GRAY, THOMAS, was born in Cornhill on the 26th of December, 1716. He was the fifth among twelve children of a respectable citizen and money scrivener in London, and the only one of the twelve who survived the period of infancy.
Gray was sent to be educated at Eton, where a maternal uncle, of the name of Antrobus, was one of the assistant masters. It aa- • may be mentioned, that at Eton, and afterwards at Cambridge, Gray was entirely supported by his mother ; the father, who was a selfish, violent, and unprincipled man, having chosen to refuse all assistance towards his son's education. At Eton Gray made him self a good classic; and hero too began that friendship with West which, shortly terminated by the premature death of the latter, yet forma one of the most interesting features in the history of Gray's early manhood. Horace Walpole was another of his intimate asso ciates at Eton, and, removing thence to Cambridge at the same time with Gray, continued to be so there : West went to Oxford. It was in the autumn of 1735 that Gray commenced his residence at Cam bridge, having entered at Peter House; and he continued to reside till September 1738, when he left withont a degree. He professed to hate mathematics, and college discipline was irksome to him. " You must know," he writes in his second year to his friend West at Oxford, "that I do not take degrees, and, after this term, shall have nothing more of college impertinences to undergo." His time at Cambridge was devoted to classics, modern languages, and poetry ; and a few Latin poems and English translations were made by him at this period.
In the spring of 1739 Gray set out, in company with Horace Walpole, and at his request, on a tour through France and Italy. They pawed the following winter at Florence with Mr. (afterwards Sir) Horace Mann, the envoy at the court ; and after visiting Rome and Naples, and seeing the remains of Herculaneum, which had only beau discovered the year before, they passed eleven months more at Florence. While here Gray commenced his Latin poem 'De Prin. cipiis Cogitandi: But the travellers afterwards quarrelled, Gray being, as Horace Walpole has it, "too serious a companion." "I had just broke loose," says Walpole, "from the restraint of the university, with as much money as I could spend ; and I was willing to indulge myself. Gray was for antiquities, &c., whilst I was for perpetual balls and plays : the fault was mine." (' Walpollana,' i. cx.) Gray turned hie steps homewarde, and arrived in England in September 1741, just in time to be present at his father's death.
Gray had intended, on leaving Cambridge, to devote himself to the study of the law. His travels bad now, for two years and a half, diverted him from this object; and after his father's death he appears entirely to have given it up. He went to reside at Cambridge for the professed purpose of taking the degree of Bachelor of Civil. Law, but continued to reside there after taking the degree. Enjoying oppor tunities of books which he could not command elsewhere, he devoted himself with much ardour to the perusal of the classics, and at the same time cultivated his muse. The 'Ode to Spring' was written in
1742, and sent, like most of his previous compositions, to West, who however had died before it reached him; and in the autumn of the same year, were written the ' Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton Col lege,' and Use Hymn to Adversity.' The 'Elegy in a Country Church yard' was also commenced at this period, but not finished till seven years afterwards. In the meanwhile tho Ode to Eton College' had been published (being the first of Gray's pnblicatious) in 1747, and little notice had been taken of it. The 'Elegy,' published in 1749, rapidly obtained an extensive popularity.
In March 1753 Gray lost his mother, for whom he had always felt the strongest affection, and whom, according to Mr. Mason, he seldom afterwards mentioned without a sigh. During the three years follow ing Horace Walpole observes that Gray was 'in flower.' The Ode on the Progrs as of Poetry' and the Bard' were then written. But it was during these three years also that a material change for the worse took place in Gray's health, and that he began to be visited with alarming attacks of the gout, which embittered the remainder of Lis days, and ultimately carried him oft In 1756 Gray having experienced some incivilities at Peter House, removed, or (in the technical phrase) migrated to Pembroke Hall. In 1757 he took his last two odes to London to be published. They were not eminently successful. But Gray's reputation had been already established; and on the death of Cibber in the same year he was offered the laureateship by the Duke of Devonshire, which how ever he refused. Ile applied himself now for some time to the study of architecture ; and from him Mr. Bentham derived much valuable assistance in his well-known ' History of Ely.' In 1765 ho visited Scotland, and was there received with many signs of honour. The University of Aberdeen proposed to confer ou him the degree of Doctor of Laws; but he declined the honour, thinking that it might appear a slight and contempt of his own university, where he says "he passed so many easy and happy hours of his life, where he had once lived from choice, and contined to do so from obligation." In 1768 the professorship of modern history at Cambridge became vacant, And Gray, who on the occasion of the preceding vacancy had applied unsuccessfully, was now appointed by the Duke of Grafton. In the succeeding year the Duke of Grafton was elected chancellor of the university, and Gray wrote the installation ode, a poem which, con sidering the subject and the occasion, is singularly chaste and free from flattery. In the spring of 1770 illness overtook him, as he was projecting a tour in Wales; but recovering, he was able to effect thu tour in the autumn. His respite however was but a short one ; and having suffered for some months previous from a violent cough and great depression of spirits, he was suddenly seized, on the 24th of July 1771, with an attack of the gout in the stomach, which caused his death on the 30th of the same month. He died in his fifty-fifth year.