The Poems of Mr. Gray: To which are prefixed Memoirs of his Life and Writings, by W. Mafon, M. A. 1 Vol. 4to.

R. Mafon very juftly dif

MR claims all apology for the

work with which he has obliged the world. His well-chofen motto, Eft adhuc hominibus et cura et officium; funt qui defunctorum quoque amicos agant; is his praife, as well as his juftification. The work does credit both to his friend and to himfelf.

The lives of learned men are in their writings, and their character is beft feen in their private letters. We entirely agree with our author in his cenfure on Dr. Sprat's objection to the publication of private letters, as fhewing the fouls of men undreft. It is the jufteft curiofity in the world, to fee men as they are, without the parade and incumbrance of the ceremonious formalities that are put on, either to impofe on the world, or conform to it: they either make men appear what they are not, or hinder us at leaft from feeing what they are. This curiofity carries us as ftrongly to the poet, as to the ftatefman, the general, or the legislator. The objection to the publication of private letters, in truth, goes no further than to fay, that what is not fit to be seen, is not fit to be feen.

Any thing indecent or indelicate, ought not to be exhibited. Any fecrets which tend to destroy the repofe and the fatisfaction of private life, ought not to be difcovered: whatever would revive forgotten animofity, ought not to be difclofed: but we are not to fuppofe, that the retirement of confiderable men, either in an active or fpeculative fphere, can be wholly confumed and wafted in an unworthy manner; and much is to be known of the fecrets of focial, and even domestic intercourfe, which neither disturbs the living, nor defames the dead. The private thoughts of thofe, whofe public thoughts have attracted our attention, must be worthy, as furely they are natural, objects of an enlightened curiofity, and tend, like every other work of ingenuity, to enlarge and open the mind of the reader.

Mr. Mafon professes to make his author his own hiftorian; which Mr. Gray's correfpondence with his friends enables him, in a great measure, to perform.

He divides his work into parts, the first concluding with Mr. Gray's going on his travels.

The fecond comprehends his correfpondence on his travels; and of courfe the account of them. His letters are wrote with great elegance and tafte: but though the scene of his tour has too often been the

fubject

fubject of ingenious pens, to allow him the advantage of novelty; yet the intelligent reader cannot mifs entertainment and information. A melancholy circumftance attends this ftage of Mr. Gray's life. The travels of an ingenious young man, is commonly the pleasanteft period of his life; but Mr. Gray had the misfortune to have a difference with Mr. Walpole, with whom he travelled this naturally embittered his fatisfaction, and very probably obftructed his road to fortune. Mr. Mafon acquaints us with a circumftance that does infinite honour to Mr. Walpole, who has, it feems, authorized him to exculpate the friend that is gone, from the blame of this unhappy difference: an act that certainly exempts Mr. Walpole too from any fhare of cenfure: and we muft, in juftice to them both, fuppofe that the caufe, which may divide the beft men, could alone have feparated them, meer difference of conftitutional humour.

The third part begins with his return home, foon after which he had the misfortune (perhaps the greatest our nature is liable to) of lofing the friend and companion of his younger days, and earlier ftudies, Mr. Weft; whofe letters, if we had nothing elfe of his in this work, fhew him to have had a very ingenious and elegant mind. Mr. Mafon does not allow him to have been equal to his friend Mr. Gray; but we fee that he was a good critic: the little he fays upon his friend's Agrippina (p. 136.) is indeed the critic of a friend, who cannot be an Ariftarchus; but it fhews Mr. Weft to have been a found judge.

The third finishes Mr. Gray's ingenious labours. In the re

maining part, the fourth, we find him a reclufe, fpending his time wholly in reading. He who early profeffes an abhorrence of a college life, either from a change of fentiment, by narrowness of circumftances, or from difappointment, or merely for the fake of the benefit of large libraries, which Mr. Mafon fuppofes to be the principal caufe, takes a college for his refuge: and we muft lament, that fo informed and fo very ingenious a man, fo much and fo justly admired, fhould have been left fo long in fuch a ftate. Mr. Mafon has, by his own works, established a reputation (on the jufteft ground), for talte, genius, and learning. This work exhibits all the judgement and good fenfe, that the nature of it admitted, and adds to Mr. Mafon's character of a great poet, the better praise of an affectionate friend. We fhall juft infert one of Mr. Gray's letters to his friend Mr. Weft.

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has the air of an introduction defigned to foften a very harth reproof that is to follow; but it is no fuch matter: I only meant to afk, Why did you change your lodging? Was the air bad, or the fituation melancholy? If fo, you are quite in the right. Only, is it not putting yourself a little out of the way of a people, with whom it feems neceffary to keep up fome fort of intercourfe and converfation,though bat little for your pleafure or entertainment, (yet there are, I believe, fuch among them as might give you both) at least for your information in that ftudy, which, when I left you, you thought of applying to? for that there is a certain ftudy neceffary to be followed, if we mean to be of any afe in the world, I take for granted; difagreeable enough (as most neceffities are) but, I am afraid, avoidable. Into how many branches thefe ftudies are divided in England, every body knows; and between that which you and I had pitched upon, and the other two, it was impoffible to balance long. Examples fhew one that it is not abfolutely neceffary to be a blockhead to fucceed in this profeffion. The labour is long, and the elements dry and unentertaining; nor was ever any body (efpecially thofe that afterwards made a figure in it) amufed, or even not difgufted in the beginning; yet, upon a further acquaintance, there is furely matter for curiofity and reflection. It is strange if, among all that huge mafs of words, there be not fomewhat intermixed for thought. Laws have been the refult of long deliberation, and that not of dull men, but the contrary; and have fo close a connection with history,

nay, with philofophy felf, that they must partake a little of what they are related to fo nearly. Befides, tell me, Have you ever made the attempt? Was not you frighted merely with the distant profpe&t ? Had the Gothic character and bulkiness of thofe volumes (a tenth part of which perhaps it will be no further neceffary to confult, than as one does a dictionary) no ill effet upon your eye? Are you fure, if Coke had been printed by Elzi. vir, and bound in twenty neat pocket volumes, instead of one folio, you fhould never have taken him up for an hour, as you would a Tully, or drank your tea over him? I know how great an obitacle ill fpirits are to refolution. Do you really think, if you rid ten miles every morning, in a week's time you fhould not entertain much stronger hopes of the Chancellorfhip, and think it a much more probable thing than you do at prefent? The advantages you mention are not nothing; our inclinations are more than we imagine in our own power; reafon and refolution determine them, and support under many difficulties. To me there hardly appears to be any medium between a public life and a private one; he who prefers the firit, must put himself in a way of being ferviceable to the rest of mankind, if he has a mind to be of any confequence among them: nay, he muit not refufe being, in a certain degree, even dependent upon fome men who already are fo. If he has the good fortune to light on fuch as will make no ill use of his humility, there is no fhame in this : if not, his ambition ought to give place to a reasonable pride, and he fhould apply to the cultivation of