s side of the famous Bishop Burnet. 
It was printed and distributed among his friends by Mr Mason after his death. 
VOL. X. PART I. 
Su 
Gray. 
_——— 
