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GRAY, THOMAS (1716-1771)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 395 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GRAY, See also:THOMAS (1716-1771) , See also:English poet, the fifth and See also:sole surviving See also:child of See also:Philip and Dorothy Gray, was See also:born in See also:London on the 26th of See also:December 1716. His See also:mother's See also:maiden name was Antrobus, and in See also:partnership with her See also:sister See also:Mary she kept a millinery See also:shop in Cornhill. This and the See also:house connected with it were the See also:property of Philip Gray, a See also:money-scrivener, who married Dorothy in 1706 and lived with her in the house, the sisters renting the shop from him and supporting themselves by its profits. Philip Gray had impaired the See also:fortune which he inherited from his See also:father, a wealthy London See also:merchant; yet he was sufficiently well-to-do, and at the See also:close of his See also:life was See also:building a house upon some property of his own at See also:Wanstead. But he was selfish and brutal, and in 1735 his wife took some abortive steps to obtain a separation from him. At this date she had given See also:birth to twelve See also:children, of whom Thomas was the only survivor. He owed his life as well as his See also:education to this " careful, See also:tender mother," as he calls her. The child was suffocating when she opened one of his See also:veins with her own See also:hand. He went at her expense to See also:Eton in 1727, and was confided to the care of her See also:brother, See also:William Antrobus, one of the assistant-masters, during some See also:part at least of his school-life. At Eton Gray's closest See also:friends were See also:Horace See also:Walpole, See also:Richard See also:West (son of the See also:lord See also:chancellor of See also:Ireland and See also:grandson of the famous See also:Bishop See also:Burnet), and Thomas See also:Ashton, afterwards See also:fellow of Eton. This little coterie was dubbed " the Quadruple See also:Alliance "; its members were studious and See also:literary, and took little part in the amusements of their See also:fellows. In 1734 Gray matriculated at Peterhouse, See also:Cambridge, of which his See also:uncle, See also:Robert Antrobus, had been a fellow.

At Cambridge he had once more the companionship of Walpole and Ashton who were at See also:

King's, but West went to See also:Christchurch, See also:Oxford. Gray made at this See also:time the firmest and most See also:constant friendship of his life with Thomas See also:Wharton (not the poet See also:Warton) of See also:Pembroke See also:College. He was maintained by his mother, and his straitened means were eked out by certain small exhibitions from his college. His conspicuous abilities and known devotion to study perhaps atoned in the eyes of the authorities for his indifference to the See also:regular routine of study; for See also:mathematics in particular he had an aversion which was the one exception to his almost limitless curiosity in other directions. During his first Cambridge See also:period he learnt See also:Italian " like any See also:dragon," and made See also:translations from See also:Guarini, See also:Dante and See also:Tasso, some of which have been pre-served. In See also:September 1738 he is in the agony of leaving college, nor can we trace his movements with any certainty for a while, though it may be conjectured that he spent much time with Horace Walpole, and made in his See also:company some fashionable acquaintances in London. On the 29th of See also:March 1739, he started with Walpole for a See also:long See also:continental tour, for the expenses of which it is probable that his father, for once, came in some measure to his assistance. In See also:Paris, Gray visited the See also:great with his friend, studied the picture-galleries, went to tragedies, comedies, operas and cultivated there that See also:taste for the See also:French classical dramatists, especially See also:Racine, whom he afterwards tried to imitate in the fragmentary " See also:Agrippina." It is characteristic of him that he travels through See also:France with See also:Caesar constantly in his hands, ever noting and transcribing. In the same way, in See also:crossing the See also:Alps and in See also:Piedmont, he has " See also:Livy in the See also:chaise with him and Silius Italicus too." In See also:Italy he made a long sojourn, principally at See also:Florence, where Walpole's life-long correspondent, Horace See also:Mann, was See also:British See also:envoy, and received and treated the travellers most hospitably. But See also:Rome and See also:Naples are also described in Gray's letters, sometimes vividly, always amusingly, and in his notes are almost catalogued. See also:Herculaneum, an See also:object of intense See also:interest to the See also:young poet and See also:antiquary, had been discovered the See also:year before. At length in See also:April 1741 Gray and Walpole set out northwards for Reggio.

Here they quarrelled. Gray, " never a boy," was a student, and at times retiring; Walpole, in his way a student too, was at this time a very social being, somewhat too frivolous, and, what was worse, too patronizing. He See also:

good-humouredly said at a later date, " Gray loves to find See also:fault," and this fault-finding was expressed, no doubt with exaggeration, in a See also:letter to Ashton, who violated Gray's confidence. The rupture followed, and with two friends, See also:John Chute of the Vyne, See also:Hampshire, and the young See also:Francis Whithed, Gray went to See also:Venice to see the See also:doge wed the Adriatic on See also:Ascension See also:Day. Thence he returned See also:home attended only by a laquais de voyage, visiting once more the Grande See also:Chartreuse where he See also:left in the See also:album of the brotherhood those beautiful See also:alcaics, 0 Tu severa Religio loci, which reveal his characteristic See also:melancholy (enhanced by solitude and estrangement) and that sense of the See also:glory as distinct from the horror of See also:mountain scenery to which perhaps he was the first of Englishmen to give adequate expression. On the 18th of September 1741 we find him in London, astonishing the See also:street boys with his deep ruffles, large bag-See also:wig and long See also:sword,and " mortified " under the hands of the English See also:barber. On the 6th of See also:November his father died; Philip Gray had, it is evident, been less See also:savage and niggardly at last to those who were dependent upon him, and his See also:death left his wife and son some measure of assured See also:peace and comfort. London was Gray's headquarters for more than a year, with occasional visits to Stoke Poges, to which his mother and Mary Antrobus had retired from business to live with their sister, Mrs See also:Rogers. At Stoke he heard of the death of West, to whom he had sent the " See also:Ode on See also:Spring," which was returned to him unopened. It was an unexpected See also:blow, shocking in all its circumstances, especially if we believe the See also:story that his friend's frail life was brought to a close by the See also:discovery that the mother whom he tenderly loved had been an unfaithful wife, and, as some say, poisoned her See also:husband. About this tragedy Gray preserved a mournful silence, broken only by the pathetic See also:sonnet, and some Latin lines, in which he laments his loss. The year 1742, was, for him, fruitful in poetic effort, of which, however, much was incomplete.

The "Agrippina," the De principiis See also:

Cog?tandi, the splenetic " Hymn to See also:Ignorance " in which he contemplates his return to the university, remain fragments; but besides the two poems already mentioned, the " Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College " and the " Hymn to Adversity," perhaps the most faultless of his poems, were written before the close of the summer. After hesitating between Trinity See also:Hall and Peterhouse, he returned to the latter, probably as a fellow-commoner. He had hitherto neglected to read for a degree; he proceeded to that of LL.B. in 1744. In 1745 a reconciliation with Walpole, long desired probably on both sides, was effected through the See also:kind offices of Chute's sister. In 1746 he spent his time between Cambridge, Stoke and London; was much with Walpole; graphically describes the trial of the Scottish See also:rebel lords, and studied See also:Greek with avidity; but " the muse," which by this time perhaps had stimulated him to begin the " See also:Elegy," " has gone, and left him in much worse company." In See also:town he finds his friends Chute and Whithed returned to See also:England, and " flaunts about " in public places with them. The year 1747 produced only the ode on Walpole's See also:cat, and we gather that he is mainly engaged in See also:reading with a very See also:critical See also:eye, and interesting himself more in the troubles of Pembroke College, in which he almost seems to live, than in the affairs of Peterhouse. In this year also he made the acquaintance of See also:Mason, his future biographer. In 1748 he first came before the public, but anonymously, in See also:Dodsley's See also:Miscellany, in which appeared the Eton ode, the ode on spring, and that on the cat. In the same year he sent to Wharton the beginning of the didactic poem, " The Alliance of Education and See also:Government," which remains a fragment. His aunt, Mary Antrobus, died in 1749. There is little to break the monotony of his days till 1750, when from Stoke he sent Walpole " a thing to which he had at last put an end." The " thing " was the " Elegy." It was shown about in See also:manuscript by his admiring friend; it was impudently pirated, and Gray had it printed by Dodsley in self-See also:defence. Even thus it had "a pinch or two in its See also:cradle," of which it long See also:bore the marks.

The publication led to the one incident in Gray's life which has a See also:

touch of See also:romance. At Stoke-house had come to live the widowed See also:Lady See also:Cobham, who learnt that the author of the " Elegy " was her See also:neighbour. At her instance, Lady Schaub, her visitor, and See also:Miss See also:Speed, her protegee, paid him a See also:call; the poet was out, and his quiet mother and aunts were somewhat flustered at the apparition of these See also:women of See also:fashion, whose acquaintance Gray had already made in town. Hence the humorous " Long Story." A platonic See also:affection sprang up between Gray and Miss Speed; rumour, upon the death of Lady Cobham, said that they were to be married, but the lady escaped this mild destiny to become the Baroness de la Peyriere, afterwards Countess Viry, and a dangerous See also:political intriguante. In 1753 all Gray's completed poems, except the sonnet on the death of West, were published by Dodsley in a handsome See also:volume illustrated by Richard See also:Bentley, the son of the celebrated See also:master of Trinity. To these designs we owe the verses to the artist which were posthumously published from a MS. torn at the end. In the same year Gray's mother died and was buried in the See also:churchyard at Stoke Poges, the See also:scene of the " Elegy," in the same See also:grave with Mary Antrobus. A visit to his friend Dr Wharton at See also:Durham later in the year revives his earlier impressions of that bolder scenery which is henceforth to be in the See also:main the framework of his muse. Already in 1752 he had almost completed " The Progress of Poesy," in which, and in " The See also:Bard," the imagery is largely furnished forth by mountain and torrent. The latter poem long held See also:fire; Gray was stimulated to finish it by See also:hearing the See also:blind Welsh harper See also:Parry at Cambridge. Both odes were the first-fruits of the See also:press which Walpole had set up at See also:Strawberry See also:Hill, and were printed together there in 1757. They are genuinely Pindaric, that is, with corresponding strophes, antistrophes and epodes.

As the Greek See also:

motto prefixed to them implies, they were vocal to the intelligent only; and these at first were few. But the odes, if they did not attain the popularity of the " Elegy," marked an See also:epoch in the See also:history of English See also:poetry, and the See also:influence of " The Bard " may be traced even in that great but very fruitful imposture, the pseudo-See also:Ossian of See also:Macpherson. Gray yields to the impulse of the Romantic See also:movement; he has long been an admirer of ballad poetry; before he wrote " The Bard " he had begun to study Scandinavian literature, and the two " Norse Odes," written in 1761, were in See also:style and metrical See also:form strangely anticipative of See also:Coleridge and See also:Scott. Meanwhile his Cambridge life had been vexed by the freaks of the fellow-commoners of Peterhouse, a peculiarly riotous set. He had suffered great inconvenience for a time by the burning of his property in Cornhill, and so See also:nervous was he on the subject of fire that he had provided himself with a rope-See also:ladder by which he might descend fromthis college window. Under this window a See also:hunting-party of these See also:rude lads raised in the See also:early See also:morning the cry of fire; the poet's See also:night-capped See also:head appeared and was at once withdrawn. This, or little more than this, was the See also:simple fact out of which arose the See also:legend still current at Cambridge. The servile authorities of Peterhouse treated Gray's complaints with scant respect, and he migrated to Pembroke College. " I left my lodgings," he said, "because the rooms were noisy, and the See also:people of the house dirty." In 1758 died Mrs Rogers, and Gray describes himself as employed at Stoke in " dividing nothing " between himself and the surviving aunt, Mrs Oliffe, whom he calls " the spawn of See also:Cerberus and the Dragon of Wantley." In 1759 he availed himself of the MS. treasures of the British Museum, then for the first time open to the public, made a very long sojourn in town, and in 1761 witnessed the See also:coronation of See also:George III., of which to his friend See also:Brown of Pembroke he wrote a very vivacious See also:account. In his last years he revealed a craving for a life less sedentary than heretofore. He visited various picturesque districts of Great See also:Britain, exploring great houses and ruined abbeys; he was the See also:pioneer of the See also:modern tourist, noting and describing in the spirit now of the poet, now of the See also:art-critic, now of the antiquary. In 1762 he travelled in See also:Yorkshire and See also:Derbyshire; in 1764 in the Lowlands of See also:Scotland, and thence went to See also:Southampton and its neighbourhood.

In 1765 he revisits Scotland; he is the See also:

guest of Lord Strathmore at See also:Glamis; and See also:revels in " those monstrous creatures of See also:God," the Highland mountains. His most notable achievement in this direction was his See also:journey among the English lakes, of which he wrote an interesting account to Wharton; and even in 1770, the year before his death, he visited with his young friend See also:Norton Nicholls "five of the most beautiful counties of the See also:kingdom," and descended the Wye for 40 M. In all these quests he displays a See also:physical See also:energy which surprises and even perplexes us. His true See also:academic status was worthily secured in 1768, when the See also:duke of See also:Grafton offered him the professorship of modern history which in 1762 he had vainly endeavoured to obtain from See also:Bute. He wrote in 1769 the " See also:Installation Ode " upon the See also:appointment of Grafton as chancellor of the university. It was almost the only instance in which he successfully executed a task, not, in the strictest sense, self-imposed; the great founders of theuniversity are tactfully memorized and pass before us in a kind of heraldic splendour. He bore with indifference the taunts to which, from See also:Junius and others, he was exposed for this See also:tribute to his See also:patron. He was contemplating a journey to See also:Switzerland to visit his youthful friend de See also:Bonstetten when, in the summer of 1771, he was conscious of a great decline in his physical See also:powers. He was seized with a sudden illness when dining in his college hall, and died of See also:gout in the See also:stomach on the 3oth of See also:July 1771. His last moments were attended by his See also:cousin Mary Antrobus, postmistress through his influence at Cambridge and daughter of his Eton See also:tutor; and he was laid beside his beloved mother in the churchyard of Stoke Poges. Owing to his shyness and reserve he had few intimate friends, but to these his loss was irreparable; for to them he revealed himself either in boyish levity and banter, or See also:wise and sympathetic counsel and tender and yet manly See also:consolation; to them he imparted his quiet but keen observation of passing events or the stores of his extensive reading in literature See also:ancient, See also:medieval or modern; and with See also:Proteus-like variety he writes at one time as a speculative philosopher, at another as a critic in art or See also:music, at another as a meteorologist and nature-See also:lover. His friendship with the young, after his See also:migration to Pembroke College, is a noteworthy trait in his See also:character.

With Lord Strathmore and the See also:

Lyons and with William See also:Palgrave he See also:con-versed as an See also:elder brother, and Norton Nicholls of Trinity Hall lost in him a second father, who had taught him to think and feel. The brilliant young foreigner, de Bonstetten, looked back after a long and chequered career with remembrance still vivid to the days in which the poet so soon to See also:die taught him to read See also:Shakespeare and See also:Milton in the monastic gloom of Cambridge. With the elderly " See also:Levites " of the See also:place he was less in sympathy; they dreaded his sarcastic vein; they were conscious that he laughed at them, and in the polemics of the university he was somewhat of a See also:free See also:lance, fighting for his own hand. Lampoons of his were privately circulated with effect, and that he could be the fiercest of satirists the " Cambridge Courtship " on the candidature of Lord See also:Sandwich for the See also:office of high steward, and the verses on Lord See also:Holland's mimic ruins at Westgate, sufficiently prove. The See also:faculty which he displayed in See also:humour and See also:satire was denied to his more serious muse; there all was the See also:fruit of long delay; of that higher See also:inspiration he had a thin but very See also:precious vein, and the sublimity which he undoubtedly attained was reached by an effort of• which captious and even sympathetic See also:criticism can discover the traces. In his own time he was regarded as an innovator, for like See also:Collins he revived the poetic diction of the past, and the adverse judgments of See also:Johnson and others upon his See also:work are in fact a defence of the current literary traditions. Few men have published so little to so much effect; few have attained to fame with so little ambition. His favourite See also:maxim was " to be employed is to be happy," but he was always employed in the first instance for the See also:satisfaction of his own soul, and to this end and no other he made himself one of the best Greek scholars at Cambridge in the See also:interval between Bentley and See also:Porson. His See also:genius was receptive rather than creative, and it is to be regretted that he lacked energy to achieve that history of English poetry which he once projected, and for which he possessed far more knowledge and insight than the poet Thomas Warton, to whom he resigned the task. He had a See also:fine taste in music, See also:painting and See also:architecture; and his See also:correspondence includes a wide survey of such See also:European literature as was accessible to him, with criticisms, sometimes indeed a little limited and insular, yet of a singularly fresh and modern See also:cast. In See also:person he was below the See also:middle height, but well-made, and his See also:face, in which the primness of his features was redeemed by his flashing eyes, was the See also:index of his character. There was a touch of affectation in his demeanour, and he was sometimes reticent and secretive even to his best friends.

He was a refined Epicurean in his habits, and a deist rather than a See also:

Christian in his religious beliefs; but his friend, Mrs Bonfoy, had " taught him to pray " and he was keenly alive to the dangers of a flippant See also:scepticism. In a beautiful alcaic See also:stanza he pronounces the See also:man supremely happy who in the depths of the See also:heart is conscious See also:General von See also:Werder concentrated his See also:army See also:corps in the town and held it for a See also:month, making it the point d'appui of movements towards See also:Dijon and See also:Langres, as well as towards See also:Besancon. Gray gave its name to the distinguished English See also:family of de Gray, Gray or See also:Grey, Anschitel de Gray being mentioned as an See also:Oxfordshire See also:tenant in Domesday.

End of Article: GRAY, THOMAS (1716-1771)

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