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once in some risk. His house in Cornhill had been burnt in 1748, causing him some embarrassment, and his state of health increased his nervousness. Some noisy young gentlemen at Peterhouse placed a tub of water under his windows and raised an alarm of fire. Gray descended his ladder and found himself in the tub. (Campbell, Archibald (fl.1767) (DNB00) (fl. 1767) [q. v.] tells this story in his Sale of Authors, 1767, p. 22.) The authorities at Peterhouse treated the perpetrators of this ingenious practical joke more leniently than Gray desired. He thereupon moved to Pembroke, where he occupied rooms ‘at the western end of the Hitcham building.’

In December 1757 Lord John Cavendish, an admirer of the ‘Odes,’ induced his brother, the Duke of Devonshire, who was lord chamberlain, to offer the laureateship, vacated by Cibber's death, to Gray. Gray, however, at once declined it, though the obligation to write birthday odes was to be omitted. In September 1758 his aunt, Mrs. Rogers, with whom his paternal aunt, Mrs. Olliffe, had resided since his mother's death, died, leaving Gray and Mrs. Olliffe executors. Stoke Poges now ceased to be in any sense a home. In the beginning of 1759 the British Museum first opened. Gray settled in London in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, to study in the reading-room. He did not return to Cambridge except for flying visits until the summer of 1761. His friend Lady Cobham died in April 1760, leaving 20l. for a mourning-ring to Gray and 30,000l. to Miss Speed. Some vague rumours, which, however, Gray mentions with indifference, pointed to a match between the poet and the heiress. They were together at Park Place, Henley (Conway's house), in the summer, where Gray's spirits were worn by the company of ‘a pack of women.’ According to Lady Ailesbury, his only words at one party were: ‘Yes, my lady, I believe so’ (, Letters, iii. 324). Miss Speed in January 1761 married the Baron de la Peyrière, son of the Sardinian minister, and went to live with her husband on the family estate of Viry in Savoy, on the Lake of Geneva. This sole suggestion of a romance in Gray's life is of the most shadowy kind.

After his return to Cambridge Gray became attached to Norton Nicholls, an undergraduate at Trinity Hall. Nicholls afterwards became rector of Lound and Bradwell, Suffolk, and died in his house at Blundeston, near Lowestoft, 22 Nov. 1809, in his sixty-eighth year. He was an accomplished youth, and attracted Gray's attention by his knowledge of Dante. During Gray's later years Nicholls was among his best friends, and left some valuable reminiscences of Gray, and an interesting correspondence with him. Gray resided henceforward at Cambridge, taking occasional summer tours. In July 1764 he underwent a surgical operation, and in August was able to visit Glasgow and make a tour in the Scottish lowlands. In October he travelled in the south of England. In 1765 he made a tour in Scotland, visiting Killiecrankie and Blair Athol. He stayed for some time at Glamis, where Beattie came to pay him homage, and was very kindly received. He declined the degree of doctor of laws from Aberdeen, on the ground that he had not taken it at Cambridge. In 1769 he paid a visit to the Lakes. His journal was fully published by Mason, and contains remarkable descriptions of the scenery, then beginning to be visited by painters and men of taste, but not yet generally appreciated. In other summers he visited Hampshire and Wiltshire (1764), Kent (1766), and Worcestershire and Gloucestershire (1770).

His enthusiasm had been roused by the fragments of Gaelic poetry published by Macpherson in 1760. He did his best to believe in their authenticity (Works, iii. 264) and found himself in rather uncongenial alliance with Hume, whose scepticism was for once quenched by his patriotism. Gray's interest probably led him to his imitations from the Norse (Walpole's Letters, iii. 399, written in 1761) and Welsh. The ‘Specimens of Welsh Poetry,’ published by Evans in 1764, suggested the later fragments. He states also (ib.) that he intended these imitations to be introduced in his projected ‘History of English Poetry.’ In 1767 Dodsley proposed to republish his poems in a cheap form. Foulis, a Glasgow publisher, made a similar proposal through Beattie at the same time. Dodsley's edition appeared in July 1768, and Foulis's in the following September. Both contained the same poems, including the ‘Fatal Sisters,’ the ‘Descent of Odin,’ and the ‘Triumphs of Owen,’ then first published. Gray took no money, but accepted a present of books from Foulis.

In 1762 Gray had applied to Lord Bute for the professorship of history and modern languages at Cambridge, founded by George I in 1724, and now vacant by the death of Hallett Turner. An unpublished letter to Mr. Chute (communicated by Mr. Gosse) refers to this application. Laurence Brockett, however, was appointed in November. Brockett was killed 24 July 1768 by a fall from his horse, when returning drunk from a dinner with Lord Sandwich at Hinchinbroke. Gray was immediately appointed to the vacant post by the Duke of Grafton, his warrant being signed 28 July. His salary was 371l., out