James Brown, Master of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge, Gray’s friend and
executor, in a letter written a fortnight after Gray’s death to another
of his friends, Dr. Wharton of Old Park, Durham, has the following
passage:—[35]
“Everything is now dark and melancholy in Mr. Gray’s room, not a trace
of him remains there; it looks as if it had been for some time
uninhabited, and the room bespoke for another inhabitant. The thoughts I
have of him will last, and will be useful to me the few years I can
expect to live. He never spoke out, but I believe from some little
expressions I now remember to have dropped from him, that for some time
past he thought himself nearer his end than those about him
apprehended.”
-----
Footnote 35:
Prefixed to the Selection from Gray in Ward’s _English Poets_, vol.
iv. 1880.
-----
_He never spoke out._ In these four words is contained the whole history
of Gray, both as a man and as a poet. The words fell naturally, and as
it were by chance, from their writer’s pen; but let us dwell upon them,
and press into their meaning, for in following it we shall come to
understand Gray.
He was in his fifty-fifth year when he died, and he lived in ease and
leisure, yet a few pages hold all his poetry; _he never spoke out_ in
poetry. Still, the reputation which he had achieved by his few pages is
extremely high. True, Johnson speaks of him with coldness and
disparagement. Gray disliked Johnson, and refused to make his
acquaintance; one might fancy that Johnson wrote with some irritation
from this cause. But Johnson was not by nature fitted to do justice to
Gray and to his poetry; this by itself is a sufficient explanation of
the deficiencies of his criticism of Gray. We may add a further
explanation of them which is supplied by Mr. Cole’s papers. “When
Johnson was publishing his Life of Gray,” says Mr. Cole, “I gave him
several anecdotes, _but he was very anxious as soon as possible to get
to the end of his labors_.” Johnson was not naturally in sympathy with
Gray, whose life he had to write, and when he wrote it he was in a hurry
besides. He did Gray injustice, but even Johnson’s authority failed to
make injustice, in this case, prevail. Lord Macaulay calls the Life of
Gray the worst of Johnson’s Lives, and it had found many censurers
before Macaulay. Gray’s poetical reputation grew and flourished in spite
of it. The poet Mason, his first biographer, in his epitaph equaled him
with Pindar. Britain has known, says Mason,
“... a Homer’s fire in Milton’s strains,
A Pindar’s rapture in the lyre of Gray.”
The immense vogue of Pope and of his style of versification had at first
prevented the frank reception of Gray by the readers of poetry. The
_Elegy_ pleased; it could not but please: but Gray’s poetry, on the
whole, astonished his contemporaries at first more than it pleased them;
it was so unfamiliar, so unlike the sort of poetry in vogue. It made its
way, however, after his death, with the public as well as with the few;
and Gray’s second biographer, Mitford, remarks that “the works which
were either neglected or ridiculed by their contemporaries have now
raised Gray and Collins to the rank of our two greatest lyric poets.”
Their reputation was established, at any rate, and stood extremely high,
even if they were not popularly read. Johnson’s disparagement of Gray
was called “petulant,” and severely blamed. Beattie, at the end of the
eighteenth century, writing to Sir William Forbes, says: “Of all the
English poets of this age Mr. Gray is most admired, and I think with
justice.” Cowper writes: “I have been reading Gray’s works, and think
him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the character of
sublime. Perhaps you will remember that I once had a different opinion
of him. I was prejudiced.” Adam Smith says: “Gray joins to the sublimity
of Milton the elegance and harmony of Pope; and nothing is wanting to
render him, perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but to have
written a little more.” And, to come nearer to our own times, Sir James
Mackintosh speaks of Gray thus: “Of all English poets he was the most
finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendor of which
poetical style seemed to be capable.”
In a poet of such magnitude, how shall we explain his scantiness of
production? Shall we explain it by saying that to make of Gray a poet of
this magnitude is absurd; that his genius and resources were small, and
that his production, therefore, was small also, but that the popularity
of a single piece, the _Elegy_,—a popularity due in great measure to the
subject,—created for Gray a reputation to which he has really no right?
He himself was not deceived by the favor shown to the _Elegy_. “Gray
told me with a good deal of acrimony,” writes Dr. Gregory, “that the
_Elegy_ owed its popularity entirely to the subject, and that the public
would have received it as well if it had been written in prose.” This is
too much to say; the _Elegy_ is a beautiful poem, and in admiring it the
public showed a true feeling for poetry. But it is true that the _Elegy_
owed much of its success to its subject, and that it has received a too
unmeasured and unbounded praise.
Gray himself, however, maintained that the _Elegy_ was not his best work
in poetry, and he was right. High as is the praise due to the _Elegy_,
it is yet true that in other productions of Gray he exhibits poetical
qualities even higher than those exhibited in the _Elegy_. He deserves,
therefore, his extremely high reputation as a poet, although his critics
and the public may not always have praised him with perfect judgment. We
are brought back, then, to the question: How, in a poet so really
considerable, are we to explain his scantiness of production?
Scanty Gray’s production, indeed, is; so scanty that to supplement our
knowledge of it by a knowledge of the man is in this case of peculiar
interest and service. Gray’s letters and the records of him by his
friends have happily made it possible for us thus to know him, and to
appreciate his high qualities of mind and soul. Let us see these in the
man first, and then observe how they appear in his poetry; and why they
cannot enter into it more freely and inspire it with more strength,
render it more abundant.
We will begin with his acquirements. “Mr. Gray was,” writes his friend
Temple, “perhaps the most learned man in Europe. He knew every branch of
history both natural and civil; had read all the original historians of
England, France, and Italy; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism,
metaphysics, morals, politics, made a principal part of his study.
Voyages and travels of all sorts were his favorite amusements; and he
had a fine taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening.” The
notes in his interleaved copy of Linnæus remained to show the extent and
accuracy of his knowledge in the natural sciences, particularly in
botany, zoology, and entomology. Entomologists testified that his
account of English insects was more perfect than any that had then
appeared. His notes and papers, of which some have been published,
others remain still in manuscript, give evidence, besides, of his
knowledge of literature ancient and modern, geography and topography,
painting, architecture and antiquities, and of his curious researches in
heraldry. He was an excellent musician. Sir James Mackintosh reminds us,
moreover, that to all the other accomplishments and merits of Gray we
are to add this: “That he was the first discoverer of the beauties of
nature in England, and has marked out the course of every picturesque
journey that can be made in it.”
Acquirements take all their value and character from the power of the
individual storing them. Let us take, from amongst Gray’s observations
on what he read, enough to show us his power. Here are criticisms on
three very different authors, criticisms without any study or
pretension, but just thrown out in chance letters to his friends. First,
on Aristotle:—
‘In the first place he is the hardest author by far I ever meddled
with. Then he has a dry conciseness that makes one imagine one is
perusing a table of contents rather than a book; it tastes for all the
world like chopped hay, or rather like chopped logic; for he has a
violent affection to that art, being in some sort his own invention;
so that he often loses himself in little trifling distinctions and
verbal niceties, and what is worse, leaves you to extricate yourself
as you can. Thirdly, he has suffered vastly by his transcribers, as
all authors of great brevity necessarily must. Fourthly and lastly, he
has abundance of fine, uncommon things, which make him well worth the
pains he gives one. You see what you have to expect.”