but which unfortunately were not to be accomplished. Within a few days after the date of this last letter, he removed to London, where his health more and more declined. His physician, Dr. Gisborne, advised freer air, and he went to Kensington. There he in some degree revived, and returned to Cambridge, intending to go from that place to Old Park, near Durham, the residence of his friend Dr. Wharton.* In the spring of 1769 or 1770, his friend Mr. Robinson saw Gray for the last time, in his lodgings in Jermyn Street. He was then ill, and in a state of apparent decay, and low spirits. He expressed regret that he had done so little in literature; and began to lament, that at last, when he had become easy in his circumstances, he had lost his health. But in this he checked himself, feeling that it was wrong to repine at the decrees of Providence. On the 24th of July, while at dinner in the College hall, he was seized with an attack of the gout† in his stomach. The violence of the disease resisted all the powers of medicine: on the 29th he was seized with convulsions, which returned more violently on the 30th; and he expired in the evening of

* See H. Stevenson's Works, vol. ii. p. 210.

+ In a letter from Paris, August 11, 1771, H. Walpole says, on hearing the report of Gray's death,-" He called on me, but two or three days before I came hither: he complained of being ill, and talked of the gout in his stomach; but I expected his death no more than my own."

y, in the fifty-fifth year of his age; sensible to the last aware of his danger, and exg, says his friend Dr. Brown, no visible at the thought of his approaching death. re of his funeral devolved on one of his ors Dr. Brown, the president of Pembrokewho saw him buried, as he desired in his y the side of his mother, in the church-yard oke. His other executor and friend Mr. I was at that time absent in a distant part kshire, and when Dr. Brown wrote to him - Gray's short illness, he says, as I felt

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ly at the time what Tacitus has so well exd on a similar occasion, I may with propriety is words: Mihi, præter acerbitatem amici - auget mostitiam, quod adsidere valetudini, -deficientem, satiari vultu, complexu non git.'

ch was the life of Gray, who, however few

1778 Mason erected a monument for Gray in Wester Abbey, with the following inscription, which seems e this defect, that it is as much applicable to a moit to Milton, as to Gray:

"No more the Grecian muse unrivall'd reigns, To Britain let the nations homage pay; She felt a Homer's fire, in Milton's strains, A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray." Jason's Works, vol. i. p. 141. On Penn's Cenotaph to , see Repton's Inquiry into the Changes of Taste in scape Gardening, p 71; see Roberts's Epistle to C. ey on the English Poets, p. 110, on the death of Gray.

his works,* must still hold a very distinguished rank among the English poets, for the excellence of his compositions, and for the splendour of his genius. Though the events of his life which I have briefly sketched, are of common occurrence and offer nothing in themselves to excite great interest in the reader; yet there is surely some pleasure in contemplating the progress of a virtuous and enlightened mind, early withdrawn from public life to the stillness of the academic cloister; and confining its pleasures and prospects within the serenity of a studious retirement. Nor is it, I think, without some feelings of admiration, that we reflect on the history of a life so constantly, and unremittingly, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, and the general improvement of the mind, for its own sake, and as a final purpose. Motives, which have no honourable connection with literature, are yet often instrumental in increasing it. The pursuit of wealth, of station, or of rank in a profession, is the constant and common incentive to mental exertion; and is dignified, perhaps not improperly, by the name of honest ambition. Even among those of a nobler nature, the desire of being distinguished in their own, and after-ages, for the

* "Gray joins to the sublimity of Milton the elegance and harmony of Pope; and nothing is wanting, to render him, perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but to have written a little more."-A. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 255.

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ents of their mind, and the energies of enius, acts as a perpetual spur towards the e of their exertions. Much of this feeling ot appear to have existed in the mind of To him, study seemed to bring all the ree asked, in its own gratification; and his is in learning was constant; even in the e of those quickening motives, which, in all cases, are necessary to preserve men, from weariness in the toil of original coma, or from indolence in the acquisition, and ement, of the materials of collected know

That the publications of Gray, however, o few, is to be attributed, I think, to several :-to the natural modesty and reservedness disposition; to the situation of life in which s placed, without any profession or public hat might lead his thoughts, and studies in icular direction; to his habit of submitting g to publication, without bestowing on it that and correctness, which demands long and at attention, and which indeed seems income with works of any magnitude or number: extent and variety of his research; and to reat temptations to read,* in a place which ed a ready and almost boundless supply of ials to satisfy him in any branch of know; and which would constantly induce him, Ir. Mason says, that Gray often mentioned to him, eading was much more agreeable to him than writing.

to make fresh accessions to his information, and to open new channels of inquiry. "I shall be happy (says Mr. Mason in a letter to Dr. Beattie) to know that the remaining books of your Minstrel' are likewise to be published soon. The next best thing, after instructing the world profitably, is to amuse it innocently. England has lost that man (Gray) who, of all others in it, was best qualified for both these purposes; but who, from early chagrin and disappointment, had imbibed a disinclination to employ his talents beyond the sphere of self-satisfaction and improvement."

Of Gray's person, his biographer has given no account and Lord Orford* has but just mentioned it. The earliest picture of him, is that which was taken when he was fifteen years of age, by Richardson. It is now in the possession of Mr. Robinson of Cambridge, and by his permission has been engraved. Another portrait was painted by Eckardt, and engraved in the Works of Lord Orford. It is at Strawberry-Hill, and the design was taken from the Portrait of a Musician, by Vankyck, at the Duke of Grafton's. This print was intended to be prefixed to Bentley's edition of Gray's Odes, with a motto from Lucan, (x. 296).

* See Walpoliana, vol. i. p. 95.

+ See Walpole's Works, vol. ii. p. 431, 436; and vol. v. p. 352.

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