tion of beautiful images, appropriate words, and exquisitely regulated verse. Gray told Dr. Beattie, that he considered himself bound in gratitude to the Duke of Grafton to write the Ode, and that he foresaw the abuse that would be thrown upon him for it, but did not think it worth his while to avoid it. Mr. Nicholls tells us, that, during a visit he paid to Gray, the latter offered with a good grace, what he could not have refused, if it had been asked of him-to write the Installation Ode. This, however, he considered as a sort of task, to which he submitted with great reluctance; and it was long after he first mentioned it to him, before he could prevail on himself to begin the composition. He says, "One morning, when I went to him as usual after breakfast, I knocked at his door, which he drew open, and exclaimed with a loud voice 'Hence, avaunt! 'tis holy ground!' I was so astonished, that I almost feared he was out of his senses; but this was the beginning of the Ode, which he had just composed." And here, perhaps, as this is the last of Gray's three great Odes, it will be due both to the poet, and to his admirers, to quote a portion of what Mr. Mathias has observed on Gray's lyrical versification :-"The peculiar formation of the strophe, antistrophe, and epode, was unknown before him; An and it could only have been planned and perfected by a master-genius, who was equally skilled, by repeated study, and by transfusion into his own mind of the lyric compositions of ancient Greece, and of the higher canzoni of the Tuscan poetry, 'di maggior carmi e suono,' as it is termed in the commanding energy of their language. tecedent to 'The Progress of Poesy' and 'The Bard,' no such lyrics had appeared. There is not an ode in the English language constructed like these two compositions, with such power, such majesty, and such sweetness: with such appropriate pauses, and just cadences; with such regulated measure of the verse; with such master principles of lyric art displayed and exemplified, and at the same time with such concealment of the difficulty, which is lost by the softness and uninterrupted fluency of the lines in each stanza; with such a musical magic, that every verse of it in succession dwells on the ear, and harmonizes with that which is gone before." When the ceremony of the Installation was over, Gray went on a tour to the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland. His old friend Dr. Wharton, who was to have been his companion in the journey, was seized with a return of an asthmatic fit on the first day, and went home. Gray pursued his solitary tour, and sent a journal of his travels regularly to his friend. This has been printed. It is written with great simplicity and elegance, and abounds in lively and picturesque description. "He that reads his Epistolary Narrative," says Johnson, "wishes that to travel, and tell his travels, had been more of his employment." In April 1770 he complains much of a depression of spirits, talks of an intended tour in Wales in the summer, and of meeting his friend, Dr. Wharton, at Mason's house at Aston. In July, however, he was still at Cambridge, and wrote to Dr. Beattie, complaining of illness and pains in the head, &c. This letter sent him some criticisms on the first book of "The Minstrel,” which have since been printed. This tour took place in the autumn : his companion was his friend Mr. Nicholls, of Blundeston in Suffolk, a gentleman of much accomplishment, and who was admitted during the latter part of Gray's life into very intimate friendship with him. He was, I believe, the Octavius of the "Pursuits of Literature." In May 1771 he wrote to Dr. Wharton, just sketching the outline of his tour to Wales and some of the adjoining counties. This is the last letter that appears in Mason's collection. He there complains of an unusual cough, of spirits habitually low, and of the uneasiness which the thoughts of the duties which his professorship gave him, which, after having held three years, he had now a determined resolution to resign. * He mentions also different plans of travel and amusement that he had projected. A few days after, he removed to London, where his health more and more declined. Dr. Gisborne, his physician, advised a purer air, and he went to Kensington: there in some degree he revived, and returned to Cambridge, intending to go from that place to his friend Dr. Wharton's, at Old Park. Some little time before this, his friend Mr. Robinson had seen Gray in his lodgings in Jermyn-street: he was then ill, apparently in a state of decay, and in low spirits. He expressed regret that he had done so little in literature, and lamented that at last, when he had become easy in circumstances, he had lost his health. On the 24th of July, while at dinner in the College Hall, he was seized with an attack of gout in his stomach. The violence of the disease baffled the power of medicine. He was attended very carefully by Professor Plumptree and Dr. Glynn. Afterwards, Mr. Stonhewer, hearing of his danger, brought Dr. Gisborne from London. In * Gray began an inaugural "Lecture on History" in Latin, extending to about a couple of pages, which I possess. It is much corrected, and he probably had lost his facility, by long disuse, of composing in that language. + Mr. Cary mentions in his Diary, that he conversed with the college servant who assisted to carry Gray from the hall to his chamber, when he was thus suddenly attacked. Memoir of H. Cary, by his Son, Vol. I. p. 223. |