The life of Gray is one singularly (even for an author) devoid of variety and incident. It is the life of a student giving himself up to learning, and moreover accounting it an end in itself, and its own exceeding great reward. For it is not so much that he kept aloof from the active pursuits of life for the purpose of authorship, as that he comparatively sacrificed even this and the fame which belongs to it, by devoting his time almost entirely to reading. Writing was with him the exception, and that too a rare one. His life was spent in the acquisition of knowledge; and there is no doubt that he was a man of considerable learning. His acquaintance with the classics was profound and extensive. He had thought at one time of publishing an edition of Strube ; and he left behind him many notes and geo graphical disquisitions, which, together with notes on Plato and Aristophanes, were edited by Mr. Mathias. He was besides a very skilful zoologist and botanist. His knowledge of architecture has been already mentioned. He was well versed moreover in heraldry, and was a diligent antiquarian.
He wrote little ; but as is often the case with those who write little, the little that he wrote was written with great care. Thus his poems, with tho exception of one or two of a humorous character, are all much elaborated; and it follows that the quality which they chiefly display is taste. Gray was indeed emphatically a mau of taste. Ho did not possess, as has been loosely said by many of his admirers, a vivid and luxuriant imagination, else he would in all probability have written more.
A scanty writer, Gray was also a scanty converser ; and we learn from Horace Walpole that his conversation partook also of the studied character of his writing. Writing on one occasion to Mr. Montagu,
Walpole says, "My Lady Aileshury has been much diverted, and so will you too. Gray Is in their neighbourhood. They went a party to dine on a cold loaf, and passed the day. Lady A. protests he never opened his lips but once, and then only said, Yes, my lady, I believo so.'" But Walpole wrote for effect, and so that that was attained he paid little regard to veracity. Yet it may be taken for granted that the anecdote, however exaggerated, bore some semblance of proba bility. With his intimate friends Gray was certainly less reserved; and to them his conversation was learned and witty. It is unneces sary, after the account which has been given of Gray's life, to dwell on the amiability of his character, his affectionateness, and humility.
His friend Mason the poet published a Memoir of Gray, and also his Letters, which have served as the basis of the subsequent lives of Gray. An edition of Gray's works, containing, as has been said, his classical notes and disquisitions, as well as his poems and letters, was published by Mr. Mathias, in 2 vols. 4to, in 1814. An edition of his poems and letters alone has been published by Mr. Mitford, first in 1816, in 2 vols. 4to, and very recently in 4 vols. 12mo. To both of Mr. Mitford's editions is prefixed a memoir of Gray, which is on the whole the best that has appeared; but a more valuable addition to our stock of information respecting Gray was afforded by an edition of ' Gray's Correspondence with Mason,' &c., published by Mr. Mitford in 1853, and which showed what had not previously been suspected, that Mason used a most unwarrantable licence in printing the Letters of Cray, by altering them in various ways to suit his own notions.