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dren, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her." How touching is this brief tribute of grateful love! Volumes of eulogy could not increase our admiration of the genbeing to whom it was paid; her patient devotion, her meek endurance. Wherever the name and genius of Gray are known, there shall also his mother's virtues be told for a memorial of her.

We know nothing of our poet's boyhood until his residence at Eton, where he was under the care of his maternal uncle, Mr. Antrobus, to whom he seems to have been much indebted for the direction of his early education. Here commenced his friendship with Horace Walpole and Richard West, each of whom was destined to influence his future character. Here, also, was laid the broad foundation of that classical scholarship which afterwards became the chief solace of his life, and shed such rich and mellow light upon his poetry.

due time took his bachelor's degree in civil law. Nearly all his life was spent there because of the cheapness of the place, and the facilities afforded by its libraries. Two years before his death he was chosen Profes-tle sor of Modern Languages, but never entered upon the duties of his post. He was also appointed Poet Laureate, but declined an office which had been so often disgraced. He never married, and after his return from the Continent, a few weeks' tour in Scotland was the most important incident which interrupted the monotony of his life. He died at the age of fifty-five, of hereditary gout. Thus briefly may be summed up all those outward facts and circumstances which met the world's eye, and seemed to make up his life. The outline is meagre and unpromising enough, but let us return and see if it does not contain something of interest and value. The well-known observation that men of genius are commonly the sons of remarkable mothers, is verified in the case of Gray. Unusual were his obligations to her, and with unusual filial love and reverence were they repaid. He only of her twelve children survived the age of infancy. The rest all died from suffocation induced by fulness of blood, and his life was only saved by his mother's courage in opening one of his veins with her own hands, when the paroxysm attacked him. At Eton and at Cambridge he depended upon her for his support. We learn by a written statement, submitted by Mrs. Gray to an eminent lawyer, in 1735, when she vainly sought relief from her cruel situation, "that she almost provided every Their correspondence was continued until thing for her son whilst at Eton College, and the early death of West in 1742, and is a now he is at Peter House in Cambridge, and free and unreserved expression of their opinthat her husband hath used her in the most ions, tastes, and feelings. The University of inhuman manner by beating, kicking, punch-Cambridge has always been, and even now ing, and with the most vile and abusive language," &c. "This she was resolved, if possible, to bear, and not to leave her shop of trade for the sake of her son, to be able to assist in the maintenance of him, since his father won't." Such devoted maternal affection could hardly fail to call forth marked filial piety in return. During her life his attentions to her were most assiduous, and after her death he cherished her memory with sacred sorrow. Mr. Mason informs us that Gray seldom mentioned his mother without a sigh. The inscription which he placed over her remains speaks of her as "the careful, tender mother of many chil

On leaving Eton, West entered Christ Church College at Oxford, and Gray, Peter House at Cambridge. From the date of this separation, begin those interesting letters between them, which exhibit the character of each to great advantage, and are the records of one of the most beautiful friendships in all literary history. They were both young men of ardent sensibilities, imaginative and poetic temperaments, and fine classical genius, but averse to the severer studies of logic and the mathematics, and shrinking instinctively from the anticipation of the practical pursuits and rude collisions of active life.

is, more partial to the natural and moral sciences than to classical literature, and Gray seems to have found there a state of things very little to his mind. His darling studies were comparatively neglected, and he was himself forced to turn from them, more than he liked, to other branches. Many of his letters express the disappointment, and even disgust, with which this affected him. In one of the earliest to West, he writes, after mentioning "the contempt into which his old friends and classical companions are fallen" there, as follows: "I think I love them the better for it, and, indeed, what can I do else? Must I plunge into metaphy

sics? Alas, I cannot see in the dark; na- | history of which is to be found in his letture has not furnished me with the optics ters to West and his other friends. France, of a cat. Must I pore upon mathematics? Switzerland, Italy and Sicily were succesAlas, I cannot see in too much light; I am sively visited, and few objects of interest no eagle," &c. "If these are the profits of were left unnoticed. We can say little of life, give me the amusements of it." West, this tour; for it was over the common ground on his part, complains of Oxford even "as a of travellers, and embraced nothing novel land flowing with syllogisms and ale, where or unusual. A charm has been thrown over Horace and Virgil are equally unknown." it by the graphic descriptions of Gray, and These are, doubtless, exaggerated pictures, the classical spirit with which he viewed but they sufficiently indicate the mental every object. But this charm is inseparastate of both the friends. Their letters treat ble from his own writings, and can no more chiefly of their poetry and studies in polite be transferred than the rich colors of the literature; some of them inclose copies of painting can be to the rude crayon sketch verse, mostly in Latin, and several of the made from it. In his careful notice of manletters themselves are in that language. ners and customs, and the felicity with The extent and variety of classical learning, which he made modern and ancient times and the cultivated taste which they display, mutually illustrate each other, he has been cannot fail to astonish and call forth the said most nearly to resemble Addison. It admiration of every reader. Those of Gray is during this time that those humorous manifest a tendency to the depression of talents which his friends deemed so great, spirits which weighed upon him nearly all chiefly display themselves. Except for his his life, and was probably a malady inherited letters, then, we should hardly understand with the gout. West was all the time the possibility of what one of his friends despondent and in wretched health; the said, that "Gray never wrote any thing disease which ultimately destroyed him had easily but things of humor." The cloud of already begun to waste his vitals, and the dejection and sorrow under which most of tender solicitude of his friend betrays itself his after life was spent, obscured this power, throughout the whole correspondence. and it is only in occasional flashes that we discern it.

During his entire course at the University, Gray seems to have kept himself much His travels were abruptly ended by a aloof from society; to have sought no col- quarrel with his patron, which has been valege honors, and taken little interest in the riously represented. Walpole afterwards affairs of the community of which he was a took upon himself the entire blame of the member. The effeminacy of his manners, rupture, and, we are inclined to think, dewe are told, caused him to be nicknamed servedly. The most authentic version would "Miss Gray" and we can readily under-seem to be that Gray was disposed to faultstand that his spirit, delicate and sensitive to finding, and Walpole, suspecting himself to a fault, must have revolted at the "Jacobin- have been spoken ill of in letters to Engism and its concomitant hard drinking," land, clandestinely opened and resealed a which Mr. Mason acknowledges then infect-private package, an indignity which Gray ed the University. The two friends walked hand in hand, in the words of West,

"Through many a flowery grove and shelly grot, Where learning lured us in its private maze.”

very properly resented. Several years after, a reconciliation took place between them, and they were again on familiar terms; but on the side of Gray, entire cordiality seems never to have been restored.* The immedi

*

The following from the new letters of Walpole to the Rev. William Mason, published since this article was written, throws more light upon this question and exhibits both the parties favora bly. It will be read with interest.-Ed.

The limits of a sketch like this, of course,. preclude us from making extracts from their letters, to which we would commend all who would trace the growth of the poet's mind, and learn the aliment which nurtured his cultivated taste and beautiful imagination.

The next period of his life was that spent upon his travels with Horace Walpole, the

"I am conscious that in the beginning of the differences between Gray and me, the fault was mine. I was too young, too fond of my own diversion, nay, I do not doubt, too much intoxicated

ate consequence of the difficulty was Gray's return to England. He reached there in September, 1741, two months before his father's death.

In the following spring he lost his friend West, an affliction which preyed deeply upon his spirits. West, on leaving Oxford, had taken chambers in the Temple, and pursued for some time the study of the law. But his health failed rapidly, domestic trials crowded thickly upon him, and at length he went home to die. His letters to Gray during his last winter are indescribably touching. Indeed a melancholy grace invests every thing connected with this young man; we dwell with fondness on the few remains of his genius, and lament that it was quenched so soon. Whether the promise of his youth would have been realized in mature years we cannot certainly tell, but its indications were so bright that we may well regret their disappointment. Mr. Mason informs us that at Eton his genius was deemed superior to Gray's. Among Gray's most beautiful productions the fragment of a Latin poem, "De Principiis Cogitandi," an affectionate sonnet in English, the Ode on the Prospect of Eton College, the Hymn to Adversity, and the commencement of the Elegy, were written within a year after West's death, and bear strong marks of his affection and sorrow. With many others he was on intimate and familiar terms, but no after friendship filled the place thus made vacant. Dr. Wharton and Mr. Mason, the poet, seem

by indulgence, vanity, and the insolence of my situation, as a prime minister's son, not to have been inattentive and insensible to the feelings of one I thought below me; of one, I blush to say it, that I knew was obliged to me; of one whom presumption and folly perhaps made me deem not my superior then in parts, though I have since felt my infinite inferiority to him. I treated him insolently: he loved me, and I did not think he did. I reproached him with the difference between us when he acted from conviction of knowing he was my superior; I often disregarded his wishes of seeing places, which I would not quit other amusements to visit, though I offered to send him to them without me, Forgive me, if I say that his temper was not conciliating. At the same time that I will confess to you that he acted a more friendly part had I had the sense to take advantage of it; he freely told me of my faults. I declared I did not desire to hear them, nor would correct them. You will not wonder that, with the dignity of his spirit, and the obstinate carelessness of mine, the breach must have grown wider till we became incompatible."

VOL. VIII. NO. I. NEW SERIES.

to have been next in his regards. To the latter we are indebted for his biography and a collection of his letters.

During the next three years we know nothing of Gray's life except that it was devoted entirly to classical studies, and that he made for himself a very elaborate table of Greek Chronology. In 1747 the Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, after lying in manuscript several years, was published by Dodsley, and was the first of his poems that appeared in print. It was followed in 1750 by the "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," which immediately received the full measure of admiration it has ever since retained. Gray himself by no means put upon this poem the same relative estimation as did the public, and he once told Dr. Gregory, "with a good deal of acrimony," "that it owed its popularity entirely to the subject, and would have been received as well if it had been written in prose." In 1753 he lost his mother, of whose character we have already spoken. In 1756 he left Peter House, where he had resided for twenty years, on account of some incivilities offered to him by drunken neighbors, and removed to Pembroke Hall, another college in the same University. This he speaks of " as an era in a life so barren of events" as his.

In 1757 were published his two odes, The Bard and the Progress of Poetry. They were for a long time ill-received and ludicrously misunderstood, though, in the words of Mason, "the one must be plain enough to every one who has read Pindar, and the other, to all not grossly ignorant of English History." When these odes were printed in a second edition, the author added to them a few notes, "just to tell the gentle reader,” he says, "that Edward the First was not Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the witch of Endor." At the same time he fixed to them a motto from Pindar, suffipreciently expressive of his feelings: "I wrote for the intelligent; but the multitude need interpreters."

This same year he declined the place of Poet Laurate; his reasons for doing which are thus given in a letter to Mr. Mason: "The office has always humbled the possessor hitherto: if he were a poor writer, by making him more conspicuous; if he were a good one, by setting him at war with the little fry of his own profession, for there

are poets little enough to envy even a Poet Laureate." In 1758 he seems to have been much engaged in the study of architecture. In 1762 he was an unsuccessful applicant for the Professorship of Modern Languages, which had been previously promised to another candidate. In 1765 he made a short journey into Scotland, to recruit his health, which had now become very feeble. At this time he declined the degree of Doctor of Laws which was offered to him by the University of Aberdeen, "lest it should seem a slight upon Cambridge." The next year was published the last edition of his poems that appeared during his life. In 1768 the Professorshp of Modern Languages again became vacant, and he received it unsolicited from the Duke of Grafton, who was shortly after chosen Chancellor of the University. The beautiful ode performed at his installation was written by Gray, who "thought it better that gratitude should sing than expectation." It is to be found in all the posthumous collections of his works.

His new office, the income of which he greatly needed, was very acceptable, but he never entered upon its duties. He was prevented partly, perhaps, by indolence and diffidence, but chiefly by ill-health. Much of his time after his appointment was spent in short journeys. "Travel I must," he says, "or cease to exist." On one of these trips to Westmoreland and the Lakes, he was to have been accompanied by Dr. Wharton; but the latter was forced to return home by a sudden illness, and, for his amusement, Gray wrote an epistolary description of the tour. The elegance and picturesque merit of this journal called forth the admiration even of Dr. Johnson.

During all this time his health was steadily failing, and his attacks of gout were becoming more frequent and alarming. But his death at the last was sudden, and took place after an illness of only five days, July 30, 1771. Of his last hours we have hardly any account, for none of his friends were with him. By his will, Mr. Mason and Dr. Browne were appointed his executors, and to the former were intrusted all his MSS., to be preserved or destroyed at his discretion. He was buried, according to his directions, by the side of his mother in the churchyard at Stoke.

The intellectual character of Gray is apparent both from what he did and what he did not. The small number of his works, and the many conceptions left unexecuted, but shadowing forth forms of beauty which might have been, sufficiently indicate the irresolution and fastidiousness which were its prominent defects; while every sentence or verse which he did write is polished by the cultivated taste of the scholar, or sparkles with the splendid imagination of the poet. We shall attempt no eulogy of his genius, or refutation of its detractors. For however the opinions of individuals may differ upon minor points, the day of harsh and illiberal criticism against him has passed, and the judgment of all assigns him a lofty place among English poets.

Of his peculiar religious views, we have little knowledge. A passage in the Walpoliana speaks of them as skeptical; but its authority would, under any circumstances, have little weight, and it is entirely counterbalanced by the whole tenor of his life and writings. The doctrines of Hume, Voltaire, Shaftesbury, and Bolingbroke are indignantly rebuked in his correspondence. And the excellence of his private character, together with the moral and religious consolations which he invoked in his own despondency and affliction, and to which he beautifully directed his friends, give us reason to hope that, whatever may have been his intellectual belief, the sentiments of genuine piety were alive in his heart.

His memoirs were published by Mason, who also edited a complete edition of his poems. Many years after Mr. Mitford wrote his biography, which, together with all his literary remains, was published in a large quarto volume. Mr. Mason's book appeared too soon after Gray's death, to be in all respects complete. That of Mitford contains. all the materials from which an excellent biography might be compiled, but thrown together in an ill-considered and undigested work. Some of the notes with which he has illustrated the poems are curious and valuable.

There is no good edition of Gray's life and all his works accessible to the public, a deficiency which some of our publishers should supply. The object of the preceding imperfect sketch will be accomplished if it induce some more able writer to undertake the task.

JUNIUS.

"Podagricus fit pugil."-HORACE.

[CONCLUDED.]

THE resemblance between Junius and the Earl of Chatham has led a few writers to attribute the celebrated Letters to his Lordship. Among these writers the most respectable has been Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, of Cambridge, Mass., who published a book on Junius in 1831. This, though rather garrulous and rambling, has its compensation in the justness of its views, and what we believe to be the truth of its conclusions. The Doctor's meaning is better than his mode. He is too much like the advocates of other Juniuses, who argue less for truth than for the honor of their own hypotheses, and try to conceal or quietly overlook every thing which does not make for their object or which they cannot explain. Doubtless the untenable nature of the claims they put forward obliges them to a great deal of this; but the fact is palpable. Dr. Waterhouse has laid himself open to the charge of special pleading in his essay. He covers but half the ground; for he omits all consideration of the Miscellaneous Letters, which we know to be those of Junius, not less by their intrinsic evidence than his own admission to Woodfall. The Doctor's book, from this omission, is more calculated to injure the hypothesis than to serve it. But his truth is too strong for his weakness to impair; and in spite of his imperfect way of going over the course, we feel that the old gentleman has been maundering away upon the right track after all. The first of these Miscellaneous Letters of Junius (under various signatures) is undoubtedly à rock on which all the pretensions urged for Lord Chatham seem to split at the very outset. And the second and third and others, as the reader proceeds, appear to put the Pittites completely hors du combat. The letters, however, cannot be ignored. They must be met, scrutinized, and interpreted, according

a

to the guidance furnished by the character and design of the letter-writer and other circumstances of the time.

Before we come to them, we have to speak of Chatham's mosaic ministry. Scarcely was it put together, when his unrelenting ailment, the gout, obliged him to go to Bath and drink the waters, leaving matters at sixes and sevens. His brain at that time seemed to be as much tormented as his legs. At the close of 1766, Lord Chesterfield, writing from Bath, says: "Mr. Pitt keeps his bed here with a very real gout, and not a political one, as is very often suspected." About a year afterwards, December 1st, 1767, he writes again from the same place: "Lord Chatham's physician had very ignorantly checked a coming fit of the gout and scattered it over his body, and it fell particularly on his nerves, so that he is sometimes exceedingly vaporish. He would neither see nor speak to any body while he was here. This time twelve months he was here in good health and spirits, but for these last eight months he has been absolutely invisible to his most intimate friends. He would receive no friends, nor so much as open any packet about business." His own business at that period had begun to flow into a new channel. In the beginning of this year, 1767, Lord Charlemont writes from London: "Lord Chatham is still Minister; but how long he may continue so is a problem that would pose the deepest politician. The opposition grows more and more violent, and seems to gain ground: his ill-health as yet prevents his doing any business. The ministry is divided into as many parties as there are men in it; all complain of his want of participation."

In another letter of the same month, Charlemont says: "No member of the ofposition speaks without directly abusing

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