Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/35

 Gray selection from the ‘Anthologia Græca,’ with critical notes and translations; and at Christmas 1746 compiled elaborate chronological tables which suggested Clinton's ‘Fasti.’ About 1745 he helped Ross in a controversy about the epistles of Cicero, begun by Middleton and Muckland. Gray's Latin poems, except the college exercises, were not prepared for publication by himself. The most important was the ‘De Principiis Captandi,’ written at Florence in the winter of 1740–1. They were admired even by Johnson, though not faultless in their latinity, especially the noble ode at the Grande Chartreuse. Gray was also a careful student of modern literature. He was familiar with the great Italian writers, and had even learnt Icelandic (see, pp. 160–3). He was a painstaking antiquary, gave notes to Pennant for his ‘History of London,’ and surprised Cole by his knowledge of heraldry and genealogy. He had learnt botany from his uncle Antrobus, made experiments on the growth of flowers, was learned in entomology, and studied the first appearance of birds like White of Selborne. A copy of his ‘Linnæus,’ in five volumes, with copious notes and water-colour drawings by Gray, belonging to Mr. Ruskin, was exhibited at Pembroke on the memorial meeting in 1885. This brought 42l. at the sale of Gray's library, 27 Nov. 1845. (For an account of the books sold see Gent. Mag. 1846, i. 29, 33.) He was a good musician, played on the harpsichord, and was especially fond of Pergolesi and Palestrina. He was a connoisseur in painting, contributed to Walpole's ‘Anecdotes,’ and made a list of early painters published in Malone's edition of Reynolds's works. Architecture was a favourite study. He contributed notes to James Bentham [q. v.] for his ‘History of Ely’ (1771), which gave rise to the report that he was the author of the treatise then published. They were first printed in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ April 1784, to disprove this rumour.

These multifarious studies are illustrated in the interesting commonplace books, in 3 vols. fol., preserved at Pembroke. Besides his collections on a great variety of subjects, they contain original copies of many of his poems. Some fragments were published by Mathias in his edition of Gray's works. Gray had formed a plan for a history of English poetry, to be executed in conjunction with Mason, to whom Warburton had communicated a scheme drawn up by Pope. Gray made some preparations, and a careful study of the metres of early English poetry. He tired, however, and gave his plan to Warton, who was already engaged on a similar scheme. The extent of Gray's studies shows the versatility and keenness of his intellectual tastes. The smallness of his actual achievements is sufficiently explained by his ill-health, his extreme fastidiousness, his want of energy and personal ambition, and the depressing influences of the small circle of dons in which he lived. The unfortunate eighteenth century has been blamed for his barrenness; but probably he would have found any century uncongenial. The most learned of all our poets, he was naturally an eclectic. He almost worshipped Dryden, and loved Racine as heartily as Shakespeare. He valued polish and symmetry as highly as the school of Pope, and shared their taste for didactic reflection and for pompous personification. Yet he also shared the tastes which found expression in the romanticism of the following period. Mr. Gosse has pointed out with great force his appreciation of Gothic architecture, of mountain scenery, and of old Gaelic and Scandinavian poetry. His unproductiveness left the propagation of such tastes to men much inferior in intellect, but less timid in utterance, such as Walpole and the Wartons. He succeeded only in secreting a few poems which have more solid bullion in proportion to the alloy than almost any in the language, which are admired by critics, while the one in which he has condescended to utter himself with least reserve and the greatest simplicity, has been pronounced by the vox populi to be the most perfect in the language.

His letters are all but the best in the best age of letter-writing. They are fascinating not only for the tender and affectionate nature shown through a mask of reserve, but for gleams of the genuine humour which Walpole pronounced to be his most natural vein. It appears with rather startling coarseness in some of his Cambridge lampoons. One of these, ‘A Satire upon the Heads, or never a barrel the better herring,’ was printed by Mr. Gosse in 1884, from a manuscript in the possession of Lord Houghton. Walpole said (Walpoliana, i. 95) that Gray was ‘a deist, but a violent enemy of atheists.’ If his opinions were heterodox, he kept them generally to himself, was clearly a conservative by temperament, and hated or feared the innovators of the time.

The publication of the poems in Gray's lifetime has been noticed above. Collected editions of the poems, with Mason's ‘Memoir,’ appeared in 1775, 1776, 1778, &c.; an edition with notes by Gilbert Wakefield in 1786; works by T. J. Mathias (in which some of the Pembroke MSS. were first used) in 1814; ‘English and Latin Poems,’ by John Mitford, in 1814, who also edited the works in the Aldine edition (1835–43), and the Eton