M THOMAS GRAY. R. GOSSE, in "English Men of Letters," has given us a book which will probably be the standard authority upon Gray for the future. It is a singularly graceful as well as most interesting monograph. His edition of the "Works of Gray" is in four volumes, and is more complete than any that has yet appeared. It is certainly remarkable that all the writings of a classic so distinguished as Gray had not been given in any one edition to the world before. Mason had made a collection of the "letters " and a few of the minor prose works, and had also printed a variety of the posthumous poems. The Rev. John Mitford published the first accurate edition of the poems, and Mathias has published the works of Gray in two quarto volumes; but many of the poet's letters and verses, though published in various forms and sizes, have never been included in Gray's works. It remained for the Clark Lecturer on English Literature at Cambridge to give to the public for the first time a consecutive collection of Gray's letters and essays. Though Mr. Gosse tells us "the preparation of this issue of the entire works of 4 Thomas Gray. Thomas Gray was no holiday task," yet it must have been a source of pleasure to himself, and assuredly his laborious carefulness as an editor is and will be a source of pleasure to others. Among the Stonehewer MSS. at Pembroke College, he found"holograph copies of the majority of Gray's poems, written by him on the backs of leaves in his great commonplace book"; and this discovery has enabled him to be independent of all previous editions, in printing the greater part of the posthumous poems, both English and Latin. Amongst other things which are new to the world, the most important contained in Mr. Gosse's first volume are, a play exercise at Eton, the poet's journal in France, and a Canto of Dante's Inferno," which the editor characterizes as "the most vigorous passage in blank verse which has been written in English since the death of Milton." I think, however, that Mr. Gosse is mistaken in saying that the translation from "Propertius," Lib. ii., Eleg. 1, and inscribed to Mæcenas, is now for the first time published, for the best lines in a paraphrase which is not of a high tone, or not remarkable for merit, have been long familiar to all students of Gray. I allude to the passage beginning with the lines, “Yet would the Tyrant Love permit me raise and on to the end of the poem. |