A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. GRA Y. M R. THOMAS GRAY, the fubject of this memoir, was born in Cornhill, the twenty-fixth day of December 1716. His grandfather had been a confiderable merchant; but his father, Mr. Philip Gray, exercised the trade of a money-fcrivener; and being of an indolent difpofition, he did not add to his paternal fortune. He neglected not, however, the education of his fon, whom he fent to Eton fchool; where he contracted an intimacy with Mr. Horace Walpole, who is at present so distinguished in the republic of letters; and with Mr. Richard Weft, a young gentleman of uncommon ability, whose father was Lord Chancellor of Ireland. From Eton Mr. Gray, in the year 1734, removed to Cambridge, and was admitted a penfioner of St. Peter's College. Mr. Weft went to study in ChriftChurch College at Oxford; and these ingenious |