to lyrick poetry, having neither the ease and airiness of the lighter, nor the vehemence and elevation of the grander ode. When he lays his ill-fated hand upon his harp, his former power seem to desert him; he has no longer his luxuriance of expression, nor variety of images. His thoughts are cold, and his words inelegant. Yet such was his love of lyricks, that, having written with great vigour and poignancy his "Epistle to Curio," he transformed it afterwards into an ode disgraceful only to its author. Of his odes nothing favourable can be said; the sentiments commonly want force, nature, or novelty; the diction is sometimes harsh and uncouth, the stanza's ill- constructed and unpleasant, and the rhymes dissonant, or unskilfully disposed, too distant from each other, or arranged with too little regard to establish use, and therefore perplexing to the ear, which în a short composition has not time to grow familiar with an innovation. To examine such compositions singly cannot be required; they have doubtless brighter and and darker parts: but when they are once found to be generally dull, all further labour may be spared; for to what use can the work be criticised that will not be read? GRAY GRA Y, THOMAS was born in Cornhill, November 26, 1716. His grammatical education he received at Eton under the care of Mr. Antrobus, his mother's brother, then assistant to Dr. George; and when he left school, in 1734, entered a pensioner at Peterhouse in Cambridge. The transition from the school to the college is, to most young scholars, the time from which they date their years of manhood, liberty, and happiness; but Gray seems to have been very little delighted with academical gratifications; he liked at Cambridge neither the mode of life nor the fashion of study, and lived sullenly on to the time when his attendance on lectures was no longer required. As he intended to profess the Common Law, he took no degree. When he had been at Cambridge about five years, Mr. Horace Walpole, whose frienship he had gained at Eton, invited him to travel with him as his companion. They wandered through France into Italy; and Gray's Letters contain a very pleasing account of many parts of their journey. But unequal friendships are easily dissolved: at Florence they quarrelled, and parted; and Mr. Walpole is content to have it told that it was by his fault. If we look, however without prejudice on the world, we shall find that men, whose consciousness of their own merit sets them above the compliances of servility, are apt enough in their association with superiors to watch their own dignity with troublesome and punctilious jealousy, and in the fervour of independence to exact that attention which they refuse to pay. Part they did, whatever was the quarrel; and the rest of their travels was doubtless more unpleasant to them both. Gray continued his journey in a manner suitable to his own little fortune, with only an occasional servant. He returned to England in September, 1741, and in about two months afterwards buried his father; who had, by an injudicious waste of money upon a new house, so much lessened his fortune, that Gray thought himself too poor to study the law. He therefore retired to Cambridge, where he soon soon after became Bachelor of Civil Law; and where, without liking the place or its inhabitants, or professing to like them, he passed, except a short residence at London, the rest of his life. About this time he was deprived of Mr. West, the son of a chancellor of Ireland, a friend on whom he appears to have set a high value, and who deserved his esteem by the powers which he shews in his Letters, and in the "Ode to May," which Mr. Mason has preserved, as well as by the sincerity with which, when Gray sent him part of "Agrippina," a tragedy that he had just begun, he gave an opinion which probably intercepted the progress of the work, and which the judgment of every reader will confirm. It was certainly no loss to the English stage that " Agrippina" was never finished. In this year (1742) Gray seems first to have applied himself seriously to poetry; for in this year were produced the "Ode to Spring" his Prospect of Eton," and his "Ode to Adversity." He began likewise a Latin poem, "De Principiis cogitandi." It may be collected from the narrative of Mr. Mason,, that his first ambition was to have excelled in Latin poetry: perhaps it were reasonable to wish that he had prosecuted his design: for though there is at present some embarrassment in his phrase, and some harshness in his lyrick numbers, his copiousness of language is such as very few possess ; and his lines, even when imperfect, discover a writer whom practice would quickly have made skilful. He now lived on at Peterhouse, very little solicitous what others did or thought, and cultivated his mind and enlarged his views without any other purpose than of improving and amusing himself; when Mr. Mason, being elected fellow of Pembroke Hall, brought him a companion who was afterwards to be his editor, and whose fondness and fidelity has kindled in him a zeal of admiration, which cannot be reasonably expected from the neutrality of a stranger and the coldness of a critick. In this retirement he wrote (1747) an ode on the "Death of Mr. Walpole's Cat ;" and the year afterwards attempted a poem of more importance on "Government and Education," of which the fragments which remain have many excellent lines. His next production (1750) was his far-famed "Elegy in the Churchyard,” which, finding its way into a Magazine, first, I believe, made him known to the publick. An invitation from lady Cobham about this time gave occasion to an odd composition called "A Long Story," which adds little to Gray's character. Several of his pieces were published (1753), with designs by Mr. Bentley, and, that they might in some form or other make a book, only one side of each leaf was printed. I believe the poems and the plates recommended each other so well, that the whole impression was soon bought. This year he lost his mother. Some time afterwards (1756) some young men of the college, whose chambers were near his, diverted themselves with disturbing him by frequent and and troublesome noises, and, as is said, by pranks yet more offensive and contemptuous. This insolence, having endured it a while, he represented to the governors of the society, among whom perhaps he had no friends; and finding his complaint little regarded, removed himself to Pembroke Hall. In 1757 he published "The Progress of Poetry" and "The Bard," two compositions at which the readers of poetry were at first content to gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried them confessed their inability to understand them, though Warburton said that they were understood as well as the works of Milton and Shakespear, which it is the fashion to admire. Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Some hardy champions undertook to rescue them from neglect, and in a short time many were content to be shewn beauties which they could not see. Gray's reputation was now so high, that, after the death of Cibber, he had the honour of refusing the laurel, which was then bestowed on Mr. Whitehead. His curiosity not long after, drew him away from Cambridge to a lodging near the Museum, where he resided near three years, reading and transscribing and, so far as can be discovered, very little affected by two odes on "Oblivion" and "Obscurity," in which his lyrick performances were ridiculed with much contempt and much ingenuity. When the Professor of Modern History at Cambridge died, he was, as he says, "cockered and spirited up," till he asked it of lord Bute, who sent him a civil refusal, and the place was given to Mr. Brocket, the tutor of Sir James Lowther. His constitution was weak, and believing that his health was promoted by exercise and change of place, he undertook (1765) a journey into Scotland, of which his account, so far as it extends, is very curious and elegant: for, as his comprehension was ample, his curiosity extended to all the works of art, all the appearances of nature, and all the monuments of past events. He naturally contracted a friendship with Dr. Beattie, whom he found a poet, a philosopher, and a good man. The Mareschal College at Aberdeen offered him the degree of Doctor of Law, which, having omitted to take it at Cambridge, he thought it decent to refuse. What he had formerly solicited in vain, was at last given him without solicitation. The Professorship of History became again vacant, and he received (1768) an offer of it from the duke of Grafton. He accepted, and retained it to his death; always designing lectures, but never reading them; uneasy at his neglect of duty, and appeasing his uneasiness with designs of reformation, and with a resolution which he believed himself to have made, of resigning the office, if he found himself unable to discharge it. Ill health made another journey necessary, and he visited (1769) Westmoreland and Cumberland. He that reads his epistolary narration wishes, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his employment; but it is by studying at home that we must obtain the ability of travelling with intelligence and improvement. His travels and his studies were now near their end. The gout, of which he had sustained many weak attacks, fell upon his stomach, and, yielding. to no medicines, produced strong convulsions, which July 30, 1771) terminated in death. His character I am willing to adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from a Letter written to my friend Mr. Boswell, by the Rev. Mr. Temple, rector of St. Gluvias in Cornwall; and am as willing as his warmest well-wisher to belive it true. "Perhaps he was the most learned man in Europe. He was equally acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, and that not "superficially but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both "natural and civil; had read all the original historians of England, France, "and Italy; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysics, mo"rals, politics, made a principal part of his study; voyages and travels of "all sorts were his favourite amusements, and he had a fine taste in paint"ing, prints, architecture, and gardening. With such a fund of know"ledge, his conversation must have been equally instructing and entertain"ing; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and humanity. There " is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think the "greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather effeminacy; "and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his inferiors in "science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which disgusted "Voltaire so much in Mr. Congreve: though he seemed to value others chiefly according to the progress they had made in knowledge, yet he "could not bear to be considered himself merely as a man of letters: and though without birth, or fortune, or station, his desire was to be looked "upon as a private independent gentleman, who read for his amusement. "Perhaps it may be said, What signifies so much knowledge, when it pro"duced so little? Is it worth taking so much pains to leave no memorial "but a few of his poems? But let it be considered that Mr. Gray was to "others at least innocently employed; to himself, certainly beneficially. "His time passed agreeably; he was every day making some new acquisi"tion in science; his mind was enlarged, his heart softened, his virtue "strengthened; the world and mankind were shewn to him without a mask; "and he was taught to consider every thing as trifling, and unworthy of "the attention of a wise man, except the pursuit of knowledge and prac"tice of virtue, in that state wherein God hath placed us." To this character Mr. Mason has added a more particular account of Gray's skill in zoology. He has remarked, that Gray's effeminacy was affected most "before those whom he did not wish to please;" and that he is unjustly charged with making knowledge his sole reason of preference, as he paid his esteem to none whom he did not likewise believe to be good. What has occurred to me from the slight inspection of his Letters in which my undertaking has engaged me, is, that his mind had a large grasp; that his curiosity was unlimited, and his judgment cultivated; that he was a man |