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charmed with the scenery of Cumberland and Westmoreland. His descriptions of the lake scenery have never been excelled for beauty and finish. "Passed a reek' near Dummailrouse," he says, "and entered Westmoreland a second time. begin to see Helmscrag distinguished from its rugged neighbours, not so much by its height, as by the strange broken outline of its top, like some gigantic building demolished, and the stones that composed it flung across each other in wild confusion. Just beyond it opens one of the sweetest landscapes that art ever attempted to imitate. The bosom of the mountains spreading here into a broad basin, discovers in the midst Grasmere Water: its margin is hollowed into small bays, with hold eminences, some of them rocks, some of soft turf, that half conceal and vary the figure of the little lake they command. From the shore a low promontory pushes itself far into the water, and on it stands a white village, with the parish church rising in the midst of it; hanging enclosures, corn-fields, and meadows green as an emerald, with their trees, hedges, and cattle, fill up the whole space from the edge of the water. Just opposite you is a large farm-house at the bottom of a steep smooth lawn, embosomed in old woods, which climb half way up the mountain's side, and discover above them a broken line of crags that crown the scene. Not a single red tile, no glaring gentleman's house or garden walls, break in upon the repose of this little unsuspected paradise; but all is peace, rusticity, and happy poverty, in its neatest and most becoming attire."

We make no apology for the length of this and our former quotations from Gray's published correspondence. For ourselves, we own that we prefer his letters to those either of Walpole or of Cowper. But the public generally, we are afraid, are not of our opinion. Gray's letters, we doubt, are but little read. Yet all of them are written with fine taste, and, for the most part, in an admirable spirit. Even in the earliest of them, such, for example, as those addressed to West, we are struck with the justness of the writer's thoughts and the classic beauty of his language. His entire correspondence with Mason is pervaded in addition with a humour for which those who are familiar only with his poetry will scarcely give him credit. The fragments of description with which the letters from Italy and the west of England abound want only the accompani

1 In the vernacular of the district a "reek" signifies what in Scotland is called a "burn."

ments of measure and metre to rank with the finest poetry in the language. Gray's prose, in loftiness of sentiment and vividness of expression, is at least equal to his verse.

In 1757, the death of Cibber created a vacancy in the office of poet-laureate. The post of Chamberlain, in whose gift the laurel lay, was then held by the Duke of Devonshire. The Duke would willingly have bestowed it upon Gray; but Gray had unconquerable scruples in accepting a post which profligacy and inability had so shamefully disgraced. He continued, therefore, to reside at Cambridge, busied with his poetry and his books. At length an office fell vacant, which he was peculiarly qualified to fill. It was the Cambridge Professorship of Modern Languages and History. He applied for it. But there had arisen in Egypt a king which knew not Joseph. The administration of Bute had displaced the administration of Pitt and Pelham. For the first time in British history a Scotsman was seen at the head of affairs. Bute, though no statesman, was a munificent patron of literature and art; and it is probable that Gray would have obtained the appointment had he possessed the marketable talents of a Churchill or a Wilkes. But Gray was no polemic. He could not cringe for place, and he hated jobbing. Political influence, therefore, obtained what was denied to merit. Sir James Lowther could command more votes in the House of Commons than any commoner of his time. These votes could

not but be valuable to the Government, and Sir James's tutor was gazetted to the vacancy. Not many years elapsed before the post again became vacant. Bute's nominee, Mr. Brockett, died in 1768, and the Duke of Grafton, then Prime Minister, immediately and without solicitation, bestowed it upon Gray. The favour did not pass unrewarded. Grafton was in 1769 elected Chancellor of Cambridge, and Gray celebrated his installation in strains which the world will not willingly let die, and which must have been peculiarly soothing to the minister when he had fallen upon evil days, and was writhing under that tremendous invective which has immortalised alike its victims and its author.

Cambridge had hitherto been Gray's residence from choice. It now became so by obligation. The chair which he filled had been a sinecure from its foundation; but the new incumbent was too conscientious a man to draw the emoluments, while he neglected the duties of his post. The French and Italian teachers in the University he rewarded liberally. The lectures on history he undertook himself. But before his preparations for the course

were completed, he was attacked by a severe fit of the gout, to which he had long been subject, and from which a life of singular temperance could not protect him. He removed to London. His lodgings were at first in Jermyn Street; but from Jermyn Street he was induced, for the benefit of purer air, to migrate to Kensington. The virulence of the disease abated, and in the beginning of July, he returned to Cambridge; but on the 24th of the same month, he was again attacked by his old disorder while at dinner in the College hall. The disease had now fixed upon his stomach, and resisted all the powers of medicine. On the 29th, he was seized with strong convulsions. They returned on the 30th with redoubled strength, and in the evening of the same day, in the year 1771, he breathed his last. fifty-fifth year of his age.

He was in the

They buried him at Stoke beside his mother, and almost within sight of those "antique towers" which he has so lovingly commemorated.

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THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now shades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,

The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees. the envied kiss to share.

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Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield!'

How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

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