Poetical works
UC-NRLF B M IDfi D7fi . v^:,~^v. „v msimm^ ^'J>^Wvy-;i:^;"1' r 1 ■■ ■ ,v^ . ;m ,--v-^1|-^^-?V /Sii|i»' w^ :-^ ^m^tW'. V -^ --;'- :. » V. V'^'v,^ |: •ijafe 1 ^v^'"^ '^^vdW-W' hi ' y ^ w^ i ■>''-', \jV\jV , v»v, ■•■' •■; *¥ '/' ■.■^"''■.■' t^ ^^ 1 i i ^yj^r^v: \amce Ik. fIDoffirt :.^??r:?:x<r:/..;7--^^^ - N0JI4 PAULINE FORE MOFFITT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GENERAL LIBRARY, BERKELEY ^r^^^m m^-mm WM K^- /. THE POETICAL WORKS OF THOMAS GRAY r WITH A LIFE BY THE REV. JOHN MITFORD LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS YORK STREET COVENT GABDEN 1876 CHISWICK PRESS I— PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. Ad^ to Lib.- GIFT TRssoo Asms TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ. THIS EDITION OF GRAY IS INSCRIBED WITH FEELINGS OF RESPECT AND ESTEEM BY THE EDITOR. 38:1 SONNET. A LOXELY Man he was, from whom these lays Flow'd in his cloister'd musings : He in scorn Held them, the unfeeling multitude, who born For deeds of nobler purpose, their ripe days Waste amidst fraud ful industry, to raise Inglorious wealth. — But He, life's studious morn Gave to the Muse, so best might he adorn His thoughtful brow, with never-dying bays. And well the Muse repay 'd him. She hath given An unsubstantial world of richer fee ; High thoughts, unchanging visions, that the leaven Of earth partake not ; — Rich then must he be. Who of this cloudless world, this mortal heaven, Possesseth in his right the Sovereignty. CONTENTS. Page Memoir of Gray, by the Rcy. J. Mitford 1 Appendix to the Memoir xciii POEMS. Ode. On the Spring I -Ode. On the Death of a favourite Cat, drowned in a 1 ubof Gold Fishes 6 Ode. On a Distant Prospect of Eton College 10 Hymn to Adversity l7 The Progress of Poesy 22 The Bard 38 Ode for Music 6] The Fatal Sisters 70 The Vegtam's Kivitha ; or, the Descent of Odin 75 The Triumphs of Owen 84 The Death of Hoel 87 -Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard West 90 Epitaph on Mrs. Jane Clarke 91 Epitaph on Sir William Williams 93 —Elegy written in a Country Churchyard 94 A Long Story jjl POSTHUMOUS POEMS AND FRAGMENTS. Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude 120 Translation of a Passage from Statius 126 The Fragment of a Tragedy, on the Subject of the Death of Agrippina 12S Hymn to Ignorance ..^, 140 The Alliance of Education and Government 143 Stanzas to Mr. Bentley 153 Sketch of his own Character, found in one of his Pocket Books 155 Amatory Lines 156 Song 15r lophet. An Epigram 159 Impromptu, on the Seat of a deceased Nobleman ICl -The Candidate ,.,.„,.,, 163 X CONTENTS. • EXTRACTS. Page I'ropertius, Lib. iii. Eleg. v 165 Propertius, Lib. ii. Eleg. i 167 Tasso Gerus. Lib. cant, xiv 170 POEM ATA. Hymeneal on the Marriage t His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales 173 Luna Habitabilis 177 Sapphic Ode: To Mr. West 183 A.lcaic Fragment 187 Latin Lines, addressed to Mr. West, from Genoa 188 Elegiac Verses, occasioned by the sight of the Plains where the Battle of Trebia was fought 188 Carmen ad C. Favonium Zephyriuiim 189 Fragment of a Latin Poem on the Gaurus 192 A Farewell to Florence 196 Imitation of an Italian Sonnet of Signior Abbate Buondel- monte 197 Alcaic Ode 198 Part of an Heroic Epistle from Sophonisba to Masinissa 200 De Principiis Cogitandi, Liber Primus 204 Liber Quartus 216 Greek Epigram 218 EXTRACTS. Petrarca, Part I. Sonetto 170 219 From the Anthologia Grasca : In Baccha; Furentis Statuam 220 In Alexandrum, aere effictum 220 In Mede» Imaginem, Nobile Timomachi Opus 220 In Niobes Statuam 221 A Nymph offering a Statue of herself to Venus 221 In Amorem Dormientem 221 From a Fragment of Plato 222 In Fontem Aquae Calidse 222 " Irrepsisse suas murem," &c 223 " Hanc tibi Ruhnus mittit," «&c 223 Ad Amorem usu THE LIFE OF THOMAS GRAY. BY JOHN MITFORD. Thomas Gray, the subject of the present narrative, was the fifth child of Mr. Phihp Gray, a respect- able citizen and money-scrivener in London. His grandfather was also a considerable merchant in that place. The maiden name of his mother was Dorothy Antrobus. Thomas was born in Cornhill^ the 26th of December, 1716; and was the only one of twelve children who survived. The rest died in their infancy, from suffocation, produced by a full- ness of blood ; and he owed his life to a memorable instance of the love and courage of his mother, who removed the paroxysm, which attacked him, by opening a vein with her own hand : an instance of affection that seems to have been most tenderly preserved by him through his after life, repaid with care and attention, and remembered when the ob- ject of his filial solicitudes could no longer claim them. Mason informs us, "that Gray seldom men- tioned his mother without a sigh." He was educated at Eton, under the protection of Mr. Antrobus, his maternal uncle, who was at b 11 LIFE OF GRAY. that time assistant to Dr. George, and also a fel- low of Pembroke College, at Cambridge, where Gray was admitted as a pensioner in 1734, in his nineteenth year. I should be unwilling to pass over this period of his life, without mentioning that while at Eton, as well as at Cambridge, he depended for his entire support on the affection and firmness of his mother ; who, when his father had refused all assistance, cheerfully maintained him on the scanty produce of her separate industry. At Eton his friendship with Horace Walpole, and more parti- cularly with Richard West,* commenced. In him he met with one, who, fro*n the goodness of his heart, the sincerity of his friendship, and the ex- cellent cultivation of his mind, was worthy of his warmest attachment. The purity of taste, indeed, as well as the proficiency in literature which the letters of West display, were remarkable at his age ; * Richard West was the son of the right honourable Richard West, lord chancellor of Ireland ; who died in 1727 or 1728, aged 36 ; and his grandfather, by the mother's side, was Bishop Burnet. His father was the maternal uncle of Glover the poet, and is supposed to be the author of a tragedy called ' Hecuba,' published in 1726. Mason says that, when at school, West's genius was thought to be more brilliant than his friend's. A portrait of the father is in the hall of the Inner Temple, given by Richard Glover. He was appointed Lord Chancellor in the reign of George the First, in 1725. He wrote on Treasons and Bills of Attainder, also on the Manner of Creating Peers. See this last tract highly praised in Quarterly Review, No. Ixxxiv. p. .S03. See King's poem, The Toast, p. 117. LIFE OF GRAY. Ill and his studious and pensive habits of mind, his uncertain health, and his early and untimely death have all contributed to throw '' a melancholy grace" over the short and interesting narrative of his life. With him, for the period of eight years. Gray en- joyed what the moralist calls " the most virtuous as well as the happiest of all attachments — the wise security of friendship : * Par studiis, aevique mo- dis.' " Latterly, when West's health was declining, and his prospects in life seemed clouded and un- certain, Gray's friendship was affectionate and an- xious, and only terminated by the early death of his friend in his twenty-sixth year. When Gray removed to Peter House, Horace Walpole* went to King's College in the same uni- versity, and West to Christ Church at Oxford From this period the life of Gray is conducted by his friend and biographer Mr. Mason, through the * In H. Walpole's Works are some letters between West and Walpole at College (vol. iv. p. 411). The intimacy be- tween Gray, Walpole, West, and Asheton, was called the quadruple alliance ; and they passed by the names of Ty- deus, Orosmades, Almanzor, and Plato. Thomas Asheton was afterwards fellow of Eton College, rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate Street, and preacher to the Society of Lincoln's Inn. He wrote an answer to a work of Dr. Conyers Mid- dleton. Walpole addressed a poetical epistle from Florence to him. See Gray's Letters ; and Walpole's Works, vol, v. p. 386. Asheton died in 1775. His niece of the same name married Dr. William Cleaver, Bishop of St. Asaph. See an account of him in Sir Egerton Brydges's Restituta, vol. iv, p. 249. IF LIFE OF GRAY. medium of his Letters;* concerning- which it may be said, that from the humour, the elegance, and the classical taste displayed in them ; from the al- ternate mixture of serious argument, animated des- cription, just criticism, and playful expression; not- withstanding the incidents of his life were pecu- liarly few in number, nor any of them remarkable, yet a more interesting publication of the kind never appeared in English literature. Gray's Letters commence, as I have said, from the time when he left Eton for Cambridge ; but from them it is difficult to trace the line of study which he pursued at College. His letters treat chiefly of his poetry, and other private pursuits ; and he seems to have withdrawn himself entirely from the severity of mathematical studies, and to have confined his inquiries to classical literature, to the acquisition of modern languages, to history, and other branches of w^hat is called polite learning. West describes himself and his friend as walking hand in hand, " Through many a flow'ry path and shelly grot, Where Learning lull'd us in her private maze." During ^Gray's residence at College, from 1734 to September, 1738, his poetical productions were — ' A Copy of Latin Verses,' inserted in the ' Muscb * Mason followed the plan of C. Middleton in his Life of Cicero, and of Quirini in his Life of Cardinal Pole. See Fye's Life of Pole, p. 177. LIFE OF GRAY. V Etonenses ; another ' On the Marriage of the Prince of Wales ;' and ' A Sapphic Ode to West.' A small part of his ' Translation from Statius,' Mr. Mason has given ; but has withheld a Latin Ver- sion of the ' Care Selve beate of the Pastor Fido, and an English Translation of part of the fourteenth canto of Tasso's ' Gerusalemme Liherata,' which is inserted in the present edition. From September till the following March, Gray resided at his fa- ther's house : but his correspondence with West, who was then with his mother at Epsom, his bio- grapher has thought it unnecessary to insert. At the request of Horace Walpole, Gray ac- companied him in his travels through France and Italy, and deferred his intended study of the law. From letters to his friend West, and to his own family, we have an account of his pursuits while abroad. He seems to have been, as we might have expected, a very studious and diligent traA'^eller. His attention was directed to all the works of art that were curious and instructive. Architecture both of Gothic and Grecian origin, painting, and music, were all studied by him. He appears to have applied diligently to the language ; nor did the manners and customs of the inhabitants escape his attention. Like Addison, he compared with the descriptions of ancient authors the modern appear- ance of the countries through which he passed. There are, indeed, few gratifications more exquisite than those which we experience in being able to VI LIFE OF GRAY. identify the scenes, and realize the descriptions, which have been long consecrated in the mind by genius and by virtue ; which have supplied the fancy with its earliest images, and are connected in the memory with its most lasting associations. In such moments as these, we appear to be able sud- denly to arrest the progress and lessen the devas- tations of time. We hardly contemplate with regret the ages that have passed in silence and oblivion ; and we behold, for the first time, the fading and faint descriptions of language, stamped with the fresh impressions of reality and truth. The letters which Gray wrote from Italy were not intended for publication, and do not contain a regular account of the observations which he made : but are rather detached and entertaining descriptions, intended for the amusement of his friends at home. Every thing w^hich he thought of importance was com- mitted to his journal. " He catalogued," says Mr. Mason, " and made occasional short remarks on the pictures which he saw. He wrote a minute des- cription of every thing which he saw in his tour from Rome to Naples ; as also of the environs of Rome, Florence, &c. They abound with many un- common remarks, and pertinent classical quota- tions." The route chosen by the travellers was one usually taken : — from Paris, through Rheims (where they stayed three months, principally to accustom them- selves to the French language) to Lyons, whence LIFE OF GRAY. Vll they took a short excursion to Geneva, over the mountains of Savoy; and by Turin, Genoa, and Bologna to Florence. There they passed the win- ter in the company of Mr. Horace Mann, the envoy at that court.* In March, 1740, Clement the Twelfth, then Pope, died ; and they hastened their journey to Rome, in the hope of seeing the instal- lation of his successor.! That Gray would have wished to have extended his travels, and enlarged his prospect beyond these narrow limits, if he had possessed the power, we know from his subsequent advice to a friend who was commencing his travels : " Tritum viatorum compitum calca, et, cum poteris, desere." And the following passage sketches the outline of an Italian tour, which, I believe, few of our travellers have ever completed : *' I conclude, when the winter is over, and you have seen Rome and Naples, you will strike out of the beaten path of English travellers, and see a little of the coun- try. Throw yourselves into the bosom of the Apen- nine ; survey the horrid lake of Amsanctus ; catch the breezes on the coast of Taranto and Salerno ; expatiate to the very toe of the continent ; perhaps strike over the faro of Messina ; and having mea- sured the gigantic columns of Girgenti and the * See Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 423. Sir Horace Mann died in 1786 at Florence, where he had resided forty- six years as his Britannic Majesty's minister, at the Court of the Grand Duke. t Ibid. p. 440. Vlll LIFE OF GRAY. tremendous cavern of Syracusa, refresh yourselves amidst the frag-rant vale of Enna. — Oh! che bel riposo /" In May, after a visit to the Frascati and the Cascades of Tivoli, Gray sent his heautiful ' Alcaic Ode' to West. In June he made a short excursion to Naples ; and was charmed with the sceneiy that presented itself in that most delightful climate. He describes the large old fig-trees, the oranges in bloom, the myrtles in every hedge, and the vines hanging in festoons from tree to tree. He must have been among the first English travellers who visited the remains of Herculaneum,* as it was dis- covered only the preceding year ; and he pointed out to his companion, the description in Statius that pictured the latent city : " Hsec ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam Litoribus, fractas ubi Vesbius egerit iras, * Some excavations were made in Herculaneum in 1709 by the Prince D'Elbeuf : but thirty years elapsed after the orders given to the Prince to dig no farther, before any more notice was taken of them. In December, 1738, the King of the two Sicilies was at Portici, and gave orders for a prosecution of the subterraneous labours. There was an excavation in the time of the Romans ; and another in 1689. In a letter from H. Walpole to West on this subject (see Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 448), dated Naples, June 14, 1740, is a passage which shows Mr, Mason's conjecture, that the travellers did not recognise the ancient town of Hercula- neum by name, to be unfounded. H. Walpole calls it by that name in his letter. LIFE OF GRAY. IX vEmula Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis. Mira fides ! credetne virum ventura propago, Cum segetes iterum, cum jam haec deserta virebunt, Infra urbes, populosque premi V Statii Sylv. IV. iv. 78.* At Naples the travellers stayed ten days ; and Gray's next letter to his father, in which he talks of his return to England, is dated again from Flo- rence ; and whence he sent, soon after, his Poem on the ' Gaurus' to West. He remained, however, at that place about eleven months ; and during- this time commenced his Latin poem * De Principiis Cogitandi.' He then set off with Walpole, on the 24th of April, for Bologna and Reggio,t at the latter of which towns an unfortunate difference took place between them, and they parted. The exact cause of this quarrel has been passed over by the delicacy of his biographer, because H. Walpole was alive when the Memoirs of Gray were written. The former, however, charged himself with the chief blame ; and lamented that he had not paid more attention and deference to Gray's superior judg- * See also Martial. Epig, Lib. iv. Ep. 43, ed. Delph, and the note by Stephens on Statii Sylv. v. 3. 205, p. 155. Jamque et flere pio Vesuvina incendia cantu Mens erat, &c. t Dr. Johnson has two slight mistakes in his * Life of Gray.' He says that they quarrelled at Florence and parted, instead of Reggio, He says also, that Gray began his poem ' De Principiis Cogitandi ' after his return : but it was com- menced in the winter of 1740, at Florence. X LIFE OF GRAY. ment and prudence. In the 'Walpoliana (vol. i. p. 95, art. ex.) is the following passage : ** The quarrel between Gray and me arose from his being too serious a companion. I had just broke loose from the restraint of the University, with as much money as I could spend ; and I was willing to in- dulge myself. Gray was for antiquities, &c. ; whilst I was for perpetual balls and plays ; — the fault was mine." Perhaps the freedom of friend- ship spoke too openly to please : for in a letter from Walpole to Mr. Bentley, some years afterwards, he says : '* I was accustomed to flattery enough when my father was minister : at his fall I lost it all at once : and since that I have lived with Mr. Chute, w^ho is all vehemence ; wdth Mr. Fox, who is all disputation ; with Sir C. Williams, who has no time from flattery, himself; and with Gray, who does not hate to Jind fault with me.''* Whatever w^as the cause of this quarrel, it must have been very serious, if the information is correct which is given in the manuscript of the Rev. W. Cole, a person who appears to have lived in terms of intimacy wdth * See Walpole's Works, vol. v. p. 334. In a letter from Gray to Walpole in 1751, is a sentence which seems to point towards this quarrel : " It is a tenet with me, (he says) — a simple one, you will perhaps say, — that if ever two people who love one another come to breaking, it is for want of a timely eclaircissement, a full and precise one, without wit- nesses or mediators, and without reserving one disagreeable circumstance for the mind to brood upon in silence." See Walpole's Works, vol. v. p. 389. LIFE OF GRAY. xi Gray during the latter part of his life. " When matters (he says) were made up between Gray and Walpole, and the latter asked Gray to Strawberry Hill, when he came, he without any ceremony told Walpole, that he came to wait on him as civility required, but by no means would he ever be there on the terms of his former filendship, which he had totally cancelled." Such is the account given by Mr. Cole, and which I suppose is worthy of credit : at any rate, it does not seem at all inconsistent with the independence and manly freedom which always accompanied the actions and opinions of Gray.* Having thus lost his companion, and, with the separation of friendship, all inducement to remain abroad. Gray went immediately to Venice, and re- turned through Padua and Milan, following almost the same road through France, which he had tra- velled before. If he sent any letters to West on his return, f it was not thought requisite to publish them : those to his father were only accounts of his health and safety. Though he returned to England * For a further elucidation of this subject, the reader is referred to the second volume of this Work, p. 174-5, where I have stated what are the supposed causes of the quarrel ; and the terms of the reconciliation will be best learned, from the expressions which Gray uses in his letter to Mr. Whar- ton on this subject. t Some letters from Walpole to West, while the former was on his travels with Gray, are in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 419—463. There is one letter from Reggio, May 10th, but not mentioning any quarrel, nor even Gray by name. XU LIFE Oh GRAY. as Speedily and directly as he could, yet he once diverged from his way, between Turin and Lyons, again to contemplate the wild and magnificent sce- nery that surrounded the Grande Chartreuse ; and in the Album of the Fathers he wrote his beautiful ' Alcaic Ode,' which bears strong marks of pro- ceeding from a mind deeply impressed with the solemnity of the situation ; where '* every precipice and cliff was pregnant with religion and poetry."* In two months after the return of Gray in 1741, his father died,t his constitution being worn out by repeated attacks of the gout ; and Gray's filial duty was now solely directed to his mother. To the friend who condoled with Pope on his father's death, he answered in the pious language of Euiyalus, — " Genitrix est mihi," — and Gray, in the like cir- cumstances, assuredly felt no less the pleasure that arose from contributing to preserve the life and happiness of a parent. With a small fortune, which her husband's imprudence had materially impaired, J Mrs. Gray and a maiden sister retired to the house • See Letter XI. dated Turin, November 16, 173}. t Gray came to town about the 1 st of September, 1741. His father died on the 6th of November following, at the age of 65. Mason t Mr. Philip Gray built a country house at Wanstead, at a very considerable expense, which was sold after his death at £2000 less than its original cost. It was purchased by Alderman Ball, who was still resident in it in 1776. Isaac Reed. LIFE OF GRAY. Xlll of Mrs. Rogers,* another sister, at Stoke, near Windsor : and Gray, thinking his fortune not suf- ficient to enable him to prosecute the study of the law, and yet unwilling to hurt the feelings of his mother, by appearing entirely to forsake his pro- fession, changed or pretended to change the line of study, and went to Cambridge to take his degree in civil law. That in his own mind, however, he had entirely given up all thoughts of his profession, seems to appear from a letter to West : ^' Alas, for one (he says) who has nothing to do but to amuse himself! I believe my amusements are as little amusing as most folks ; but no matter, it makes the hours pass, and is better than kv afxadioi Kal aixov- (TL^ K'ara/3iwvai." " But the narrowness of his circumstances," says Mr. Mason, " was not the only thing that dis> tressed him at this period. He had, as we hare seen, lost the friendship of Mr. Walpole abroad. He had also lost much time in his travels ; a loss which application could not easily retrieve, when so severe and laborious a study as that of the Common Law was to be the object of it ; and he well knew that whatever improvement he might have made in this interval, either in taste or science, such improve- ment would stand him in little stead with regard to his present situation and exigencies. This was not * Mason describes Mrs. Rogers as the widow of a clergy, man, but Isaac Reed, in a MS. note, has said that he was a gentleman of the law. XIV LIFE OF GRAY. all : his other friend, Mr. West, he found on his return oppressed by sickness and a load of family misfortunes. These the sympathizing heart of Mr. Gray made his own. He did all in his power (for he was now with him in London) to soothe the sor- rows of his friend, and try to alleviate them by every office of the purest and most perfect affection : but his cares were vain. The distresses of Mr. West's mind had already too far affected a body from the first weak and delicate." West was indeed at this time rapidly declining in health, and had gone into Hertfordshire for the benefit of the air. To him Gray sent part of his Tragedy of ' Agrippina,' then commenced ; and which, Mr. Mason thinks, was suggested by a fa- vourable impression left on his mind from a repre- sentation of the Britannicus of Racine. His friend objected to the length of Agrippina's speech ; and the Fragment is now published, not exactly as Gray left it, but altered by Mr. Mason from the suggestions of West. The plan of this play seems to have been drawn after the model of the plays of Racine ; though it displays perhaps more spirit and genius than ever informed the works of that ele- gant and correct tragedian. Mr. Mason, in a letter to Dr. Beattie, mentions among the Poetry left by Gray, " the opening scene of a tragedy called Agrip- pina, with the first speech of the second, written much in Racine's manner, and with many masterly LIFE OF GRAY. XV strokes."* The language resembles rather that of Rowe or Addison, than of Shakespeare ; though it is more highly wrought, and more closely com- pacted. If finished, it would, I think, have de- lighted the scholar in the closet ; but it is too des- criptive to have pleased upon the stage. Ba<77-a- ^ovrat M ol avayvioffTLKoi Kat 7rapa/3aXXo- fxevoi, 01 fxey tujv ypa(J)iK<jjy, kv roig ayoicn (TTevot (pairovTaL.f Gray now employed himself in the perusal of the ancient authors. He mentions that he was reading Thucydides, Theocritus, and Anacreon. He trans- lated some parts of Propertius with great elegance of language and versification, and selected for his Italian studies the poetry of Petrarch. He wrote an Heroic Epistle in Latin, in imitation of the man- ner of Ovid ; and a Greek Epigram, which he communicated to West : to whom also in the sum- mer, when he retired to his family at Stoke, he sent * I have said that Gray kept an attentive eye upon Racine during the composition of his tragedy ; an assertion, I thinK, that the notes will serve to prove : but the learned Mr. Twi- ning, in his notes on Aristotle's Poetics, (p. Gray so strongly to a poet whose genius was so little analo- gous to his own. I must confess T cannot, even in the Dra- matic Fragment given us by Mr. Mason, discover any other resemblance to Racine, than in the length of the speeches. The fault, indeed, is Racine's; its beauties are surely of a higher order," &c. t Aristotelis Rhetorica, lib. y. cap. xii. XVI LIFE OF GRAY. his * Ode to Spring-,' which was written there, but which did not arrive in Hertfordshire till after the death of his beloved friend. * West died only twenty days after he had written the Letter to Gray, which concludes with " Vale, et vive paulisper cum vms." So little (says Mr. Mason) was the ami- able youth then aware of the short time that he himself would be numbered amongst the living. I shall here insert a very correct and judicious criticism, on a censure made by Johnson of an expression in Gray's Ode to Spring, by the late * West was buried in the chancel of Hatfield church, be- neath a stone, with the following epitaph : " Here heth the body of Richard West, esq. only son of the right honourable Richard West, esq. lord chancellor of Ireland, who died the 1st of June, 1742, in the 26th year of his age." West's poems have never been fuU}'^ collected. There is one, * An Ode to jNIary Magdalene,' in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 419 : another in Dalr3-mple's Songs, p. 142. In the Euro- pean Magazine for January, 1798, p. 45, is a poem said to be written by him, called ' Damon to Philomel ;' and a Copy of Verses on his Death, supposed to be written by his uncle. Judge Burnet. In Walpole's Works, vol. i. p. 204, is a well known epigram which was written by West, ' Time and Thomas Hearne,' which was printed by Mr. Walpole in a paper intended for the ' W^orld,' but not sent, and which is commonly attributed to Swift. It appears also, that part of the tragedy of Pausanias is extant in MS. See the editor's note in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 458 ; also his translation of Tibullus. See Mason's Gray, vol. i. p 22. The collection of his poems by Dr. Anderson, in the edition of the British Poets, is very incomplete : and Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in his subsequent edition, has omitted them entirely. LIFE OF GRAY. Xvii Lord Grenville, a criticism which does credit to his Lordship's learning and taste.* ** ' There has of late arisen,' says Johnson, in his Life of Gray, ' a practice of giving to adjectives de- rived from substantives, the termination of parti- ciples : such as the cultured plain, the daisied bank ; but I was sorry to see in the lines of a scholar like Gray, the honied spring.' " A scholar, like Johnson, might have remem- bered that mellitus is used by Catullus, Cicero, and Horace, and that honied itself is found both in Shakspeare and in Milton. But to say nothing of the general principles of all language, how could the writer of an English Dictionary be ignorant that the ready conversion of our substantives into verbs, participles, and participial adjectives, is of the very essence of our own tongue, derived to it from its Saxon origin, and a main source of its energy and richness ? " 1st. in the instances of verbs and participles, this is too obvious to be dwelt upon for a moment. Such verbs as to plough, to witness, to pity, to ornament, together with the participles regularly formed from them are among the commonest words in our language. Shakspeare, in a ludicrous but expressive phrase, has converted even a proper name into a participle of this description : ' Pe- tpuchio,' he says, ' is kated.' — The epithet of a * See Nugse Metricae, by Lord Grenville, privately printed. XVUl LIFE OF GRAY. hectoring fellow is a more familiar instance of a participle similarly formed, though strangely dis- torted in its use to express a meaning almost the opposite of its original. " 2ndly. These participles of verbs thus derived, like all other participles, when used to denote ha- bitual attributes, pass into adjectives. Winged, feathered, thatched, painted, and innumerable others are indiscriminately used in both these forms, according to the construction of the sentence, and its context. And the transition is so easy, that in many passages it may be doubted to which of these two parts of speech such words should pro- perly be referred. " 3rdly. Between these participial adjectives, and those w'hich Johnson condemns, there is the closest analogy. Both are derived from substan- tives ; and both have the termination of partici- ples. The latter, such w^ords for instance, as honied, daisied, tapestried, slippered, and the like, differ from the others only in not being referable to any yet established verb ; but so little material is the difference, that there is hardly one of these cases, in which the corresponding verb might not, if it were wanted, be formed and used, in strict conformity wath the genius of our language. Su- gard is an epithet frequent in our ancient poetry, and its use was properly long anterior to that of the verb, of which it now appears to be a parti- ciple. But that verb has since been fully adopted into our language. We now sugar our cups, as LIFE OP GRAY. XIX freely as our ancestors spiced and drugged them, and no reason can be assigned, why, if such were our practice, we might not also honey them, with equal propriety of speech. " 4thly. On the same analogy we form another very numerous and very valuable class of adjectives, compound epithets, derived like the others, from substantives, and like them terminating as parti- ciples, but having prefixed to them the signification of some additional attribute. Such are in common speech, four-footed, open-hearted, short-sighted, good-natured, and the like. In poetry we trace them from the well-envyned franklin of Chaucer, through the most brilliant pages of all his suc- cessors to the present hour. What reader of Shakspeare or Milton needs to be reminded of even-handed, high-flighted, and trumpet-tongued; orof full-voiced, flowery-kirtled, and fiery-wheeled? All these expressive and beautiful combinations, Johnson's canon would banish from our language. " His criticism therefore recoils on himself. The poet has followed the usage of his native tongue, and the example of its best masters. The gramma- rian appears unacquainted both with its practice and its principles. The censure serves only to be- tray the evil passions, which in a very powerful and well-intentioned, but very ill-regulated mind, the success of a contemporary had been permitted to excite. " The true spirit indeed of this criticism appears with no less force in what almost immediately XX LIFE OF GRAY. follows, where Johnson attempts to ridicule a pas- sage which few other men have read without de- light, Gray's beautiful invocation of the Thames, in the Ode on Eton College—' Say, Father Thames,' &c. * This is useless,' he says, ' and puerile.' Father Thames had no better means of ' knowing than himself.' He forgets his own address to the Nile in Rasselas, for a purpose so very similar ; and he expects his readers to forget one of the most affecting passages in Virgil. Father Thames might well know as much of the sports of boys as the ' great Father of Waters ' knew of the discon- tents of men, or the Tiber himself of the obsequies of Marcellus." In the autumn of 1742, Gray composed the ode on ' A distant Prospect of Eton College,' and the ' Hymn to Adversity.' The ' Elegy in a Country Church-yard ' was commenced. An affectionate Sonnet in English, and an Apostrophe which opens the fourth book of his poem * De Principiis Cogi- tandi,' (his last composition in Latin verse,) bear strong marks of the sorrow left on his mind from the death of West ; and of the real affection with which he honoured the memory of his worth, and of his talents. Mr. Mason thinks that Gray did not finish this poem, on account of the unfavourable reception, or rather neglect, of the Anti-Lucretius * of the Car- * This poem had the honour of being corrected by Boi- leau, and altered bv Louis the XlVth. The author was so LIFE OF GRAY. XXI dinal Melchior de Polignac ; a poem which had been long' expected, and appeared about that time. The failure, however, of M. de Polignac's poem may be attributed partly to its length, (for it contains above thirteen thousand verses,) and to a want of suffi- cient variety and digression in the composition. The versification is not always finished and com- pact, and the language has lost much of its elegance in the endeavour to accommodate it with precision to the subject. Gray's residence at Cambridge was now conti- nued, not from any partiality to the place where he received his education, but partly from the scanti- ness of his income, and in a great measure, no doubt, for the convenience which its libraries af- forded.* Original composition he almost entirely long employed on it, and recited it so often, that many parts were stolen, and inserted in the works of other authors. Le Clerc got a fragment by heart, and published it in one of his literary journals. The cardinal died while his work was un- finished, and before he could add two more books to it against the Deists. See Anecdotes par Grimm, vol. i. p. 455. The line written under Franklin's picture, " Eripuit ccelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis" — is an imitation of one in the Anti- Lucretius, " Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, Phoeboque sagittas," * In a note to the Spital Sermon, p. 117, Dr. Parr says : " After the opportunities which Mr. Gray enjoyed, and of which he doubtless had availed himself, for observing the state of literature and the characters of literary men upon the Continent, he did not merely visit the University, but fixed his chief residence there. And of a choice to which be adhered so steadily and so long, the scantiness of his for- XXU LTFE OF GRAY. neglected ; but his time was so assiduously occu- pied in a reg-ular and studious perusal of the best Greek authors, that in six years he had read all the writers of eminence in that language, digesting and arranging their contents, remarking their pecu- liarities, and noting their corrupt and difficult pas- sages with great accuracy and diligence. In the winter of 1742, he was admitted a bachelor of civil law ; and a short recreation of his studies appears in a ' Fragment of an Address to Ignorance,' which contains a satire on the University where he re- sided,* whose system of education he always dis- liked and ridiculed, and against which he used to tune, the love of books, and the easy access he had to them in many libraries, will hardly be considered as the sole mo- tives." Dr. Parr, however, does not assign any other motives that influenced Gray, in his choice of the University for a residence. Nee tu credideris urbanae coramoda vitae Quaerere Nasonem, quaerit et ilia tamen. Ov. Ep. ex Pont. 1. 8. 29 * In p. 117 of the Spital Sermon, Dr. Parr says • " At that very time in which Mr. Gray spoke so contemptuously of Cambridge, that very University abounded in men of erudition and science, with whom the first scholars would not have disdained to converse : and who shall convict me of exaggeration, when I bring forward the names of Bentley, Davies, Asheton— of Jesus : Provost Snape, Middleton, Tunstall the public orator, Baker— of St. John's: Edmund Law, John Taylor, Thomas Johnson, VVaterland, Whaley Cafterwards regius professor of divinity). Smith (the ne- phew of Cotes), afterwards master of Trinity, Roger Long, Colson, the correspondent of Sir Isaac Newton, and Pro- fessor Saundersonl" LIFE OF GRAY. XXI 11 speak 80 openly, as to create many enemies. It is plain, from his Letters, that he thought the atten- tion and time bestowed there on mathematical and metaphysical pursuits, would have been more pro- fitably spent in classical studies. There is some re- semblance in the style of this Fragment to part of Pope's Dunciad ; the fourth book of which had ap- peared but a year or two before : and Gray, I should think, had that poem in his mind, when he wrote these lines, to ridicule what he calls " that ineffable Octogrammaton, the power of laziness." In 1744 the difference between Walpole and Gray was adjusted by the interference of a lady who wished well to both parties. The lapse of three years had probably been sufficient, in some degree, to soften down, though not entirely obliterate, the remembrance of supposed injuries on either side ; natural kindness of temper had reassumed its place, and we find their correspondence again proceeding on friendly and familiar terms. About this time Gray became acquainted with Mr. Mason, then a scholar of St. John's College, whose poetical ta- lents he had noticed ; and some of whose poems he revised at the request of a friend. He maintained a correspondence with his intimate and respectable friend. Dr. Wharton, of Durham ; and he seems to have lived on terms of familiarity with the cele- brated Dr. Middleton * whose loss he afterwards * Dr. Middleton died the 28th of July, 1750, in the sixty- seventh year of his age, at Hildersham, in Cambridgeshire. XXiv LIFE OF GRAY. laments. " I find a friend (he says) so uncommon thing, that I cannot help regretting even an old acquaintance, which is an indifferent likeness of it." In the year 1747, the ' Ode to Eton College,' the first production of Gray that appeared in print, was published in folio, by Dodsley. Dr. Warton, in his Essay on Pope, informs us, that '' little no tice was taken of it, on its first publication." Walpole wished him to print his own poems with those of his deceased friend West. This, however, he declined, thinking the materials not sufficient : but he complied with another wish of Walpole, in commemorating in an Ode the death of his fa- vourite cat. To this little poem I may be permitted to apply the words of Cicero, when speaking of a w^ork of his own : " Non est enim tale, ut in arte poni possit, quasi ilia Minerva Phidiae ; sed tamen, ut ex eadem officina, exisse appareat."* Soon after this, he sent to Dr. Wharton a part of his poem ' On the Alliance of Education and Govern- ment.' He never pursued this subject much fur- ther. About a hundred lines remain ; and the com- mentary proceeds a little beyond the poem. Mr. Mason thinks that he dropped it from finding some of his best thoughts forestalled by M. de Montes- quieu's L'Esprit des Loix,t which appeared at that * Vide Ciceronis Praef. Paradoxa. ed. Olivet, vol. iii. p. 356. Paris. t Compare Montesquieu, L'Esprit des Loix, liv. xiv. chap. ii. LIFE OF GRAY. XXV time : and other reasons, which I have elsewhere stated, probably concurred in inducing him to leave unj&nished, a very fine specimen of a philosophical poem. Some time after, says Mr. Mason, he had thoug-hts of resuming" his plan, and of dedicating his poem by an introductory Ode to M. de Mon- tesquieu ; but that great man's death, which hap- pened in 1755, made him drop his design finally. Gray was now forming for his own instruction a Table of Greek Chronology, which extended from the 30th to the 113th Olympiad, a period of 332 years ; and which, while it did not exclude public events, was chiefly designed to compare the time of all great men, their writings and transactions. Mr. Mason, who saw this work, says, " that every page was in nine columns : one for the Olympiad, the next for the Archons, the third for the Public Affairs of Greece, the three next for the Philoso- phers, and the three last for Poets, Historians, and Orators."* Greek literature about this time seems to have been his constant study. He says in a letter ; " I have read Pausanias and Athenseus all through ; and ^schylus again. I am now in Pindar, and Lysias ; for I take verse and prose together, like bread and cheese." In the year 1749, on the death of Mrs. Antro- * See Gibbon's Rome, vol. iii. p. 248. A plan similar to this has been executed by Edv. Corsinus, in his ' Fasti At- tici,' four volumes 4to. Florence, 1764. XXVI LIFE OF GRAY. 