work done by Thomas Gray, who was a contemporary of Thomson's, but younger by some fifteen years. Thomas Gray. You will know of that first poem of his Ode to Eton College; at least you know its terminal lines, which are cited on all the high-roads : "Where ignorance is bliss "Tis folly to be wise!" All the world knows, too, his Elegy, on which his fame principally rests. Its melancholy music gets somehow stamped on the brain of nearly all of us, and lends a poetic halo to every old graveyard that has the shadow of a church tower slanted over it. Gray* was, like Milton, a London boy-born on Cornhill under the shadow almost of St. Paul's. The father was a cross-grained man, living apart from Mrs. Gray, who, it is said, by the gains of some haberdashery traffic which she set up in Corn *Thomas Gray, b. 1716; d. 1771. See Gosse's recent biography for critical as well as sympathetic account of his life and writings. See also Mitford's edition of his works, with life, London, 1836. hill, sent her boy to Eton and to Cambridge. At Eton he came to know Horace Walpole, travelled with him over Europe, after leaving Cambridge, until they quarrelled and each took his own path. That quarrel, however, was mended somewhat later and Walpole became as good a friend to Gray as he could be to anybody-except Mr. Walpole. The poet, after his father's death, undertook, in a languid way, the study of law; but finally landed again in Cambridge, and was a dilettanteish student there nearly all his days, being made a Professor of History at last; but not getting fairly into harness before the gout laid hold of him and killed him. Probably no man in English literature has so large a reputation for so little work. Gibbon regretted that he should not have completed his philosophic poem on education and government; Dr. Johnson, who spoke halting praise of his poems, thought he would have made admirable books of travel; Cowper says, "I once thought Swift's letters the best that could be written, but I like Gray's better." The truth is, he was a fastidious, scholarly man, whose over-nicety of taste was always in the way of large accomplishment. He was content to do nothing, except he did something in the best possible way. He so cherished refinements that refinements choked his impulses. A great stickler he was, too, for social refinements-distinctions, preferments, and clap-trap -wanting his courtesies, of which he was as chary as of his poems, to have the last stamp of gentility; thus running into affectations of decorum, which, one time, made him the butt of practical jokers at his college. Some lovers of fun there sounded an alarm of fire for the sake of seeing the elegant Mr. Gray (not then grown famous, to be sure) slipping down a ropeladder in undress, out of his window; which he did do, but presently changed his college in dudgeon. He had, moreover, a great deal of Walpole's affected contempt for authorship — wanted rather to be counted an elegant gentleman who only played with letters. He writes to his friend that the proprietors of a magazine were about to print his Elegy, and says: "I have but one bad way to escape the honor they would inflict upon me, and therefore desire you would make Dods ley print it immediately, without my name, but on his best paper and type. If he would add a line to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better." I think he caught this starched folly (if it were folly) from Walpole. I have heard of over-elegant people in our day with the same affectation; but, as a rule, they do not write poems so good as the Elegy. Gray died, after that quiet life of his, far down in the days of George III., 1771, leaving little work done, but a very great name. He was buried, as was fitting, beside his mother, in that churchyard at Stoke, out of which the Elegy grew. And if you ever have a half day to spare in London, it is worth your while to go out to Slough (twenty miles by the Great Western road), and thence, two miles of delicious walk among shady lanes and wanton hedges, to where StokePogis Church, curiously hung over with ivy, rises amongst the graves; and if sentimentally disposed, you may linger there, till the evening shadows fall, and repeat to yourself (or anybody you like) "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea. A Courtier. I have spoken of the association of Walpole with Gray; it was not an intimate one after the two had outgrown their youth-age; indeed Walpole's association with nobody was intimate; nor was he a man whose literary reputation ever was, or ever can be great. He was son* of that famous British Minister of State, Sir Robert Walpole, who for many long years held the fate of England in his hand. But his son Horace cared little for politics. He was unmarried, and kept so always; had money in plenty (coming largely from Government sinecures) and a fat place at Twickenham-called Strawberry Hill; which by his vagaries in architecture and his enormous collection of bric-a-brac, he made the show place of all that region. He established a private press at this country home, and printed, among a mul * Horace Walpole, b. 1717; d. 1785. The enumeration of his books, pamphlets, and of titles relating thereto fill a dozen columns of Lowndes. His letters give best measurement of the man. |