How dearly, at one time, and how cheaply at another, does Genius
purchase immortal fame! Here a Milton
"Scorns delights, and lives laborious days,"
that he may, through sufferings, sorrows, and the strainings of a long
life, pile up a large and lofty poem;--and there a Gray, in the
intervals of other studies, produces a few short but exquisite verses,
which become instantly and for ever popular, and render his name as
dear to many, if not dearer, than that of the sublimer bard; for there
are probably thousands who would prefer to have written the "Elegy
written in a Country Churchyard," instead of the "Paradise Lost."
Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London, on the 26th December 1716.
His father was Mr Philip Gray, a respectable scrivener, and his
mother's name was Dorothy Antrobus. Gray was the fifth of twelve
children, and the only one that survived. His life was saved in
infancy by his mother, who, during a paroxysm which attacked her son,
opened a vein with her own hand. This, and many other acts of maternal
tenderness, rendered her memory unspeakably dear to the poet, who
seldom mentioned her, after her death, "without a sigh." He was sent
to study at Eton College, the happy days spent in which he has so
beautifully commemorated in his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton
College." It added to his comfort here that his maternal uncle, Mr
Antrobus, was an assistant-teacher. From Eton he passed to Pembroke
College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as a pensioner in 1734, in
the nineteenth year of his age. He had at Eton become intimate with
Horace Walpole and with Richard West, a young man of high promise, who
died early. It is worth noticing that, during his residence both at
Eton and Cambridge, he was supported entirely out of the separate
industry of his mother, his father refusing him all aid.
At Cambridge, Gray studied very hard, attending less to mathematics
than to classical literature, modern languages, history, and poetry.
He aspired to be a universally accomplished as well as a minutely
learned man. His compositions, from 1734 to 1738, were translations
from Italian into Latin and English, and one or two small pieces of
original verse. In September 1738, he returned to his father's house,
and remained there for six months, doing little except carrying on a
correspondence he had begun at Cambridge with West and other friends.
Correspondence, from the first and to the last, was the best OUTCOME
of Gray's mind--he felt himself most at home in it; and, next to
Cowper's, his letters are the most delightful in the English language.
He had intended to study law, but was diverted from his purpose by
Horace Walpole, who invited him to take in his Company the "grand
tour." To no Briton, since Milton, could travel have been more
congenial or more instructive than to Gray. He that would travel to
advantage must first have travelled in mind all the countries he
visits, and must be learned in their literature, their politics, their
scenery, and their antiquities, ere ever he sets a foot upon their
shores. To Italy and France, Gray went as to favourite studies, not as
to relaxations; and spent his time in observing their famous scenes
with the eye of a poet--cataloguing their paintings in the spirit of a
connoisseur--perfecting his knowledge of their languages--examining
minutely the principles of their architecture and music--comparing
their present aspect with the old classical descriptions; and writing
home an elegant epistolary account of all his sights, and all
his speculations. He saw Paris--visited Geneva--passed to
Florence--hurried to Rome on the tidings of Pope Clement XII's death,
to see the installation of his successor--stood beside the cataracts
of Tivoli and Terni, and might have seen in both, emblems of his own
genius, which, like them, was beautiful and powerful, but
artificial--took a rapid run to Naples, and was charmed beyond
expression with its bay, its climate, and its fruitage--and was one of
the first English travellers to visit Herculaneum, discovered only the
year before (1739), and to wonder at that strange and solemn rehearsal
of the resurrection exhibited in its streets. From Naples he returned
to Florence, where he continued eleven months, and began a Latin poem,
"De Principiis Cogitandi." He then, on the 24th of April 1741, set off
with Walpole for Bologna and Reggio. At this latter place occurred the
celebrated quarrel between the two travellers. The causes and
circumstances of this are involved in considerable obscurity.
Dissimilarity of tastes and habits was probably at the bottom of it.
Gray was an enthusiastic scholar; Walpole was then a gay and giddy
voluptuary, although predestined to sour down into the most
cold-blooded and cynical of gossips. They parted at Reggio, to meet
only once afterwards at Strawberry Hill, where Gray long after visited
Walpole at his own invitation, but told him frankly he never could be
on the same terms of friendship again. Left now to pursue his journey
alone, he went to Venice, and thence came back through Padua and Milan
to France. On his way between Turin and Lyons, he turned aside to see
again the noble mountainous scenery surrounding the Grande Chartreuse
in Dauphiné; and in the album kept by the fathers wrote his Alcaic
Ode, testifying to his admiration of a scene where, he says, "every
precipice and cliff was pregnant, with religion and poetry."
Two months after his return to England, his father died, somewhat
impoverished by improvidence. Gray, thinking himself too poor to study
the law, sent his mother and a maiden sister to reside at Stoke, near
Windsor, and retired to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he resumed his
classical and poetical pursuits. To West, who by this time was
declining in health, he sent part of "Agrippina," a tragedy he had
commenced. West objected to the length and prosiness of Agrippina's
speeches. These were afterwards altered by Mason, in accordance with
West's suggestions; but Gray was discouraged, and has left "Agrippina"
a Torso. The subject was unpleasing. To have treated adequately the
character of Nero, would have required more than the genius of Gray;
and the language of the fragment is distinguished rather by rhetorical
burnish than by poetical spirit and heat. We have not thought it
necessary to reprint it, nor several besides of the fragmentary and
inferior productions of this poet, which Mason, too, thought proper
to omit.
Gray now plunged into the _mare magnum_ of classical literature. With
greater energy and exclusiveness than before, he read Thucydides,
Theocritus, and Anacreon; he translated parts of Propertius, and he
wrote a heroic epistle in Latin, after the manner of Ovid, and a Greek
epigram. This last he communicated to West, who was now in
Hertfordshire, waiting the approach of the Angel of Death. To the same
dear friend he sent his "Ode to Spring," which he had written under
his mother's roof at Stoke. He was too late. West was dead before it
arrived. This amiable and gifted person, who was thought by many
superior in natural genius to his friend, and whose name is for ever
connected with that of Gray, expired on the 1st of June 1742, and now
reposes in the chancel of Hatfield Church. We strongly suspect that it
was he whom Gray had in his eye in the close of his "Elegy."
Autumn has often been thought propitious to genius, especially when
its tender sun-light is still further sweetened and saddened by the
joy of grief. In the autumn of this year, Gray, who was peculiarly
susceptible to skiey influences, wrote some of his best poetry--his
"Hymn to Adversity," his "Distant Prospect of Eton College," and
commenced his "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard." A Sonnet in
English, and the Apostrophe which opens the fourth book of his "De
Principiis Cogitandi," bore testimony to his esteem for the character
and his regret for the premature loss of Richard West.
To Cambridge Gray seems to have had little attachment; but partly from
the smallness of his income, and partly from the access he had to its
libraries, he was found there to the last, constantly complaining, and
always continuing, like the _statue_ of a murmurer. In the winter of
1742 he was admitted Bachelor of Civil Law; and in acknowledgment of
the honour of the admission, began an "Address to Ignorance," which it
is no great loss to his fame that he never finished. Hazlitt completed
what appears to have been Gray's design in that admirable and
searching paper of his, entitled, "The Ignorance of the Learned," in
which he shows how ill mere learning supplies the want of common sense
and practical knowledge, as well as of talent and genius.
In 1744, through the intervention of a lady, the difference between
Walpole and Gray was so far made up, that they resumed their
correspondence, although never their intimacy. About this time he got
acquainted with Mason, then a scholar in St John's College, who became
a minor Boswell to a minor Johnson; although he used liberties with
Gray's correspondence and poetry, such as Boswell never durst have
attempted with his idol. Mason had first introduced himself to Gray by
showing him some MS. poetry. With the famous Dr Conyers Middleton,
too, he became intimate, and lived to lament his death.
In 1747, Dodsley published for him his "Ode to Eton College," the
first of Gray's productions which appeared in print. It excited no
notice whatever. Walpole wished him to publish his poems in
conjunction with the remains of West; but this he declined, on account
of want of materials--perhaps also feeling the great superiority of
his own poetry. At Walpole's request, however, he wrote an ode on the
death of his favourite cat!
Greek became now his constant study. He read its more recondite
authors, such as Pausanias, Athenaeus, Pindar, Lysias, and Æschylus,
with great care, and commenced the preparation of a Table of Greek
Chronology, on a very minute and elaborate scale.
In 1749 he lost his aunt, Mrs Antrobus, and her death, which he felt
as a heavy affliction, led him to complete his "Elegy," which he sent
to Walpole, who handed it about in MS., to the great delight of those
who were privileged to peruse it. When published, it sold rapidly, and
continues still the most popular of his poems.
In March 1753, his beloved and revered mother died, and he erected
over her dust a monument, with an inscription testifying to the
strength of his filial love and sorrow. In 1755 he finished his "Ode
on the Progress of Poetry," and in the same year began his "Bard." All
his poems, however short, were most laboriously composed, written and
rewritten, subjected, in whole or in part, to the criticism of his
friends, and, according to their verdict, either published, or left
fragments, or consigned to the flames. About this time he begins, in
his letters, to complain of depression of spirits, of severe attacks
of the gout, of sleepless nights, feverish mornings, and heavy days.
He was now, and during the rest of his life, to pay the penalty of a
lettered indolence and studious sloth, of a neglected body and an
over-cultivated mind. The accident, it is said, of seeing a blind
Welsh harper performing on a harp, excited him to finish his "Bard,"
which in MS. appears to have divided the opinion of his friends, as it
still does that of the critics.
In 1758 Gray left Peterhouse, owing to some real or imaginary offence,
and removed to Pembroke Hall, where he was surrounded by his old and
intimate friends. The next year he carried his two Odes to London, as
carefully as if they had been two Epics. Walpole says that he
"snatched them out of Dodsley's hands, and made them 'the first-fruits
of his own press at Strawberry Hill,' where a thousand copies were
printed. When published, they attracted much attention, but did not
gain universal applause. Obscurity was the principal charge brought
against them. Their friends, however, including Warburton, Hurd,
Mason, and Garrick, were vehement in their admiration, and loud in
their encomiums. In this year Colley Cibber, the laureate, died, and
the office was offered to Gray, with the peculiar and highly
honourable condition, that he was to hold it as a sinecure. The poet,
however, refused, on the ground, as he tells Mason, that the office
had 'hitherto humbled its possessor.'"
In 1758, he composed, for his amusement, a "Catalogue of the
Antiquities, Houses, &c., in England and Wales," which was, after his
death, printed and distributed by Mason among his friends.
The next year the British Museum was opened (15th January 1759), and
Gray went to London to read and transcribe the MSS. collected there
from the Harleian and Cottoman libraries. During his residence in the
capital, appeared two odes to "Obscurity" and "Oblivion," in ridicule
of his lyrics, from the pens of Colman and Lloyd, full of spirited
satire, which failed, however, to disturb the poet's equanimity. Like
many fastidious writers, he was more afraid of his own taste, and of
the strictures of good-natured friends, than of the attacks of foes.
In 1762 he applied for the Professorship of Modern History, vacant by
the death of Turner; but it was given to Brochet, the tutor of Sir
James Lowther.
In 1765 he took a tour to Scotland, and saw many of its more
interesting points--Stirling, Loch Tay, the Pass of Killierankie, and
Glammis Castle, where he met Beattie. He wrote a very entertaining
account of the journey, in his letters to his friends. He was offered
an LL.D. by the College of Aberdeen; but out of respect to his own
University, declined the honour. In 1767 he added his "Imitations of
Welsh and Norwegian Poetry" to his other productions. Sir Walter Scott
tells us, that when Gray's poems reached the Orkney and Shetland
Isles, and when the "Fatal Sisters" was repeated by a clergyman to
some of the old inhabitants, they remembered having sung it all in its
native language to him years before. In 1768, the Professorship of
Modern History falling again vacant by Mr Brochet's death, the Duke of
Grafton instantly bestowed it on Gray, who, out of gratitude, wrote an
ode on the installation of his patron to the Chancellorship of
Cambridge University. He went from witnessing this ceremony to the
Lakes of Cumberland, and kept an interesting journal of his tour to
that then little known and most enchanting region. In 1770, he visited
Wales; but owing probably to poor health, has left no notes of his
journey. In May the next year, his health became worse, his spirits
more depressed, an incurable cough preyed on his lungs; he resigned
his Professorship, and shortly after removed to London. There he
rallied a little, and returned to Cambridge, where, on the 24th of
July, he was seized with a severe attack of gout in the stomach. Of
this he expired on the 30th, in the 55th year of his age, without any
apparent fear of death. He was buried by the side of his mother, in
the churchyard of Stoke. A monument was erected by Mason to his
memory, in Westminster Abbey.
Gray was a brilliant bookworm. In private he was a quiet, abstracted,
dreaming scholar, although in the company of a few friends he could
become convivial and witty. His heart, however, was always in his
study. His portrait gives you the impression of great fastidiousness,
and almost feminine delicacy of face, as well as of considerable
self-esteem. His face has more of the critic than of the poet. His
learning and accomplishments have been equalled perhaps by no poet
since Milton. He knew the Classics, the Northern Scalds, the Italian
poets and historians, the French novelists, Architecture, Zoology,
Painting, Sculpture, Botany, Music, and Antiquities. But he liked
better, he said, to read than to write. You figure him always lounging
with a volume in his hand, on a sofa, and crying out, "Be mine to read
eternal novels of Marivaux and Crebillon." Against his moral character
there exists no imputation; and notwithstanding a sneering hint of
Walpole's, his religious creed seems to have been orthodox.
With all his learning and genius, he has done little. His letters and
poems remind you of a few scattered leaves, surviving the
conflagration of the Alexandrian library. The very popularity of the
scraps which such a writer leaves, secures the torments of Tantalus to
his numerous admirers in all after ages. His letters, in their grace,
freedom, minuteness of detail, occasional playfulness, delicious
_asides_ of gossip, and easy vigour of description, are more worthy of
his powers, as a whole, than his poetry. The poetic fragments he has
left are rarely of such merit as to excite any wish that they had been
finished. His genius, although true and exquisite, was limited in its
range, and hidebound in its movements. You see his genius, like a
child, always casting a look of terror round on its older companion
and guardian--his taste. Like Campbell, "he often spreads his wings
grandly, but shrinks back timidly to his perch again, and seems afraid
of the shadow of his own fame." Within his own range, however, he is
as strong as he is delicate and refined. His two principal Odes have,
as we hinted, divided much the opinion of critics. Dr Johnson has
assailed them in his worst style of captious and word-catching
criticism. Now, that there is much smoke around their fire, we grant.
But we argue that there is genuine fire amidst their smoke,--first,
from the fact that so many of their lines, such as,
"The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love;"
"The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye;"
"Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves;"
"Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air;"
"Beneath the good how far, but far above the great"
"High-born Hoel's harp, and soft Llewellyn's lay,"
are so often and admiringly quoted; and because, secondly, we can
trace the influence of the "Progress of Poetry," and of the "Bard," on
much of the higher song that has succeeded,--on the poetry of Bowles,
Coleridge, Wordsworth, Campbell, and Shelley. Gray was not a sun
shining in his strength, but he was the morning star, prognosticating
the coming of a warmer and brighter poetic day.
He that can see no merit in the "Ode on the Distant Prospect of Eton
College," can surely never have been a boy. The boy's heart beats in
its every line, and yet all the experiences of boyhood are seen and
shown in the sober light of those
"Years which bring the philosophic mind."
Here lies the complex charm of the poem. The unthinking gaiety of
boyhood, its light sports, its airy gladness, its springy motions, the
"tears forgot as soon as shed," the "sunshine of the breast" of that
delightful period--are contrasted with the still and often sombre
reflection, the grave joys, the carking cares, the stern concentred
passions, the serious pastimes, the spare but sullen and burning
tears, the sad smiles of manhood; and contrasted by one who is
realising both with equal vividness and intensity--because he is in
age a man, and in memory and imagination an Eton schoolboy still. The
breezes of boyhood return and blow on a head on which gray hairs are
beginning "here and there" to whiten; and he cries--
"I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,
As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring."
Dr Johnson makes a peculiarly poor and unworthy objection to the next
stanza of the poem. Speaking of the address to the Thames--
"Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race;"
he says, "Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself."
He should have left this objection to those wretched _mechanical_
critics who abound in the present day. He forgot that in his own
"Rasselas" he had invoked the Nile, as the great "Father of waters,"
to tell, if, in any of the provinces through which he rolled, he did
not hear the language of distress. Critics, like liars, should have
good memories.
His remark that the "Prospect of Eton College" suggests nothing to
Gray which every beholder does not equally think and feel, is, in
reality, a compliment to the simplicity and naturalness of the strain.
Common thought and feeling crystalised, is the staple of much of our
best poetry. Gray says in a poetical way, what every one might have
thought and felt, but no one but he could have so beautifully
expressed. To the spirited translations from the Norse and Welsh, the
only objection urged by Dr Johnson is, that their "language is unlike
the language of other poets"--an objection which would tell still more
powerfully against Milton, Collins, and Young, not to speak of the
"chartered libertines" of our more modern song. But a running growl of
prejudice is heard in every sentence of Gray's Life by Johnson, and
tends far more to injure the critic than the poet.
In his "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," Gray has caught,
concentred, and turned into a fine essence, the substance of a
thousand meditations among the tombs. One of its highest points of
merit, conceded by Dr Johnson, is essentially the same with which he
had found fault in the "Ode to Eton College." "The poem abounds with
images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which
every bosom returns an echo." Everything is in intense keeping. The
images are few, but striking; the language is severely simple; the
thought is at once obvious and original, at once clear and profound,
and many of the couplets seem carefully and consciously chiselled for
immortality, to become mottoes for every churchyard in the kingdom,
and to "teach the rustic moralist to die," while the country remains
beautiful, and while death continues to inspire fear. And with what
daring felicity of genius does the author introduce, ere the close, a
living but anonymous figure amidst the company of the silent dead, and
contrive to unite the interest of a personal story, the charm of a
mystery, and the solemnity of a moral meditation, into one fine whole!
We know of but one objection of much weight to this exquisite elegy.
There is scarcely the faintest or most faltering allusion to the
doctrine of the resurrection. Death has it all his own way in this
citadel of his power. The poet never points his finger to the distant
horizon, where life and immortality are beginning to colour the clouds
with the promise of the eternal morning. The elegy might almost have
been written by a Pagan. In this point, Beattie, in his "Hermit," has
much the advantage of his friend Gray; for _his_ eye is anointed to
behold a blessed vision, and his voice is strengthened thus to sing--
"On the pale cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,
And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."
Nevertheless, had Gray been known, not for his scholarship, not for
his taste, not for his letters and minor poems, not for his reputed
powers and unrivalled accomplishments, but solely for this elegy--had
only it and his mere name survived, it alone would have entitled him
to rank with Britain's best poets.
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