Meanwhile, Gray, indolent and irresolute though he was, had slowly laid the basis of his fame as a poet. In 1742 he wrote the sonnet to West, and the pensive and beautiful
The rest of Gray's life is summed up in his friendship, his studies and his travels. In 1756 he changed his quarters from Peterhouse to Pembroke because some undergraduates, hear ing that his fear of fire had caused him to buy a rope ladder, induced him by their cries to use it and in consequence to land himself in a tub of water. The rude prank was not followed by the proper punishment, and Gray was very in dignant. He found consolation, however, in making young friends like Norton Nicholls, in studying (1759-61) in the newly opened British Museum and in taking tours through regions marked by romantic scenery, to the beauties of which he was one of the first Eng lishmen to open his eyes appreciatively in a modern fashion. In 1764 and 1765 he visited Scotland (making friends with a fellow Ro manticist, James Beattie — q.v.), and in 1769 he paid the famous visit to the English Lakes described in his journal. In connection with his love of romantic scenery and with the mor bid temperament, which gave him his post of eminence among the °Churchyard Poets,* should be mentioned his enthusiasm for the buildings and the writings of the past — another characteristic feature of the new school of revolt from classicism. Gray was de
lighted with Macpherson's 'Ossian) and wrote in imitation of the Norse and Welsh his 'Fatal Sisters' ; 'Descent of Odin' and 'Triumphs of Owen' (published 1768). In 1762 he had ap plied for the regius professorship of history and modern languages at Cambridge, but had failed to secure it; six years later, his successful competitor having died from an accident when drunk, the post with its good salary and nomi nal duties was given to Gray. He did not wish to seem ungrateful and so, in return for the Duke of Grafton's kindness, he wrote an ode for the installation of that worthy as chancel lor of Cambridge (1 July 1769). The next year he visted London with his young friend the Swiss naturalist, Bonstetten, hut in 1771 he was forced to deny himself the pleasure of going to see this friend in his foreign home. He was taken violently ill with rout of the stomach and died on 30 July. He was buried a week later in a vault with his mother at Stoke Poges.
Despite the paucity of his poetry, Gray's position as a classic has long been secure. He is the chief English elegist and eminent as a master of the elaborate, not the simple and singing lyric. His letters are among the most charming of his period, and his notes on classi cal and mediwval authors, on genealogy, heraldry, painting, architecture, ornithology and botany show the extraordinary range of his accomplishments. His knowledge of Norse has been greatly exaggerated (cf. G. L. Kittredge in Phelps), but in certain senses Leslie Stephen did not exaggerate when he wrote in the 'Dic tionary of National Biography,' apropos of a man who could admire almost equally Shakes peare and Racine, that Gray, "the most learned of all our poets . . . was naturally an eclectic.* See ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.
For Gray's life see the biography by Mason (1774) — not that by Johnson, which is one of the worst of the 'Lives,'— and also the letters given in the edi tions of Mitford and Gosse. The latter (4 vols., 1884) is the fullest. There are numerous editions of the poems, e.g., the new 'Aldine' by John Bradshaw (1891) ; and there is a fair amount of criticism to be found in the books previously named and in Gosse's biography in the 'English Men of Letters' (1882). Add the works of Phelps and Beers on English Ro manticism in the 18th century and the histories of English literature, as well as a good essay by Lowell. Tovey's 'Gray and His Friends' con tains a considerable amount of previously un published material.