if we may judge by a letter of Gray, was a most severe affliction. It is not improbable that this circumstance may have turned his thoughts towards finishing his Elegy,'* which was commenced some time before. Whether that were the case or not, it now however received his last corrections, was communicated to Walpole, and handed about in manuscript with great applause, among the higher circles of society. It was so popular, that when it was printed, Gray expressed his surprise at the rapidity of the sale; which Mr. Mason attributed, and, I think, justly, to the affecting and pensive cast of the subject. Of all qualities, the pathetic, which acts upon so many of the kinder affections of the mind, is that on which most readers dwell with pleasure. Didactic poetry can please only a certain class, because all do not like the trouble of being taught: to relish sublimity in writing requires considerable judgement, as well as some portion of genius, and some vigor of imagination. Works of wit and humour are most uncertain in their effect, and depend upon such slight circumstances, upon such accidental variations, that it is often impossible to account for the causes of their failure or success. But pathetic compo

*The thought of that fine stanza in the Elegy, especially of the latter lines"Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood"—

is expressed more briefly, in the following passage of Plautus:

"Ut sæpe summa ingenia in occulto latent,

Hic qualis imperator, nunc privatus est."

Captiv. act. iv. sc. 2.

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sition, which is employed in describing to us our own griefs, or the sufferings of others, makes its way to the heart at once; it always finds some disposition of the mind favourable to receive it, some passion which cannot resist its power, some human feelings which participate in its sorrows. Much time elapses, before works of elaborate structure, of lofty flight, and of learned allusion, gain possession of the public mind, and are placed in their proper rank in literature. While the Bard' and the 'Progress of Poetry' were but little read on their first appearance, Gray received at once the full measure of praise from the Elegy:' and perhaps even at this time, the Elegy* is the most popular of all his poems. Dr. Gregory, in a letter to Beattie, says: "It is a sentiment that very universally prevails, that Poetry is a light kind of reading, which one takes up only for a little amusement; and that therefore it should be so perspicuous as not to require a second reading. This sentiment would bear hard on some of your best things, and on all Gray's except his Church-yard Elegy,' which, he told me, with a good deal of acrimony, owed its popularity entirely to the subject, and that the public would have received it as well if it had been written in prose." And Dr. Beattie, writing to Sir Wil

* This Elegy was translated into Latin verse by Messrs. Anstey and Roberts, and not so successfully by Mr. Lloyd. It has been translated also into Greek, by Dr. Cooke of King's-college, and published at the end of a very indifferent edition of Aristotle's Poetics. Since that time, it has been translated into the same language by Dr. Norbury, and Mr. Tew of Eton, Mr. Stephen Weston, and Dr. Coote. Its imitators also have been very numerous. The Bard was translated into Latin verse, in 1775.

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liam Forbes, says: "Of all the English poets of this age, Mr. Gray is most admired, and I think with justice; yet there are comparatively speaking, but a few who know any thing of his, but his 'Church-yard Elegy,' which is by no means the best of his works." This production was the occasion of the author's acquaintance with Lady Cobham, who lived in the manor-house at Stoke; and the way in which it commenced, was described by him in a poem called the Long Story.' The Elegy having now appeared in some of the periodical publications and magazines, and having been published with great inaccuracies, Gray requested Walpole to have it printed in a more respectable and accurate manner, by Dodsley, but without the apparent knowledge or approbation of the author. It is to be observed, that in the early editions, the Elegy is not printed in stanzas of four lines, but continuously. It is also written in the same manner by Gray in the Pembroke and Wharton manuscripts. By this connected system of metre, the harmony of the poem acquires a fuller compass. Mason adopted it in his four Elegies; and it. has been lately used by Mr. Roscoe in his translation of the Greek poem of Musurus, which Aldus prefixed to his edition of Plato.

His thoughts, however, were for a short time called off from poetry, by the illness of his mother; and he hastened from Cambridge to attend upon her. Finding her better than he expected, he employed himself, during his stay, in superintending an edition of his poems, which was soon after published, with designs by

Mr. Bentley, * the only son of the learned Dr. Bentley, and the friend of Walpole; who seems to have been a person of various and elegant acquirements, as well as of very considerable talents. To him Gray addressed a Copy of Verses, highly extolling his powers as a painter. The original drawings in Walpole's possession, Mr. Mason says, are infinitely superior to the prints : but even with this allowance, the praise must be considered rather friendly than just; since their merit consists in the grotesque and quaint fancy which marks the designs; in the whimsical manner in which the painter has embellished the images of the poet; and which, if it were intended to correspond to the style of the ' 'Long Story,' would not be an unsuccessful effort of the sister-art. The tributes, however, which are paid by Friendship to Genius, ought not to be sparing or scanty: and Gray might remember the example of Dryden and of Pope, in their complimentary eulogies on Kneller.

In March 1753, he lost the mother, whom he had so long and so affectionately loved; and he placed over her remains an inscription which strongly marks his piety and sorrow :

* Bentley's original drawings are in the library of Strawberry-Hill. See Walpole's Works, vol. ii. p. 447. Mr. Cumberland, in the Memoirs of his Life, vol. i. p. 33, thinks that he sees "a satire in copper-plate in the etchings of Bentley; and that his uncle has completely libelled both his poet and his patron without intending to do so." Mr. Cumberland says, at p. 216 of the same volume, that Gray wrote an elaborate critique on a play of Bentley's writing, called 'Philodamus,' which was acted at Covent Garden.

Beside her Friend and Sister,

Here sleep the Remains of
DOROTHY GRAY,

Widow; the careful tender Mother

Of many Children; one of whom alone
Had the Misfortune to survive her.

She died March xi. MDCCLIII.

Aged LXXII.*

It is usually supposed that Gray's Ode on the Progress of Poetry' was written in 1755. From a letter to Walpole it appears that it was then finished, excepting a few lines at the end. He mentions his being so unfortunate as to come too late for Mr. Bentley's edition, and talks of inserting it in Dodsley's Collection. In 1754, it is supposed that he wrote the Fragment of An Ode to Vicissitude,' as it is now called. The idea and some of the lines are taken from Gresset's Epitre sur ma Convalescence.' Another Ode was also sketched, which might be called The Liberty of Genius,' though some' of Gray's biographers, for what reasons I am ignorant, have called it The Connection between Genius and Grandeur.' The argument of it, the only part which was ever written, is as follows: "All that men of power can do for men of genius is to leave them at their liberty; compared to

* The latter part of Gray's epitaph has a strong resemblance to an inscription on a sepulchral cippus found near the Villa Pelluchi, at Rome, now (I believe) in the British Museum.—D. M. Dasumiæ. Soteridi. Liberta. Optimæ. et. Conjugi. Sanctissimæ. bene, mer, fec. L. Dasumius. Callistus. cum. qua. vixit. An xxxv. şine. ulla. querella. optans. ut. ipsa. sibi potius. superstes. fuisset. quam. se. sibi. superstitem. reliquisset.