Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/32

 mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her.’

The friendship with Horace Walpole had been renewed in 1744, at first with more courtesy than cordiality, although they afterwards corresponded upon very friendly terms. Gray was often at Strawberry Hill, and made acquaintance with some of Walpole's friends, though impeded by his shyness in society. Walpole admired Gray's poetry and did much to urge the timid author to publicity. His first publication was the ‘Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College,’ written in 1742, which, at Walpole's desire, was published anonymously by Dodsley in the summer of 1747. It made no impression. In the following year he began his poem on the ‘Alliance of Education and Government,’ but was deterred from pursuing it by the appearance of Montesquieu's ‘Esprit des Lois,’ containing some of his best thoughts. In 1748 appeared the first three volumes of Dodsley's collection, the second of which contained Gray's Eton ode, the ‘Ode to Spring,’ and the poem ‘On the Death of a Favourite Cat’ (sent to Walpole in a letter dated 1 March 1747). The ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’ had been begun in 1742 (Works, i. xx), and was probably taken up again in the winter of 1749, upon the death of his aunt Mary (see, p. 66). It was certainly concluded at Stoke Poges, whence it was sent to Walpole in a letter dated 12 June 1750. Walpole admired it greatly, and showed it to various friends, among others to Lady Cobham (widow of Sir Richard Temple, afterwards Viscount Cobham), who lived at Stoke Manor House. She persuaded Miss Speed, her niece, and a Mrs. Schaub, who was staying with her, to pay a visit to Gray at his mother's house. Not finding him at home they left a note, and the visit led to an acquaintance and to Gray's poem of the ‘Long Story’ (written in August 1750,, p. 103). In February 1751 the publisher of the ‘Magazine of Magazines’ wrote to Gray that he was about to publish the ‘Elegy.’ Gray instantly wrote to Walpole to get the poem published by Dodsley, and it appeared accordingly on 16 Feb. 1751. It went through four editions in two months, and eleven in a short time, besides being constantly pirated (see Notes and Queries, 5th ser. vii. 142, 252, 439, 469, viii. 212 for the first appearance. Many parodies are noticed in Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. vols. i. and ii.) Gray left all the profits to Dodsley, declining on principle to accept payment for his poems. At this time (1708–1782) [q. v.] was on very intimate terms with Walpole. He made drawings or illustrations of Gray's poems, by which Gray himself was delighted. In March 1753 appeared ‘designs by Mr. R. Bentley for six poems by Mr. T. Gray.’ The poems included those already published, ‘Spring,’ on Walpole's cat, the Eton ode, the ‘Elegy,’ and, for the first time, the ‘Long Story’ and the ‘Hymn to Adversity.’ A portrait of Gray is introduced in the frontispiece and in the design for the ‘Long Story,’ where are also Miss Speed and Lady Schaub. Gray withdrew the ‘Long Story’ from later editions of his works.

By the end of 1754 Gray was beginning his ‘Pindaric Odes.’ On 26 Dec. 1754 he sent the ‘Progress of Poesy’ to Dr. Wharton. Walpole was setting up his printing-press at Strawberry Hill, and begged Gray to let him begin with the two odes. They were accordingly printed and were published by Dodsley in August 1757, Dodsley paying forty guineas to Gray, the only sum he ever made by writing. The book contained only the ‘Progress of Poesy’ and the ‘Bard.’ The ‘Bard’ was partly written in the first three months of 1755, and finished in May 1757, when Gray was stimulated by some concerts given at Cambridge by John Parry, the blind harper. The odes were warmly praised and much discussed. Goldsmith reviewed them in the ‘Monthly Review,’ and Warburton and Garrick were enthusiastic. Gray was rather vexed, however, by the general complaints of their obscurity, although he took very good-naturedly the parody published in 1760 by Colman and Lloyd, called ‘Two Odes addressed to Obscurity and Oblivion.’ ‘Obscurity’ was not yet a virtue, and is not very perceptible in Gray's ‘Bard.’ According to Mason, Gray meant his bard to declare that poets should never be wanting to denounce vice in spite of tyrants. He laid the poem aside for a year because he could not find facts to confirm his theory. Ultimately the bard had to content himself with the somewhat irrelevant consolation that Elizabeth's great-grandfather was to be a Welshman. The poem is thus so far incoherent, but the ‘obscurity’ meant rather that some fine gentlemen could not understand the historical allusions and confounded Edward I with Cromwell and Elizabeth with the witch of Endor.

Gray was now in possession of the small fortune left by his father, which was sufficient for his wants. His health, however, was weakening. After a visit in 1755 to his and Walpole's friend, Chute, in Hampshire, he was taken ill and remained for many weeks laid up at Stoke. In January 1756 he ordered a rope-ladder from London. He was always morbidly afraid of fire and more than