About ten years before this time, the Odes of Collins* were published, and received with the most unmerited neglect. The public had been so long delighted with the wit and satire of Pope, had formed their taste so much on his manner of versification, and had been so accustomed to dwell upon the neat and pointed style of that finished writer; that they were but ill prepared to admire the beauties of the lofty and magnificent language, in which Collins arrayed his sublime conceptions; and which was tasteless to those, who, but a few years before, had received the last book of the Dunciad, from the dying hands of their favourite poet; and who could not pass from wit, and epigram, and satire, to the bold conceptions, the animated descriptions, and the wild grandeur of lyric poetry. The very works which have now raised Gray and Collins to the rank of our two greatest lyric poets, were either neglected, or ridiculed by their contemporaries; while, to appreciate the justness of their thoughts, the harmony of their numbers, and the splendid creations of their genius, was left for the mature and unerring decisions of time.

The neglect of the present age, undoubtedly gives no necessary promise of the admiration of the succeeding; nor, on the other hand, does present applause of itself afford any proof that it will not be continued by the generations that follow. Those who are really competent judges of the merit of poetry, in any age, are necessarily but few; the great and general mass of poetical readers

* The Odes of Collins were published in 1746.

are constantly varying among the favourites of the time; raising with their breath the bubble of that reputation to-day, which they take the same pains to destroy to-morrow. But a poet who receives the praise of an enlightened age, may with confidence expect its continuance; if he write, not for the fluctuation of taste, nor the caprice of fashion; but on his own extended views of nature, on his own confirmed knowledge and experience, and on the solid principles of the art. He who acquires the admiration of the present time, by addressing himself to their taste, by following their judgment, and by soliciting their applause, may be sure that his productions will be superseded by the favourite rivals of the age to come. Πῶς ἂν ὁ μέτ' ἐμὲ πᾶς ἀκούσειεν αίων, was the sensible advice of Longinus,* to those, who "with a noble ambition aim at immortality."

او

There is a passage in the Life of Thomson written by his friend, in which he mentions the reason of the discouragement shewn by some critics of that day, to the poetry of that interesting writer; and which applies equally in the case of Collins and of Gray; as the same cause that impeded the favourable reception of the Seasons, still continued to exert its powerful influence. "The Poem of Winter, (says Mr. Murdoch, who speaks from his own observation,) was no sooner read, than universally admired; those only excepted, who had not been used to feel, or to look for

* Vide Longinum Tep Tous. Sect. XIV. iii. p. 57.

any thing in poetry beyond a point of satirical or epigrammatic wit; a smart antithesis richly trimmed with rhyme; or the softness of an elegiac complaint. To such his manly classical spirit could not readily recommend itself; till after a more attentive perusal, they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired, or affected a truer taste. A few others stood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and resigned themselves to an absolute despair of ever seeing any thing new and original." From that time, till after the death of Gray, the strong and almost exclusive influence of Pope's versification was felt on English poetry. Mason, speaking

of Gray's Hymn or Address to Ignorance, says,-" Many of the lines are so strong, and the general cast of the versification so musical, that I believe it will give the generality of readers a higher opinion of his poetical talents, than many of his lyrical productions would have done. I speak of the generality; for it is a certain fact, that their taste is founded upon the ten syllable couplet of Dryden and Pope, and of these only."

In this year Cibber died at an advanced age, and the Laureatship was offered by the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Chamberlain, to Gray; with a remarkable and honourable privilege, to hold it as a mere sinecure. This he respectfully declined; and some of his reasons for refusing it, he gives in a letter to Mr. Mason: "The office itself (he says) has always humbled the possessor hitherto :-if he were a poor writer, by making him more conspicuous; and if he were a good one, by setting him at war

with the little fry of his own profession; for there are poets little enough, even to envy a poet-laureat.*

Upon Gray's refusal, the laurel was accepted by Mr. Whitehead, who joined to very competent talents, what made those talents respectable-modesty and worth. To Cibber, indeed, he was in every respect infinitely superior: but it is no disgrace to Mr. Whitehead to affirm, that to the genius of that poet who succeeded him, we are indebted for the finest productions that have ever ennobled an office, in itself not most friendly to the Muses. Mr. Mason was not quite overlooked on this occasion. "Lord John Cavendish (he says) made an apology to him, that being in orders, he was thought less eligible than a layman."" A little tinge of satire is now visible in Mr. Mason's narrative,† when he adds, "that he wonders the same privilege, of holding the office as a sinecure, was not offered to Mr. Whitehead; as the king would readily have dispensed with hearing poetry, for which he had no taste, and music, for which he had no ear."

In 1758, Gray describes himself as composing, for his own amusement, the little book which he calls A Catalogue of the Antiquities, Houses, &c., in England and Wales;' and which he drew up on the blank pages of Kitchen's English Atlas. After his death it was printed and distributed by Mr. Mason to his friends +

* See Mason's Life of Whitehead, vol. i. p. 92.

+ Ibid. p. 87.

A new edition was printed in 1787 for sale. Mr. Mason's was only intended for presents.

VOL. I.

e

About this period, much of his time seems to have been employed in the study of architecture; in which his proficiency, as indeed in all other branches of learning which he pursued, was accurate and deep. Some of his observations on this subject afterwards appeared in Mr. Bentham's History of Ely. In the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1784, a letter from Gray to Mr. Bentham is published, which contains all the information afforded to the latter. It was printed in consequence of the circulation of a report, that the whole of the Treatise on Saxon, Norman, and Gothic Architecture, published in the History of Ely, was written by Gray. On the 15th of January 1759, the British Museum was opened to the public; and Gray went to London to read and transcribe the manuscripts which were collected there from the Harleian and Cottonian libraries. A folio volume of his transscripts was in Mr. Mason's hands: out of which, one paper alone -The Speech of Sir Thomas Wyatt was published in the second number of Lord Orford's Miscellaneous Antiquities.

He was, as Dr. Johnson observed, but little affected by two Odes of Obsurity and Oblivion written by Messrs. Colman and Lloyd, which then appeared in ridicule of him, and Mr. Mason.

* See Bentham's preface to the History of Ely, (new edit.) p. 13; Selections from the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 249; and Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. iii. p. 489; and Gentleman's Magazine, vol. liii. p. 37, 138, 301,375: vol. liv. p. 243. + See Chalmers's Life of Sir Thomas Wyatt in the British Poets, vol. ii. p. 363. The Ode to Obscurity was directed chiefly against Gray; that to Oblivion against Mason. See Lloyd's Poems, vol. i. p. 120.