: assistant to Dr. George. Mr. Nicholls once asked Gray, if he recollected when he first perceived in himself any symptoms of poetry. He answered, "He believed it was when at Eton he began to take pleasure in reading Virgil for his own amusement, and not in school hours as a task." He also asked Mr. Bryant,* who was next boy to him at Eton, what sort of a scholar Gray was; he said a very good one; and added that he thought he could remember part of an exercise of his on the subject of the freezing and thawing of words, taken from the Spectator; the short fragment is as follows, Pluviæque loquaces Descendere jugis, et garrulus ingruit imber." In 1734 he was admitted as a pensioner at PeterHouse, Cambridge, in his nineteenth year. At Eton his friendship with Horace Walpole, and more particularly with Richard West, commenced. With the latter, similar tastes, and congeniality of pursuits, soon ripened into a very warm attachment-" par studiis ævique modis." The correspondence which passed between them for eight years, and portions of which Mason published, shews on the part of both not only an ardent pursuit of literature, but an extraordinary proficiency in classical knowledge, combined with judgment and taste, remarkable at so early a period of life Nor are the productions of West at all inferior in elegance or correctness to those of Gray ; in fact, Mason says, that "when at school, West's genius was thought to be more brilliant than his friend's;" and * I have sometimes wondered that the name of Jacob Bryant never occurs in Gray's Correspondence, and that an acquaintance commenced at school, when friendships are warmest and most lasting, did not continue, nor become more intimate, by similarity of studies, particularly as, when Gray was residing at Stoke, they were neighbours. But Mr. Nicholls says, that Mr. Bryant, talking to him about Gray, seemed to think that he had taken something ill of him, and founded this opinion on some circumstances which appeared to Mr. B. to be frivolous, and which he forgot: but he added, that he never heard Gray mention Bryant but with respect, regretting only that he had turned his great learning into a wrong channel. Mr. Bryant's interesting Letter concerning Gray will be found at the end of the Life. Bryant says, West was the better scholar." His Latin Compositions, in my opinion, are beautiful in sentiment and expression, though a few inaccuracies may be detected; and some of his English verses even Pope would not have disliked to own.* In the Letters which form this early part of the Memoirs of Gray, and which passed between him and his friend, there is a purity in the feeling, and an elegance in the subjects and descriptions, which have always made a most pleasing impression on my mind, increased perhaps in no small degree by that tender shade of melancholy, which West's declining health, and other circumstances, threw over the opening prospects of his life. A friend, after a long interval had passed, and indeed during Gray's last years, mentioned the name of West to him, when he looked serious, and seemed to feel the affliction of a recent loss. It is said the cause of West's disorder, a consumption which brought him to an early grave, was the fatal discovery which he made of the treachery of a supposed friend, and the viciousness. of a mother whom he tenderly loved. This man, under the mask of friendship to him and his family, intrigued with his mother, and robbed him of his peace of mind, his health, and his life. The regret of friendship has been preserved in some affectionate and beautiful lines with which the fragment of the fourth Book De Principiis Cogitandi begin, and which he sent to Mr. Walpole, he says, "for the sake of the subject," "Vidi egomet duro graviter concussa dolore 66 Pectora, in alterius non unquam lenta dolorem ; * Ex. gr. "How weak is man to reason's judging eye! "Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire, &c. We have often heard these lines receive the high praise of one whose judgment, knowledge, and poetical taste, no one would dispute. "Visa tamen tardi demum inclementia morbi Though Gray in after life had many accomplished and attached friends, the loss of West was never supplied.* When he removed to Peter-House, Horace Walpole went to King's College, and West to ChristChurch, Oxford. From this period the life of the poet is conducted by his biographer Mr. Mason through the medium of his Letters. From these we gain no information concerning his College Studies, which were probably not very diligently prosecuted. Of Mathematics, he was almost entirely ignorant; and West describes himself and his friend as walking hand in hand, Through many a flow'ry path and shelly grot, "Where Learning lull'd us in her private maze.” During his residence at College, from 1734 to 1738, his poetical productions are, a Copy of Latin Verses inserted in the Musæ Etonenses, "Luna Habitabilis ;” another on the Marriage of the Prince of Wales;† a Sapphic Ode to West; and some smaller Poems, among which is a translation of part of the Fourteenth Canto of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. I give the concluding lines, with which I remember hearing the late Dr. Edward * So far as I can judge, the more intimate friends of Gray were Mason, Wharton, Chute, Stonhewer, Brown, Nicholls. He was acquainted with Hurd, but not intimate; and the name of one friend drops off in the correspondence. Mr. Stonhewer, I think, received his rents for his London houses, and Mr. Nicholls was much younger and a late acquaintance. When at College, the intimacy between Gray, Walpole, West, and Asheton, was called the Quadruple Alliance, and they passed under the names of Tydeus, Orosmades, Almanzor, and Plato. For an account of Asheton, see Aldine Ed. vol. 1. p. iii. †The twelfth line of this poem is not metrical— "Irasque, insidiasque, et tacitum sub pectore vulnus ;" but it stands so in the original Edition. Clarke, when Professor of Mineralogy, finish one of his Lectures, and rest on the beautiful expression of the last line with peculiar enunciation ; "Here gems break through the night with glitt'ring beam, "And paint the margin of the costly stream; "All stones of lustre shoot their vivid ray, "And mix attempered in a various day : "And Rubies flame, with Sapphire's heav'nly blue; Et. 22. In 1739, at the request of Horace Walpole, Gray accompanied him in his travels abroad, and from his Letters to West, and his own family, we have a tolerably accurate account of his pursuits. Mason says, "He catalogued and made occasional short remarks on the pictures which he saw. He wrote a minute description of every thing he saw in his tour from Rome to Naples, as also of the environs of Rome, Florence, &c. They abound with many uncommon remarks and pertinent classical quotations."* Most of his journals and collections I have had an opportunity of seeing, and I printed his "Criticisms on Architecture and Painting, &c. during a Tour in Italy," which shew at once the great attention he paid to the subject, and an extraordinary knowledge of ancient and modern art at so early a period of life. At Florence he made a collection of Music, chiefly embracing the works of Cimarosa, Pergolesi, and the old Italian masters, with notices also of the chief singers of the time, and the * These remarks came into possession of his friend Mr. Chute, of the Vine, in Hampshire, and were probably given to him by Gray. They are printed in the fourth volume of the Aldine Edition of Gray's Poems. Others of the same kind I also possess. There is in MS. in my possession a copy of the Wilton Gallery, very amusing, and filled with Critical Remarks by Gray on the Statues; and I have also his Criticisms on the Pictures then in Kensington Palace. The only collection he himself made in works of art was in prints. operas in which they appeared, and the arias they sung." His Collection of Engravings also is still in existence : at the bottom of each he has written an account of the picture and the engraver, with a reference to the work of art that describes it. I do not know any branch of the Fine Arts which escaped his observation, or in which he was not a proficient. In May, after a visit to the Frascati, and the cascades of Tivoli, he sent his beautiful Alcaic Ode to West, and afterwards his Poem on the Gaurus. He also commenced his Latin Poem, De Principiis Cogitandi. He then set off with Walpole, on the 24th April, 1741, for Bologna and Reggio, at the latter of which towns a serious difference took place between them, and they parted. The exact cause of this quarrel has never been ascertained. I have been told, on what appears good authority, that Walpole, suspecting Gray of having written home something to his disadvantage, broke the seal of a Letter. But the matter will never be entirely cleared up. Mason says, that Walpole enjoined him to charge him (Walpole) with the chief blame of the quarrel, confessing that more attention, and complaisance, and deference to a warm friendship, superior judgment, and prudence might have prevented a rupture. And after Gray's death he also wrote to the same person; "I am sorry I had a fault towards him. It does not wound me to own it, and it must be believed when I allow it, that not he, but I myself was in the wrong. Such is Walpole's account. When Mr. Nicholls once endeavoured to learn from Gray his account of the difference, he said, "Walpole was the son of the first Minister, and you may easily conceive that on this account he might assume an air of superiority, or do and say something which perhaps I did not bear * These books of Music were in six large volumes, and were sold at the sale of his Library in 1845. |