sources of the science, such as public treaties, staterecords, private correspondence of ambassadors, &c. He also wrote the exordium of this thesis; not, indeed, in a manner correct enough to be here given by way of fragment; but so spirited, in point of sentiment, as leaves it much to be lamented, that he did not proceed to its completion. At the same time he drew up, and laid before the Duke of Grafton, just then chosen Chancellor of the University, three different schemes for regulating the method of choosing pupils, privately to be instructed by him: one of these was so much approved as to be sent to Oxford, in order to be observed by the new Professor, then appointed in that place.

The office above mentioned, to which the Duke of Grafton was elected, had been vacated by the death of the celebrated Duke of Newcastle; and on this occasion Gray was induced so far to overcome his natural cautious and retiring timidity, as to offer spontaneously his service in writing the Ode for Music at the Installation. But, though he undertook this from a sense of duty, and from the desire, that "Gratitude should not sit silent, and leave Expectation to sing," these very feelings seem to have greatly oppressed him in the performance. "He considered it," says Mr. Mathias, " as a sort of task, as a set composition; and a considerable time passed, before he could prevail upon himself, or rather, before he

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actually felt the power, to begin it. But one morning, after breakfast, Mr. Nicholls called on him, and knocking at his chamber-door, Mr. Gray got up hastily, and threw it open himself, and running up to him, in a hurried tone exclaimed, Hence avaunt; 'tis holy ground!' Mr. Nicholls was so astonished, that he thought his senses were deranged; but Mr. Gray in a moment after resumed his usual pleasing manner, and repeating several verses at the beginning of that inimitable composition, said- Well: I have begun the Ode, and now I shall finish it.' 'It would seem,' adds the learned narrator, by this interesting anecdote, that the genius of Gray sometimes resembled the armed apparition in Shakspeare's master-tragedy; He would not be commanded.""

Mr. Gray waited with some impatience till theceremony of the installation was over, in order to set off on a tour to the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and, as he expected to be accompanied by Dr. Wharton, he took Old Park in his way. That gentleman, however, was siezed, on the very outset of this interesting journey, by a severe attack of asthma, which obliged him to return. And though Mr. Gray was thus left to prosecute his journey alone, we can hardly be brought to regret a circumstance, to which we owe that animated and picturesque account he has given us in the journal, which he wrote expressly for the amusement of his

absent friend. "He that_reads," says Dr. Johnson, "his epistolary narration wishes, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his employment; but it is by studying at home, that we must obtain the ability of travelling with intelligence and improvement."

Notwithstanding the beneficial effects of these excursions, constant sickness, accompanied by a great degree of mental depression, was making, every year, deeper inroads into Mr. Gray's constitution; and now that he possessed the comforts of an easy competence, he could promise himself but a short time to enjoy them. His declining days, however, were not without the soothing influence of social intercourse, and, indeed, few persons have been more happy than Mr. Gray in the possession of friends, eminent for genius and for worth. To have been intimate with such men as Dr. Hurd and Dr. Farmer, was in itself a high distinction. But there were also others, with whom years of uninterrupted intercourse had placed him on terms of closer companionship. Such was his college friend, Dr. Wharton, and the amiable Mr. Stonehewer. But in Mason he found a kindred spirit, a poet, a philosopher, and an accomplished man: nor was this all; the strictest purity of principles and of life were indispensable in those who aspired to the honour of Mr. Gray's esteem. But when these qualifications were united, as in the case

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of Mason and Beattie, with true genius, they excited in him an admiration, which he was not backward in expressing. In the case of the latter, Mr. Gray's regard was met by an equal return of confidence, as is shown in the readiness with which Dr. Beattie, about this time, submitted the first book of the Minstrel to his judgment, and the candour with which he received his criticisms. Nor did Mr. Gray's benevolent temper allow him to confine his friendship to those of equal years and experience with himself. Many years after he had finally established his residence at Cambridge, he discovered in the high attainments and amiable qualities of Mr. Norton Nicholls, (then but just entering on his University career,) that which claimed and obtained his warmest regard. And a yet more striking instance of ardent attachment, with a greater disparity of years, appears in Mr. Gray's intimacy with a young man named Bonstetten, who was of Swiss extraction, and son to the Baillie of Neon, in the canton of Berne. A combination of rare and noble endowments, which met in him, seem to have revived in the mind of Gray those feelings, which in the spring of life had been withered in fruitless regrets over the grave of his earliest friend. In his correspondence with this young man, at the period to which our narrative has descended, there is exhibited a warmth of regard, that sets the character of the writer in the most

amiable light, and an almost paternal tenderness in admonishing his friend of the dangers incident to his youth.

In the summer of the year 1770, Mr. Nicholls was Mr. Gray's companion in a six-weeks' tour through Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Monmouthshire; and though in following the course of the Wye, and wandering amid the beauties which adorn its banks, he felt awhile the exhilarating influence, such scenes are calculated to impart, yet he only returned to experience the keener assaults of a wasting malady. He speaks in his letters of a cough, and of "mechanical low spirits," which he attempted in vain to amuse by forming projects of future excursions, never, alas! to be realized. This morbid dejection, of which he complains, was now much increased by his anxiety about his Professorship, which he had held nearly three years, without having fulfilled any of the duties annexed to it; and though the feeble state of his health and spirits rendered him perfectly incompetent to the exertion of body and mind, which those duties required, yet he could not reconcile it to his feelings, to receive the profits of an appointment in which he performed no service. Hence, after a painful struggle, he had at length formed the resolution, which he expressed to Mr. Mason, of resigning the office. And this, no doubt, he would have done, had not death delivered him from the trial.