When Gray produced his famous Ode for the installation of his patron,
the late Duke of Grafton, a production, it is observed, which would
have been more admired, had it "not been surpassed by his two
masterpieces, the Bard, and the Progress of Poetry," being possessed
of a very accurate taste for music, which he had formed on the
Italian model, he weighed every note of the composer's music, (the
learned Cambridge professor, Dr. Randall,) with the most critical
exactness, and kept the composer in attendance upon him, says Dyer, in
his Supplement, for three months. Gray was, indeed, a thorough
disciple of the Italian school of music, whilst the professor was an
ardent admirer of the sublime compositions of Handel, whose _noise_,
it is stated, Gray could not bear; but after the professor had
implicitly followed his views till he came to the chorus, Gray
exclaimed, "I have now done, and leave you to make as much noise as
you please." This fine composition is still in MS. in the hands of the
Doctor's son, Mr. Edward Randall, of the town of Cambridge.
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