Complete Works of Thomas Gray Read online

  His enthusiasm had been roused by the fragments of Gaelic poetry published by Macpherson in 1760. He did his best to believe in their authenticity (Works, iii. 264) and found himself in rather uncongenial alliance with Hume, whose scepticism was for once quenched by his patriotism. Gray’s interest probably led him to his imitations from the Norse (Walpole’s Letters, iii. 399, written in 1761) and Welsh. The ‘Specimens of Welsh Poetry,’ published by Evans in 1764, suggested the later fragments. He states also (ib.) that he intended these imitations to be introduced in his projected ‘History of English Poetry.’ In 1767 Dodsley proposed to republish his poems in a cheap form. Foulis, a Glasgow publisher, made a similar proposal through Beattie at the same time. Dodsley’s edition appeared in July 1768, and Foulis’s in the following September. Both contained the same poems, including the ‘Fatal Sisters,’ the ‘Descent of Odin,’ and the ‘Triumphs of Owen,’ then first published. Gray took no money, but accepted a present of books from Foulis.

  In 1762 Gray had applied to Lord Bute for the professorship of history and modern languages at Cambridge, founded by George I in 1724, and now vacant by the death of Hallett Turner. An unpublished letter to Mr. Chute (communicated by Mr. Gosse) refers to this application. Laurence Brockett, however, was appointed in November. Brockett was killed 24 July 1768 by a fall from his horse, when returning drunk from a dinner with Lord Sandwich at Hinchinbroke. Gray was immediately appointed to the vacant post by the Duke of Grafton, his warrant being signed 28 July. His salary was 371l., out of which he had to provide a French and an Italian teacher. The Italian was Agostino Isola, grandfather of Emma Isola, adopted by Charles and Mary Lamb. Gray behaved liberally to them; but the habits of the time made lecturing unnecessary. Gray’s appointment was suggested by his old college friend Stonehewer, who was at this time secretary to the Duke of Grafton.

  In January 1768 Gray had a narrow escape from a fire which destroyed part of Pembroke. In April 1769 he had to show his gratitude to Grafton, who had been elected chancellor of the university, by composing the installation ode. It was set to music by J. Randall, the professor of music at the university, and performed 1 July 1769.

  Gray lived in great retirement at Cambridge; he did not dine in the college hall, and sightseers had to watch for his appearance at the Rainbow coffee-house, where he went to order books from the circulating library. His ill-health and nervous shyness made him a bad companion in general society, though he could expand among his intimates. His last acquisition was Charles Victor de Bonstetten, an enthusiastic young Swiss, who had met Norton Nicholls at Bath at the end of 1769, and was by him introduced to Gray. Gray was fascinated by Bonstetten, directed his studies for several weeks, saw him daily, and received his confidences, though declining to reciprocate them. Bonstetten left England at the end of March 1770. Gray accompanied him to London, pointed out the ‘great Bear’ Johnson in the street, and saw him into the Dover coach. He promised to pay Bonstetten a visit in Switzerland (for Bonstetten see Ste.-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, xiv. 417–79, reviewing a study by M. Aimé Steinlen). Nicholls proposed to go there with Gray in 1771, but Gray was no longer equal to the exertion, and sent off Nicholls in June with an injunction not to visit Voltaire. Gray was then in London, but soon returned to Cambridge, feeling very ill. He had an attack of gout in the stomach, and his condition soon became alarming. He was affectionately attended by his friend, James Brown, the master of Pembroke, and his friend Stonehewer came from London to take leave of him. He died 30 July 1771, his last words being addressed to his cousin Mary Antrobus, ‘Molly, I shall die.’ He was buried at Stoke Poges on 6 Aug., in the same vault with his mother.

  His aunt, Mrs. Olliffe, had died early in the same year, leaving what she had to Gray. Gray divided his property, amounting to about 3,500l., besides his house in Cornhill, rented at 65l. a year, among his cousins by his father’s and mother’s side, having apparently no nearer relatives; leaving also 500l. apiece to Wharton and Stonehewer, and 50l. to an old servant. He left his papers to Mason, Mason and Browne being his residuary legatees.

  Portraits of Gray are (1) a full-length in oil by Jonathan Richardson at the age of thirteen, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; (2) a half-length by J. G. Eckhardt, painted for Walpole in 1747. An engraving of this was intended to be prefixed to Gray’s poems in 1753, but the plate was destroyed in deference to his vehement objection. It is engraved in Walpole’s ‘Letters’ (Cunningham), vol. iv.; (3) a posthumous drawing by Benjamin Wilson, from his own and Mason’s recollections, now in Pembroke, from Stonehewer’s bequest. It was engraved for the ‘Life’ (4to) by Mason. Walpole (Correspondence, vi. 67, 207) says that it is very like but painful; (4) a drawing by Mason himself, now at Pembroke, was etched by W. Doughty for the 8vo edition of the life. From it were taken two portraits by Sharpe of Cambridge and Henshaw, a pupil of Bartolozzi. This was also the original of the medallion by Bacon upon the monument in Westminster Abbey, erected at Mason’s expense in 1778. A bust by Behnes in the upper school at Eton is founded on the Eckhardt portrait. Walpole says that he was ‘a little man, of a very ungainly appearance’ (Walpoliana, i. 95).

  In 1776 Brown and Mason gave 50l. apiece to start a building fund in honour of Gray. It accumulated to a large sum, and the college was in great part rebuilt between 1870 and 1879 by Mr. Waterhouse. In 1870 a stained glass window, designed by Mr. Madox Brown, and executed by Mr. William Morris, was presented to the college hall by Mr. A. H. Hunt. In 1885 a subscription was promoted by Lord Houghton and Mr. E. Gosse, and a bust by Mr. Hamo Thornycroft, A.R.A., was placed in the hall, and unveiled on 20 May, when addresses were delivered by Mr. Lowell, Sir F. Leighton, Lord Houghton, and others.

  A character of Gray, written by W. J. Temple, friend of Gray in his later years and also an intimate friend of James Boswell, appeared in the ‘London Magazine’ (March 1772), of which Boswell was part proprietor. Temple says that Gray was perhaps ‘the most learned man in Europe.’ Mason says that he was a competent student in all branches of human knowledge except mathematics, and in some a consummate master. He had a very extensive knowledge of the classical writers, reading them less as a critic than as a student of thought and manners. He made elaborate notes upon Plato, upon Strabo, a selection from the ‘Anthologia Græca,’ with critical notes and translations; and at Christmas 1746 compiled elaborate chronological tables which suggested Clinton’s ‘Fasti.’ About 1745 he helped Ross in a controversy about the epistles of Cicero, begun by Middleton and Muckland. Gray’s Latin poems, except the college exercises, were not prepared for publication by himself. The most important was the ‘De Principiis Captandi,’ written at Florence in the winter of 1740–1. They were admired even by Johnson, though not faultless in their latinity, especially the noble ode at the Grande Chartreuse. Gray was also a careful student of modern literature. He was familiar with the great Italian writers, and had even learnt Icelandic (see Gosse, p–3). He was a painstaking antiquary, gave notes to Pennant for his ‘History of London,’ and surprised Cole by his knowledge of heraldry and genealogy. He had learnt botany from his uncle Antrobus, made experiments on the growth of flowers, was learned in entomology, and studied the first appearance of birds like White of Selborne. A copy of his ‘Linnæus,’ in five volumes, with copious notes and water-colour drawings by Gray, belonging to Mr. Ruskin, was exhibited at Pembroke on the memorial meeting in 1885. This brought 42l. at the sale of Gray’s library, 27 Nov. 1845. (For an account of the books sold see Gent. Mag. 1846, i. 29, 33.) He was a good musician, played on the harpsichord, and was especially fond of Pergolesi and Palestrina. He was a connoisseur in painting, contributed to Walpole’s ‘Anecdotes,’ and made a list of early painters published in Malone’s edition of Reynolds’s works. Architecture was a favourite study. He contributed notes to James Bentham [q. v.] for his ‘History of Ely’ (1771), which gave rise to the report that he was the author of the treatise then published. They were first printed in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ April 1784, to disprov
e this rumour.

  These multifarious studies are illustrated in the interesting commonplace books, in 3 vols. fol., preserved at Pembroke. Besides his collections on a great variety of subjects, they contain original copies of many of his poems. Some fragments were published by Mathias in his edition of Gray’s works. Gray had formed a plan for a history of English poetry, to be executed in conjunction with Mason, to whom Warburton had communicated a scheme drawn up by Pope. Gray made some preparations, and a careful study of the metres of early English poetry. He tired, however, and gave his plan to Warton, who was already engaged on a similar scheme. The extent of Gray’s studies shows the versatility and keenness of his intellectual tastes. The smallness of his actual achievements is sufficiently explained by his ill-health, his extreme fastidiousness, his want of energy and personal ambition, and the depressing influences of the small circle of dons in which he lived. The unfortunate eighteenth century has been blamed for his barrenness; but probably he would have found any century uncongenial. The most learned of all our poets, he was naturally an eclectic. He almost worshipped Dryden, and loved Racine as heartily as Shakespeare. He valued polish and symmetry as highly as the school of Pope, and shared their taste for didactic reflection and for pompous personification. Yet he also shared the tastes which found expression in the romanticism of the following period. Mr. Gosse has pointed out with great force his appreciation of Gothic architecture, of mountain scenery, and of old Gaelic and Scandinavian poetry. His unproductiveness left the propagation of such tastes to men much inferior in intellect, but less timid in utterance, such as Walpole and the Wartons. He succeeded only in secreting a few poems which have more solid bullion in proportion to the alloy than almost any in the language, which are admired by critics, while the one in which he has condescended to utter himself with least reserve and the greatest simplicity, has been pronounced by the vox populi to be the most perfect in the language.

  His letters are all but the best in the best age of letter-writing. They are fascinating not only for the tender and affectionate nature shown through a mask of reserve, but for gleams of the genuine humour which Walpole pronounced to be his most natural vein. It appears with rather startling coarseness in some of his Cambridge lampoons. One of these, ‘A Satire upon the Heads, or never a barrel the better herring,’ was printed by Mr. Gosse in 1884, from a manuscript in the possession of Lord Houghton. Walpole said (Walpoliana, i. 95) that Gray was ‘a deist, but a violent enemy of atheists.’ If his opinions were heterodox, he kept them generally to himself, was clearly a conservative by temperament, and hated or feared the innovators of the time.

  The publication of the poems in Gray’s lifetime has been noticed above. Collected editions of the poems, with Mason’s ‘Memoir,’ appeared in 1775, 1776, 1778, &c.; an edition with notes by Gilbert Wakefield in 1786; works by T. J. Mathias (in which some of the Pembroke MSS. were first used) in 1814; ‘English and Latin Poems,’ by John Mitford, in 1814, who also edited the works in the Aldine edition (1835–43), and the Eton edition (1845). The completest edition is that in four vols. by Mr. Edmund Gosse in 1882.

  An etching of Gray, published in 1778

  Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717-1797) — Gray’s early friend and supporter, before their acrimonious split. Walpole was to achieve literary fame in 1764 for writing ‘The Castle of Otranto’, the first gothic novel.

  Dodsley's illustrated edition of Gray's famous ‘Elegy’ by Richard Bentley

  TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THE POETRY

  Poems

  ODE ON THE SPRING.

  ODE ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES.

  ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

  HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

  THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

  THE BARD.

  THE FATAL SISTERS.

  THE DESCENT OF ODIN.

  THE TRIUMPHS OF OWEN.

  ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

  THE EPITAPH.

  A LONG STORY.

  ODE FOR MUSIC.

  Posthumous Poems

  AGRIPPINA. A FRAGMENT OF A TRAGEDY.

  SONNET ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD WEST.

  HYMN TO IGNORANCE.

  THE ALLIANCE OF EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT.

  STANZAS TO MR. BENTLEY.

  ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUDE.

  EPITAPH ON MRS. CLARKE.

  EPITAPH ON A CHILD.

  GRAY ON HIMSELF. WRITTEN IN 1761, AND FOUND IN ONE OF HIS POCKET-BOOKS.

  EPITAPH ON SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMS.

  THE DEATH OF HOEL.

  CARADOC.

  CONAN.

  THE CANDIDATE.

  VERSES FROM SHAKESPEARE

  IMPROMPTU.

  SATIRE ON THE HEADS OF HOUSES.

  AMATORY LINES.

  SONG. THYRSIS, WHEN WE PARTED, SWORE.

  EPITAPH ON MRS. MASON.

  TOPHET.

  COMIC LINES.

  IMPROMPTUS.

  EPIGRAMS ON DR. KEENE, BISHOP OF CHESTER.

  PARODY ON AN EPITAPH.

  A COUPLET ON DINING.

  COUPLET ABOUT BIRDS.

  Doubtful Poems

  ODE. SEEDS OF POETRY AND RHIME.

  POETICAL RONDEAU.

  THE CHARACTERS OF THE CHRIST CROSS ROW.

  Translations

  FROM STATIUS.

  FROM TASSO.

  IMITATED FROM PROPERTIUS.

  TO MAECENAS. FROM PROPERTIUS.

  TRANSLATION FROM DANTE.

  Latin Poems and Verses

  PLAY-EXERCISE AT ETON.

  IN D: 29AM MAII.

  IN 5TAM NOVEMBRIS.

  GRATIA MAGNA TUAE FRAUDI QUOD PECTORE, NICE.

  OH! NIMIUM FELIX! CURA ET DISCORDIBUS ARMIS.

  VAH, TENERO QUODCUNQUE POTEST OBSISTERE AMORI.

  PARAPHRASE OF PSALM LXXXIV.

  HYMENEAL ON THE MARRIAGE OF H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES, 1736.

  LUNA HABITABILIS.

  AD C. FAVONIUM ARISTIUM.

  ALCAIC FRAGMENT.

  SAPPHICS.

  ELEGIACS.

  AD C. FAVONIUM ZEPHYRINUM.

  FRAGMENT OF A LATIN POEM ON THE GAURUS.

  A FAREWELL TO FLORENCE.

  IMITATION OF AN ITALIAN SONNET OF SIGNIOR ABBATE BUONDELMONTE.

  ALCAIC ODE.

  SOPHONISBA AD MASINISSAM.

  DE PRINCIPIIS COGITANDI.

  FROM PETRARCH.

  FROM THE ANTHOLOGIA GRÆCA.

  FROM THE GREEK OF ANTIPHILUS BYZANTIUS.

  IMITATION OF THE GREEK OF PAUL SILENTIARIUS.

  FROM THE GREEK OF POSIDIPPUS.

  FROM THE GREEK.

  FROM THE GREEK OF LUCIAN.

  FROM THE GREEK OF STATYLLIUS FLACCUS.

  FROM A FRAGMENT OF PLATO.

  FROM THE GREEK OF MARIANUS.

  FROM LUCILLIUS.

  IMITATED FROM THE GREEK OF POSIDIPPUS.

  IMITATED FROM THE GREEK OF BASSUS.

  IMITATED FROM THE GREEK OF RUFINUS.

  GENERIC CHARACTERS OF THE ORDERS OF INSECTS.

  Poems

  ODE ON THE SPRING.

  Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,

  Fair Venus’ train, appear,

  Disclose the long-expecting flowers,

  And wake the purple year!

  The Attic warbler pours her throat,

  Responsive to the cuckoo’s note,

  The untaught harmony of spring;

  While, whispering pleasure as they fly,

  Cool Zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky

  Their gathered fragrance fling.

  Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch

  A broader browner shade,

  Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech

  O’er-canopies the glade,

  Beside some water’s rushy brink

  With me the Muse shall sit, and think

  (At ease reclined in rustic state)

  How vain the ardour of the crowd,

  How l
ow, how little are the proud,

  How indigent the great!

  Still is the toiling hand of Care;

  The panting herds repose;

  Yet hark, how through the peopled air

  The busy murmur glows!

  The insect youth are on the wing,

  Eager to taste the honied spring,

  And float amid the liquid noon;

  Some lightly o’er the current skim,

  Some show their gaily-gilded trim

  Quick-glancing to the sun.

  To Contemplation’s sober eye

  Such is the race of Man;

  And they that creep, and they that fly,

  Shall end where they began.

  Alike the Busy and the Gay

  But flutter through life’s little day,

  In fortune’s varying colours drest;

  Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,

  Or chilled by age, their airy dance

  They leave, in dust to rest.

  Methinks I hear in accents low

  The sportive kind reply:

  Poor moralist! and what art thou?

  A solitary fly!

  Thy joys no glittering female meets,

  No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,

  No painted plumage to display;

  On hasty wings thy youth is flown

  Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone —

  We frolic, while ’tis May.

  ODE ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES.

  ’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,

  Where China’s gayest art had dyed

  The azure flowers, that blow;

  Demurest of the tabby kind,

  The pensive Selima, reclined,

  Gazed on the lake below.

  Her conscious tail her joy declared;

  The fair round face, the snowy beard,

  The velvet of her paws,