version of Bartholinus; and to this cause much of the obscurity

says,

is owing. In a letter to Walpole* he "As to what you say to me civilly,—that I ought to write more,-I reply in your own words, like the pamphleteer who is going to confute you out of your own mouth: 'What has one to do, when turned of fifty, but really to think of finishing?' However, I will be candid, for you seem to be so with me, and avow to you, that till fourscore and upward, whenever the humour takes me, I will write; because I like it, and because I like myself better when I do so. If I do not write much, it it because I cannot."-To his Odes, Gray now found it necessary to add some notes, “Partly (he says) from justice, to acknowledge a debt when I had borrowed any thing: partly from ill-temper, just to tell the gentle reader, that Edward the First was not Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor."

In 1768 the professorship of modern history again became vacant by the accidental death of Mr. Brocket; and the Duke of Grafton, then in power, at the request of Mr. Stonehewer, immediately bestowed it upon Gray. In 1769, on the death of the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Grafton was elected to the chancellorship of the University. His installation took place in

* See Walpole's Works, vol. v. p. 374, Letter viii.

The professorship became vacant on Sunday, and the Duke of Grafton wrote to Gray on the following Wednesday: see Walpole's Letters, vol. v. p. 137.

The Duke of Newcastle died in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the 17th of November 1768, in the 77th year of his age.

the summer; and Gray wrote the Ode that was set to music on the occasion: "He thought it better that Gratitude should sing, than Expectation." He told Dr. Beattie, "that he considered himself bound in gratitude to the Duke of Grafton, to write this Ode; and that he foresaw the abuse that would be thrown on him for it, but did not think it worth his while to avoid it." He did not appear to set much value on the poem, for he for he says, "it cannot last above a single day, or if its existence be prolonged beyond that period, it must be by means of newspaper-parodies, and witless criticism."

When this ceremony was past, he went on a tour to the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland. His friend Dr. Wharton, who was to be his companion on the journey, was seized with the return of an asthmatic attack on the first day, and went home. To this accident we are indebted for a most elegant and lively journal of his tour, intended for his friend's amusement. The style in which these letters are written, is evidently the production of a person thoroughly accustomed to the contemplation of his subject; it is peculiarly clear, simple and elegant; and abounds with those picturesque descriptions, which, though they can never enable language totally to supply, can at least make it much assist, the local powers of the pencil. "He that reads his epistolary narrative (says Dr. Johnson) wishes, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his employment: but it is by staying at home, that we must obtain the ability of travelling with intelligence and improvement."

VOL. I.

f

In April 1770 he complains much of a depression of spirits, talks of an intended tour into Wales in the summer, and of meeting his friend Dr. Wharton at Mr. Mason's. In July, however, he was still at Cambridge, and wrote to Dr. Beattie, complaining of illness and pain in his head; and in this letter, he sent him some criticisms on the first book of the Minstrel, which have since been published.* His tour took place in the autumn: but not a single letter is preserved in Mr. Mason's book on this journey, to any of his correspondents. He wrote no journal, and travelled with Mr. Nicholls, of Blundeston, in Suffolk, a gentleman lately deceased.

In May 1771 he wrote to Dr. Wharton, just sketching the outlines of his Tour in Wales and some of the adjacent Counties. This is the last letter that remains in Mr. Mason's Collection. He there complains of an incurable cough, of spirits habitually low,

* See Forbes's Life of Beattie, vol. i. p. 197, 4to. lett. xlv.

+ The taste of Mr. Nicholls enabled him to adorn, in the midst of a flat and agricultural county, and on the bleak eastern shore of England, a little valley, near Lowestoff, with beauties of no ordinary kind. "La villa (says Mr. Mathias) del Sig. Nicholls, detta Blundeston, alla spiaggia Orientale della contéa de Suffolk, due miglia lontana dal mare, disposta, ed ornata da lui con singolare fantasia, e con giudizio squisito. Il Sig. Gray, de' Lirici Britanni Sovrano, vide già con ammirazione, e molto ancora attendea dal genio del disegnatore." See a note in the first volume of 'Aggiunta ai Componimenti Lirici,' &c. p. ii. and xi. But alas! instead of the "i mobili cristalli d'un limpidissimo lago," are we not reminded of

Questi valli

Circondati di stagnanti fiumi

Quando cade dal ciel, più lenta pioggia-"

and of the uneasiness which the thought of the duties of his professorship gave him, which, after having held nearly three years, Mr. Mason says he had now a determined resolution to resign. He mentions also different plans of amusement and travel, that he had projected; but which unfortunately were not to be accomplished. Within a few days after the date of this last letter, he removed to London, where his health more and more declined. His physician, Dr. Gisborne, advised freer air, and he went to Kensington. There he in some degree revived, and returned to Cambridge, intending to go from that place to Old Park, near Durham, the residence of his friend Dr. Wharton. In the spring of 1769 or 1770, his friend Mr. Robinson saw Gray for the last time, in his lodgings in Jermyn Street. He was then ill, and in a state of apparent decay, and low spirits. He expressed regret that he had done so little in literature; and began to lament, that at last, when he had become easy in his circumstances, he had lost his health. But in this he checked himself, feeling that it was wrong to repine at the decrees of Providence. On the 24th of July, while at dinner in the College hall, he was seized with an attack of the gout* in his stomach. The violence of the disease resisted all the powers of medicine: on the 29th he was seized with convulsions, which returned more violently on the 30th; and he expired in the evening of that day, in the fifty-fifth year of his age;

* In a letter from Paris, August 11, 1771, H. Walpole says, on hearing the report of Gray's death," He called on me, but two or three days before I came hither: he complained of being ill, and talked of the gout in his stomach; but I expected his death no more than my own."

sensible almost to the last: aware of his danger, and expressing, says his friend Dr. Brown, no visible concern at the thought of his approaching death. The care of his funeral devolved on one of his executors Dr. Brown, the president of Pembroke-hall; who saw him buried, as he desired in his will, by the side of his mother, in the church-yard of Stoke. His other executor and friend Mr. Mason was at that time absent in a distant part of Yorkshire, and when Dr. Brown wrote to him during Gray's short illness, he says, as I felt strongly at the time what Tacitus has so well expressed on a similar occasion, I may with propriety use his words: 'Mihi, præter acerbitatem amici erepti, auget mostitiam, quod adsidere valetudini, fovere deficientem, satiari vultu, complexu non contigit.'"*

66

Such was the life of Gray, who, however few his works,† must still hold a very distinguished rank among the English poets, for the excellence of his compositions, and for the splendour of his genius. Though the events of his life which I have briefly

* In 1778 Mason erected a monument for Gray in Westminster Abbey, with the following inscription :

"No more the Grecian muse unrivall'd reigns,

To Britain let the nations homage pay;

She felt a Homer's fire, in Milton's strains,

A Pindar's rapture, in the lyre of Gray."

+ "Gray joins to the sublimity of Milton, the elegance and harmony of Pope; and nothing is wanting, to render him, perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but to have written a little more."-A. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 255.