GRAY, TfromAs, an eminent English poet, was born at Cornhill in London, on the 20th of December 1716. His father, Philip Gray, was a money scrivener of the city. His mother, whose maiden name was Dorothy An trobus, was, owing to the bad usage of her husband, obli ged to apply to an eminent civilian for his advice as to a separation from him. Our poet, their fifth child, owed his life to the affectionate courage of his mother, who, by opening a vein with her own hand, removed a paroxysm which attacked him in his childhood. To this parent's ex ertions he was also indebted for his education; so that, considering the unhappiness of her life, and the gratitude which her son owed her, we can easily conceive the truth of what Mason tells us, that Gray always mentioned his mother's name with a sigh. Gray was educated at Eton, under the protection of Mr Antrobus, his maternal uncle, who was a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. At that uni versity, Gray was admitted a pensioner in his 19th year. During his first four years residence there, he seems to have withdrawn himself from the severity of mathemati cal studies, while his enquiries centered in classical and modern literature.* In 1738, he removed to the Inner Temple ; but laid aside his legal studies to accompany Horace Walpole on a tour through France and Italy. Al unhappy difference, however, with the blame of which Walpole has candidly charged himself, parted the travellers at Reggio, and their broken friendship, in spite of a formal reconciliation, seems never to have been entirely cemented. Gray returned to London in 1741, in the•same year in which his father died. His mothet, with a very small fortune, had retired to live with her sister at Stoke, near Windsor. Mr Gray, there fore, found his patrimony too small to enable him to pro secute the study of the law ; and though his mother and aunt would undoubtedly have contributed all in their power to assist him, lie could not brook the idea of becoming a burthen to them. Yet such was his delicacy, that he could not peremptorily declare to his relations his resolu tion of abandoning his profession: he therefore pretended only to change the line of it, and accordingly he went to Cambridge, where he took a bachelor's degree in civil law. In the same year in which he graduated, (1742 ) he lost his friend West, with whom his friendship had com menced at Eton, and had continued with unabated warmth after they had gone to different universities. The sorrow which the death of this amiable young man left upon our poet's mind, and the tenderness with which he honoured his memory, form one of the most interesting traits of his eharacter.t On his second return to Cambridge, he applied himself for about six years with the most intense assiduity to the perusal of Greek authors, and made himself a consummate scholar and critic in that language. In 1747. he appear ed' for the first time as an author, by the publication of his Ode on the prospect of Eton College, of which it would seem that at first little notice was taken. His Ode to Spring had been already written at Cambridge; and soon after the publication just mentioned, he sent to Dr Whar ton of Durham, his poem on the Alliance of Education aid Government, which he never pursued much farther. In 1749, he finished his Elegy, which he had begun seven years before, and which when published obtained immedi ate popularity.
In 1754 and 1755, he appears to have written his beau tiful lines on the Pleasures arising from Vicissitude, 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 design of completion. About this period, lie complains of listlessness and de pression of spirits, which prevented his application to po etry ; and from this time we may trace •he course of that hereditary disease in his constitution, which the temper ance and regularity of a whole life could not subdue. Next year, he left Peterhouse at Cambridge, where he had re sided 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 hint at midnight. After having borne a consi derable 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 Col lege. He now removed to Pembroke Hall, which he de scribes " as an era in a life so barren in events as his " In the 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 snatch ed them out of Dudslcy's hands, and they are to be the first fruits of my press." Although the genius of Gray was now in its firm and mature age, and though his poeti cal 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 judges who admired them. Garrick wrote lines in their praise ; and Warburton, while he be stowed his hottest applause on them, sheaved his indigna tion at those who condemned without being able to under stand them. In this year Cibber died, and the laureate ship was offered by the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Chamberlain, to Gray, with a remarkable and honourable privilege to hold it as a mere sinecure. This offer he re spectfully declined ; and in a letter to Mr Mason, lie gives some of his reasons for declining it. " The office it self (he says) has always humbled the possessor hitherto: —if he were a poor writer, by making hint ?tore conspi cuous; and if he were a good one, by setting him at war with the little fry of his own profession : for there are po ets little enough even to envy a poet laureat." Iii 1758, Gray describes himself " as composing for his own amuse ment the little book, which lie calls a Catalogue of the An tiquities, Houses, &c. in England and Wales."T About this time, the study of architecture seems to have employ ed much of his time, in which his proficiency (as in every branch of study which lie pursued) was accurate and deep. Early in the next year the British Mu-,eurn was opened to the public, and he went to London to read and transcribe the MSS. which were there collected from the Cottontail and Harleian libraries. A folio volume of his transcripts was left among his papers. No other remarkable date oc curs 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 re fused, and the professorship was given to another ; and "so (says Gray) I have made my fortune like Sir Francis Wronghead." In the summer of 1765, lie took a journey into Scotland to improve his health, which was then weak, and to grati fy 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' excursion into the Highlands, crossing Perthshire by Loch Tay, and pursuing the road from Dunkeld to Inverness, as far as the pass of Killikran kie. Then returning to Dunkeld, he travelled on the Stir ling road to Edinburgh. In Scotland, his general shyness to men of letters was felt and complained of; but he form ed an acquaintance with Dr Beattie, which was kept up by subsequent correspondence. The university of Aberdeen was disposed to confer on hint the degree of Doctor of Laws ; but he refused it, lest it should seem a slight to his own university. At Dr Beattie's a new edition of his poems was published by Foulis at Glasgow, whilst Dodsley at the same time was printing them in London. In both these editions the long story was omitted, and some Welch and Norwegian fragments inserted in their place.