Thomas Gray, the son of Mr. Philip Gray, a scrivener of London, was born
in Cornhill, November 26, 1716. His grammatical education he received at
Eton, under the care of Mr. Antrobus, his mother's brother, then
assistant to Dr. George; and when he left school, in 1734, entered a
pensioner at Peterhouse, in Cambridge.
The transition from the school to the college is, to most young
scholars, the time from which they date their years of manhood, liberty,
and happiness; but Gray seems to have been very little delighted with
academical gratifications; he liked at Cambridge neither the mode of
life nor the fashion of study, and lived sullenly on to the time when
his attendance on lectures was no longer required. As he intended to
profess the common law, he, took no degree.
When he had been at Cambridge about five years, Mr. Horace Walpole,
whose friendship he had gained at Eton, invited him to travel with him
as his companion. They wandered through France into Italy; and Gray's
letters contain a very pleasing account of many parts of their journey.
But unequal friendships are easily dissolved: at Florence they
quarrelled and parted; and Mr. Walpole is now content to have it told
that it was by his fault. If we look, however, without prejudice on the
world, we shall find that men, whose consciousness of their own merit
sets them above the compliances of servility, are apt enough, in their
association with superiours, to watch their own dignity with troublesome
and punctilious jealousy, and in the fervour of independence to exact
that attention which they refuse to pay. Part they did, whatever was the
quarrel; and the rest of their travels was, doubtless, more unpleasant
to them both. Gray continued his journey in a manner suitable to his own
little fortune, with only an occasional servant.
He returned to England in September, 1741, and in about two months
afterwards buried his father, who had, by an injudicious waste of money
upon a new house, so much lessened his fortune, that Gray thought
himself too poor to study the law. He, therefore, retired to Cambridge,
where he soon after became bachelor of civil law; and where, without
liking the place or its inhabitants, or professing to like them, he
passed, except a short residence at London, the rest of his life.
About this time he was deprived of Mr. West, the son of a chancellor of
Ireland, a friend on whom he appears to have set a high value, and who
deserved his esteem by the powers which he shows in his letters, and in
the Ode to May, which Mr. Mason has preserved, as well as by the
sincerity with which, when Gray sent him part of Agrippina, a tragedy
that he had just begun, he gave an opinion which probably intercepted
the progress of the work, and which the judgment of every reader will
confirm. It was certainly no loss to the English stage that Agrippina
was never finished.
In this year, 1742, Gray seems first to have applied himself seriously
to poetry; for in this year were produced the Ode to Spring, his
Prospect of Eton, and his Ode to Adversity. He began likewise a Latin
poem, De Principiis Cogitandi.
It may be collected from the narrative of Mr. Mason, that his first
ambition was to have excelled in Latin poetry: perhaps it were
reasonable to wish that he had prosecuted his design; for, though there
is at present some embarrassment in his phrase, and some harshness in
his lyrick numbers, his copiousness of language is such as very few
possess; and his lines, even when imperfect, discover a writer whom
practice would quickly have made skillful.
He now lived on at Peterhouse, very little solicitous what others did or
thought, and cultivated his mind and enlarged his views without any
other purpose than of improving and amusing himself; when Mr. Mason,
being elected fellow of Pembroke hall, brought him a companion who was
afterwards to be his editor, and whose fondness and fidelity has kindled
in him a zeal of admiration, which cannot be reasonably expected from
the neutrality of a stranger, and the coldness of a critick.
In this retirement he wrote, 1747, an ode on the Death of Mr. Walpole's
Cat; and the year afterwards attempted a poem, of more importance, on
Government and Education, of which the fragments which remain have many
excellent lines.
His next production, 1750, was his far-famed Elegy in the Church-yard,
which, finding its way into a magazine, first, I believe, made him known
to the publick.
An invitation from lady Cobham, about this time, gave occasion to an odd
composition called a Long Story, which adds little to Gray's character.
Several of his pieces were published, 1753, with designs by Mr. Bentley;
and, that they might in some form or other make a book, only one side of
each leaf was printed. I believe the poems and the plates recommended
each other so well, that the whole impression was soon bought. This year
he lost his mother.
Some time afterwards, 1756, some young men of the college, whose
chambers were near his, diverted themselves with disturbing him by
frequent and troublesome noises, and, as is said, by pranks yet more
offensive and contemptuous. This insolence, having endured it awhile, he
represented to the governours of the society, among whom, perhaps, he
had no friends; and, finding his complaint little regarded, removed
himself to Pembroke hall.
In 1757 he published the Progress of Poetry, and the Bard, two
compositions at which the readers of poetry were at first content to
gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried them confessed their inability
to understand them, though Warburton said that they were understood as
well as the works of Milton and Shakespeare, which it is the fashion to
admire. Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Some hardy champions
undertook to rescue them from neglect; and, in a short time, many were
content to be shown beauties which they could not see.
Gray's reputation was now so high, that, after the death of Cibber, he
had the honour of refusing the laurel, which was then bestowed on Mr.
Whitehead.
His curiosity, not long after, drew him away from Cambridge to a lodging
near the Museum, where he resided near three years, reading and
transcribing; and, so far as can be discovered, very little affected by
two odes on Oblivion and Obscurity, in which his lyrick performances
were ridiculed with much contempt and much ingenuity.
When the professor of modern history at Cambridge died, he was, as he
says, "cockered and spirited up," till he asked it of lord Bute, who
sent him a civil refusal; and the place was given to Mr. Brocket, the
tutor of sir James Lowther.
His constitution was weak, and believing that his health was promoted by
exercise and change of place, he undertook, 1765, a journey into
Scotland, of which his account, so far as it extends, is very curious
and eleg'ant; for, as his comprehension was ample, his curiosity
extended to all the works of art, all the appearances of nature, and all
the monuments of past events. He naturally contracted a friendship with
Dr. Beattie, whom he found a poet, a philosopher, and a good man. The
Mareschal college at Aberdeen offered him the degree of doctor of laws,
which, having omitted to take it at Cambridge, he thought it decent to
refuse.
What he had formerly solicited in vain was at last given him without
solicitation. The professorship of history became again vacant, and he
received, 1768, an offer of it from the duke of Grafton. He accepted,
and retained it to his death; always designing lectures, but never
reading them; uneasy at his neglect of fluty, and appeasing his
uneasiness with designs of reformation, and with a resolution which he
believed himself to have made of resigning the office, if he found
himself unable to discharge it.
Ill health made another journey necessary, and he visited, 1769,
Westmorland and Cumberland. He that reads his epistolary narration,
wishes, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his
employment; but it is by studying at home that we must obtain the
ability of travelling with intelligence and improvement.
His travels and his studies were now near their end. The gout, of which
he had sustained many weak attacks, fell upon his stomach, and, yielding
to no medicines, produced strong convulsions, which, July 30, 1771,
terminated in death.
His character I am willing to adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from a
letter written to my friend Mr. Boswell, by the reverend Mr. Temple,
rector of St. Gluvias, in Cornwall; and am as willing as his warmest
well-wisher to believe it true.
"Perhaps he was the most learned man in Europe. He was equally
acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, and that not
superficially, but thoroughly. 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, metaphysicks,
morals, politicks, made a principal part of his study; voyages and
travels of all sorts were his favourite amusements; and he had a fine
taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening. With such a fund
of knowledge, his conversation must have been equally instructing and
entertaining; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and humanity.
There is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think
the greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather
effeminacy, and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his
inferiours in science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which
disgusted Voltaire so much in Mr. Congreve: though he seemed to value
others chiefly according to the progress that they had made in
knowledge, yet he could not bear to be considered himself merely as a
man of letters; and, though without birth, or fortune, or station, his
desire was to be looked upon as a private independent gentleman, who
read for his amusement. Perhaps it may be said, what signifies so much
knowledge, when it produced so little? Is it worth taking so much pains
to leave no memorial but a few poems? But let it be considered, that Mr.
Gray was, to others at least, innocently employed, to himself certainly
beneficially. His time passed agreeably; he was every day making some
new acquisition in science; his mind was enlarged, his heart softened,
his virtue strengthened; the world and mankind were shown to him without
a mask; and he was taught to consider every thing as trifling, and
unworthy of the attention of a wise man, except the pursuit of knowledge
and practice of virtue, in that state wherein God hath placed us."
To this character Mr. Mason has added a more particular account of
Gray's skill in zoology. He has remarked, that Gray's effeminacy was
affected most "before those whom he did not wish to please;" and that he
is unjustly charged with making knowledge his sole reason of preference,
as he paid his esteem to none whom he did not likewise believe to be
good.
What has occurred to me from the slight inspection of his letters, in
which my undertaking has engaged me, is, that his mind had a large
grasp; that his curiosity was unlimited, and his judgment cultivated;
that he was a man likely to love much where he loved at all; but that he
was fastidious and hard to please. His contempt, however, is often
employed, where I hope it will be approved, upon skepticism and
infidelity. His short account of Shaftesbury I will insert.
"You say you cannot conceive how lord Shaftesbury came to be a
philosopher in vogue; I will tell you: first, he was a lord; secondly,
he was as vain as any of his readers; thirdly, men are very prone to
believe what they do not understand; fourthly, they will believe any
thing at all, provided they are under no obligation to believe it;
fifthly, they love to take a new road, even when that road leads
nowhere; sixthly, he was reckoned a fine writer, and seems always to
mean more than he said. Would you have any more reasons? An interval of
above forty years has pretty well destroyed the charm. A dead lord ranks
with commoners; vanity is no longer interested in the matter; for a new
road has become an old one."
Mr. Mason has added, from his own knowledge, that, though Gray was poor,
he was not eager of money; and that, out of the little that he had, he
was very willing to help the necessitous.
As a writer he had this peculiarity, that he did not write his pieces
first rudely, and then correct them, but laboured every line as it arose
in the train of composition; and he had a notion, not very peculiar,
that he could not write but at certain times, or at happy moments; a
fantastick foppery, to which my kindness for a man of learning and
virtue wishes him to have been superiour.
* * * * *
Gray's poetry is now to be considered; and I hope not to be looked on as
an enemy to his name, if I confess that I contemplate it with less
pleasure than his life. His ode on Spring has something poetical, both
in the language and the thought; but the language is too luxuriant, and
the thoughts have nothing new. There has, of late, arisen a practice of
giving to adjectives derived from substantives, the termination of
participles; such as the _cultured_ plain, the _daisied_ bank; but I was
sorry to see, in the lines of a scholar like Gray, the _honied_ spring.
The morality is natural, but too stale; the conclusion is pretty.
The poem on the Cat was, doubtless, by its author, considered as a
trifle; but it is not a happy trifle. In the first stanza, "the azure
flowers that blow" show resolutely a rhyme is sometimes made when it
cannot easily be found. Selima, the cat, is called a nymph, with some
violence both to language and sense; but there is no good use made of it
when it is done: for of the two lines,
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?
The first relates merely to the nymph, and the second only to the cat.
The sixth stanza contains a melancholy truth, that "a favourite has no
friend;" but the last ends in a pointed sentence of no relation to the
purpose; if _what glistered_ had been _gold_, the cat would not have
gone into the water; and, if she had, would not less have been drowned.
The Prospect of Eton College suggests nothing to Gray which every
beholder does not equally think and feel. His supplication to father
Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless
and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than
himself[197] His epithet, "buxom health," is not elegant; he seems not
to understand the word. Gray thought his language more poetical as it
was more remote from common use; finding in Dryden "honey redolent of
spring," an expression that reaches the utmost limits of our language,
Gray drove it a little more beyond common apprehension, by making
"gales" to be "redolent of joy and youth."
Of the Ode on Adversity, the hint was, at first, taken from "O Diva,
gratum quæ regis Antium;" but Gray has excelled his original by the
variety of his sentiments, and by their moral application. Of this
piece, at once poetical and rational, I will not, by slight objections,
violate the dignity.
My process has now brought me to the _wonderful wonder of wonders_, the
two sister odes; by which, though either vulgar ignorance or common
sense at first universally rejected them, many have been since persuaded
to think themselves delighted. I am one of those that are willing to be
pleased, and, therefore, would gladly find the meaning of the first
stanza of the Progress of Poetry.
Gray seems, in his rapture, to confound the images of "spreading sound"
and "running water." A "stream of musick," may be allowed; but where
does "musick," however "smooth and strong," after having visited the
"verdant vales, roll down the steep amain," so as that "rocks and
nodding groves rebellow to the roar!" If this be said of musick, it is
nonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the purpose.
The second stanza, exhibiting Mars' car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of
further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy to his
commonplaces.
To the third it may likewise be objected, that it is drawn from
mythology, though such as may be more easily assimilated to real life.
Idalia's "velvet green" has something of cant. An epithet or metaphor
drawn from nature ennobles art: an epithet or metaphor drawn from art
degrades nature. Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded.
"Many-twinkling" was formerly censured as not analogical; we may say
"many-spotted," but scarcely "many-spotting." This stanza, however, has
something pleasing.
Of the second ternary of stanzas, the first endeavours to tell
something, and would have told it, had it not been crossed by Hyperion:
the second describes well enough the universal prevalence of poetry; but
I am afraid that the conclusion will not arise from the premises. The
caverns of the north and the plains of Chili are not the residences of
"Glory and generous shame." But that poetry and virtue go always
together is an opinion so pleasing, that I can forgive him who resolves
to think it true.
The third stanza sounds big with "Delphi," and "Egean," and "Ilissus,"
and "Meander," and "hallowed fountains," and "solemn sound;" but in all
Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrflus splendour which we wish away.
His position is at last false: in the time of Dante and Petrarch, from
whom he derives our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by "tyrant
power" and "coward vice;" nor was our state much better when we first
borrowed the Italian arts.
Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of
Shakespeare. What is said of that mighty genius is true; but it is not
said happily: the real effects of this poetical power are put out of
sight by the pomp of machinery. Where truth is sufficient to fill the
mind, fiction is worse than useless; the counterfeit debases the
genuine. His account of Milton's blindness, if we suppose it caused by
study in the formation of his poem, a supposition surely allowable, is
poetically true, and happily imagined. But the car of Dryden, with his
_two coursers_, has nothing in it peculiar; it is a car in which any
other rider may be placed.
The Bard appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti and others have
remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. Algarotti thinks it
superiour to its original; and, if preference depends only on the
imagery and animation of the two poems, his judgment is right. There is
in the Bard more force, more thought, and more variety. But to copy is
less than to invent, and the copy has been unhappily produced at a wrong
time. The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; but its revival
disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood. Incredulus odi.
To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous
appendages of spectres and predictions, has little difficulty; for he
that forsakes the probable may always find the marvellous. And it has
little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as
we find something to be imitated or declined. I do not see that the Bard
promotes any truth, moral or political. His stanzas are too long,
especially his epodes; the ode is finished before the ear has learned
its measures, and, consequently, before it can receive pleasure from
their consonance and recurrence.
Of the first stanza, the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but
technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It is in the
power of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject, that has read the
ballad of Johnny Armstrong:
Is there ever a man in all Scotland.
The initial resemblances, or alliterations, "ruin, ruthless, helm or
hauberk," are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at sublimity.
In the second stanza, the Bard is well described; but in the third we
have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that
"Cadwallo hush'd the stormy main," and that "Modred made huge Plinlimmon
bow his cloud-topp'd head," attention recoils from the repetition of a
tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard with scorn.
The _weaving_ of the _winding sheet_ he borrowed, as he owns, from the
Northern Bards; but their texture, however, was very properly the work
of female powers, as the act of spinning the thread of life in another
mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weavers of
slaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and incongruous. They are then
called upon to "weave the warp, and weave the woof," perhaps, with no
great propriety; for it is by crossing the _woof_ with the _warp_ that
men _weave_ the _web_ or piece; and the first line was dearly bought by
the admission of its wretched correspondent, "give ample room and verge
enough[198]." He has, however, no other line as bad.
The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, beyond its
merit. The personification is indistinct. _Thirst_ and _hunger_ are not
alike; and their features, to make the imagery perfect, should have been
discriminated. We are told, in the same stanza, how _towers_ are _fed_.
But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed,
that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example;
but suicide is always to be had without expense of thought.
These odes are marked by glittering accumulations of ungraceful
ornaments; they strike, rather than please; the images are magnified by
affectation; the language is laboured into harshness. The mind of the
writer seems to work with unnatural violence. "Double, double, toil and
trouble." He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on
tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too
little appearance of ease and nature[199].
To say that he has no beauties, would be unjust; a man like him, of
great learning and great industry, could not but produce something
valuable. When he pleases least, it can only be said that a good design
was ill-directed.
His translations of Northern and Welsh poetry deserve praise; the
imagery is preserved, perhaps often improved; but the language is unlike
the language of other poets.
In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common
reader; for, by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary
prejudices, after all the refinements of subtilty and the dogmatism of
learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honours. The
Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and
with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas
beginning "Yet even these bones," are to me original: I have never seen
the notions in any other place; yet he that reads them here persuades
himself that he has always felt them. Had Gray written often thus, it
had been vain to blame, and useless to praise him.
-----
[Footnote 197: We shall, in comparison with this criticism, quote a
passage from Rasselas, and deduce no inference: "As they were sitting
together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before
her: answer, said she, great father of waters, thou that rollest thy
floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy
native king. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single
habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint." Ed.]
[Footnote 198:
I have a soul, that like an _ample_ shield
Can take in all; and _verge enough_ for more.
Dryden's Sebastian.]
[Footnote 199: Lord Orford used to assert, that Gray "never wrote any
thing easily, but things of humour;" and added, that humour was his
natural and original turn.
For a full examination of Johnson's strange and capricious strictures on
the poetry of Gray, we, with much satisfaction, refer our readers to the
life prefixed to, and the notes that accompany, an elegant edition of
Gray's works, 2 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1825. Much that is both elegant and
useful will be found in that publication. ED.]