from the perusal of those poems which seem to be the unpremeditated effusions of enthusiasm; but to the eye of the critic, and more especially to the artist they afford a new kind of pleasure, not incompatible with a distinct perception of the art employed, and somewhat similar to the grand emotions excited by the reflection on the skill and toil exerted in the construction of a magnificent palace. They can only be classed among the secondary pleasures of poetry, but they never can exist without a great degree of its higher excellencies. Almost all his poetry was lyrical -that species which, issuing from a mind in the highest state of excitement, requires an intensity of feeling which for a long composition the genius of no poet could support. Those who complain of its brevity and rapidity only confess their own inability to follow the movements of poetical inspiration. Of the two grand attributes of the Ode, Dryden had displayed the enthusiasm, Gray exhibited the magnificence." Certainly, Gray's Odes (with the exception of the Etonian Ode,) never obtained such popularity as was acquired by "The Elegy;" but many passages of them have passed into the universal currency of favourite quotations, and are cited and appreciated by all. Take, for instance, the allusion in "The Bard," to the early part of Richard the Second's reign. "Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the Zephyr blows, In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm ; Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway, That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey." And the following true and beautiful stanza from his unfinished poem, "On the Pleasures arising from Vicissitude." "See the wretch that long has tost On the thorny bed of pain, At length repair his vigour lost, And breathe and walk again. The meanest flow'ret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, In 1756 Gray having experienced some incivilities at Peter House, removed, or (in the technical phrase) migrated, to Pembroke Hall. On the death of Cibber, in 1757, he had the honour of refusing the Laureateship which was offered him by the Duke of Devonshire. He applied himself now for some time to the study of architecture; and from him Mr. Bentham derived much valuable assistance in his well-known "History of Ely." He at this time left Cambridge for London, and took lodgings near the British Museum; where he passed the greater part of three years of intense study. At the end of that time he returned to Cambridge. In 1765 he visited Scotland, and was there received with many signs of honour. The University of Aberdeen proposed to confer on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; but he declined the honour, thinking that it might appear a slight and contempt of his own university, where he says "he passed so many easy and happy hours of his life, where he had once lived from choice, and continued to do so from obligation." In 1768 the professorship of modern history at Cambridge became vacant, and Gray, who on the occasion of the preceding vacancy had applied unsuccessfully, was now appointed by the Duke of Grafton. In the succeeding year the Duke of Grafton was elected Chancellor of the University, and Gray wrote the installation ode. The extreme difficulty of the subject must be remembered in criticising this production. It is hardly possible to deal in panegyric to living statesmen without incurring at least the semblance of adulation: and it is very hard to recount the genealogical honours of existing personages and institutions without drawling into pedantic dulness. Gray has avoided both these faults in his justly celebrated stanzas. He has with admirable skill glanced at the brightest points in the character of each founder of Cambridge, and has made them pass before our eyes, as Hallam well expresses it, like “shadows over a magic glass :— "But hark! the portals sound, and pacing forth With solemn steps and slow, High potentates and dames of royal birth, And mitred fathers in long order go: Great Edward, with the lilies on his brow, From haughty Gallia torn, And sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn That wept her bleeding love, and princely Clare, And Anjou's heroine, and the paler rose, The rival of her crown and of her woes, 6 Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. i. p. 47. The murder'd saint, and the majestic lord, (Their tears, their little triumphs o'er, Rich streams of regal bounty pour'd, And bade these awful fanes and turrets rise." The concluding stanza also of this Ode is deservedly a general favourite "Through the wild waves as they roar, In 1769 he visited the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland. "The Lakes" had not then become a regular district for tourists; and very few Englishmen, even among those who could declaim about Switzerland, were aware of the beautiful scenery of this part of our island. Indeed, susceptibility to the beauties of nature was not the characteristic of the literary men of the time; most of whom, like Johnson, thought a walk down Fleet Street the most delightful and the most picturesque in its objects of all the tours that could be made. Gray has the merit of fully appreciating the romantic and inspiring views of the region which Wordsworth has since made classic ground. Gray's letters to Dr. Wharton, descriptive of his journey, are the most expressive and the most accurate accounts of those now celebrated scenes, which we possess. In the spring of 1770, Gray was attacked by a violent illness which overtook him, as he was projecting a tour in Wales; but recovering, he was able to effect the tour in the autumn. His respite, however, was but a short one; and having suffered for some months previous from a violent cough and great depression of spirits, he was induced to leave Cambridge for London in order to obtain medical advice in May 1771. He was now sinking under the repeated and violent attacks of an hereditary gout, to which he had long been subject, notwithstanding he had observed the most rigid abstemiousness throughout the whole course of his life. By the advice of his physicians, he removed from London to Kensington; the air of which place proved so salutary, that he was soon enabled to return to Cambridge, whence he designed to make a visit to his friend Dr. Wharton, at Old Park, near Durham, in the hope that the excursion would tend to the re-establishment of his health; but on the 24th of July he was seized while at dinner in the College-hall, with a sudden nausea, which obliged him to retire to his chamber. The gout had fixed on his stomach in such a degree, as to resist all the powers of medicine. On the 29th he was attacked with a strong convulsion, which returned with increased violence the ensuing day; and on the evening of the 31st of May, 1771, he departed this life in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was buried by the side of his mother in Stoke churchyard. There are several of Gray's poetical compositions to which I have not adverted in the preceding biographical sketch. His powers of humour are proved, not so much by "the Long Story" as by the two admirable political pasquinades, which are very puritanically excluded from the common collections of his poems. That on Lord Sandwich and the Cambridge University election which begins "When sly Jeremy Twitcher;" is the very raciest and tartest piece of the kind in our language. Gray's translations from the Norse and Welch are universally popular. The "Descent of Odin" is generally one of the first pieces of English poetry which a clever child voluntarily learns by heart, nor is it less a favourite with grown up critics. It is worth while to compare a portion of it with the original Norse. We see thus what Gray's taste led him to adopt, and what to modify. It also shows his skill and genius in adding, when desirable, to the archaic simplicity of the original. The poem begins in the original with a stanza about the Gods having unpleasant dreams about Balder. This was wisely left out by Gray, and he at once sets Odin on horseback on a somewhat proverbial journey. I give a strictly literal translation parallel with the Norse, and subjoin Gray's paraphrase : Upp reis Odinn Alda gantr, Up rose Odin Of men King. Eke he on Sleipner Rode he netherward thence He met the Whelp That out of Hell came. Sá var blodrigr Um brjost framan : Ok galdrs föthur Gól um lengi. Framm reith Odinn Foldvegr dundi ; Hann kom at háfnu Heljar ranni. He was bloody On breast in forwards : "Uprose the King of Men with speed, And saddled straight his coal-black steed; Him the Dog of Darkness spied, His shaggy throat he open'd wide, Foam and human gore distill'd; Hoarse he bays with hideous din, Eyes that glow, and fangs that grin ; And long pursues, with fruitless yell, The father of the powerful spell. Onward still his way he takes, (The groaning Earth beneath him shakes,) Till full before his fearless eyes The portals nine of Hell arise." I think that Gray has not in every instance preserved the force "The Dog of Darkness" is hardly equal to " The of the original. Whelp that came out of Hell," and the couplet "Onward still his way he takes, (The groaning Earth beneath him shakes,)" dilutes rather than represents "Forward rode Odin, The field-way thundered." A little farther on in the poem, Gray has very much improved the old Norse Bard. I mean the highly poetical lines which he places in the mouth of the Prophetess : "Long on these mouldering bones have beat The winter's snow, the summer's heat, The drenching dews, and driving rain! Let me, let me sleep again." In the original she only says "I was with snow snowed on, And with rain stricken, And with dew bedewed; I have already quoted a passage from one of Gray's biographers |