Gray during the latter part of his life. "When matters (he says) were made up between Gray and Walpole, and the latter asked Gray to Strawberry Hill, when he came, he without any ceremony told Walpole, that he came to wait on him as civility required, but by no means would he ever be there on the terms of his former friendship, which he had totally cancelled." Such is the account given by Mr. Cole, and which I suppose is worthy of credit: at any rate, it does not seem at all inconsistent with the independence and manly freedom which always accompanied the actions and opinions of Gray.*

Having thus lost his companion, and, with the separation of friendship, all inducement to remain abroad, Gray went immediately to Venice, and returned through Padua and Milan, following almost the same road through France, which he had travelled before. If he sent any letters to West on his return,† it was not thought requisite to publish them: those to his father were only accounts of his health and safety. Though he returned to England

* For a further elucidation of this subject, the reader is referred to the second volume of the Aldine edition of Gray's Works, p. 174-5, where I have stated what are the supposed causes of the quarrel; and the terms of the reconciliation will be best learned, from the expressions which Gray uses in his letter to Mr. Wharton on this subject.

† Some letters from Walpole to West, while the former was on his travels with Gray, are in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 419-463. There is one letter from Reggio, May 10th, but not mentioning any quarrel, nor even Gray by name.

as speedily and directly as he could, yet he once diverged from his way, between Turin and Lyons, again to contemplate the wild and magnificent scenery that surrounded the Grande Chartreuse; and in the Album of the Fathers he wrote his beautiful ‘Alcaic Ode,' which bears strong marks of proceeding from a mind deeply impressed with the solemnity of the situation; where "every precipice and cliff was pregnant with religion and poetry."*

In two months after the return of Gray in 1741, his father died,† his constitution being worn out by repeated attacks of the gout; and Gray's filial duty was now solely directed to his mother. To the friend who condoled with Pope on his father's death, he answered in the pious language of Euryalus,-"Genitrix est mihi," and Gray, in the like circumstances, assuredly felt no less the pleasure that arose from contributing to preserve the life and happiness of a parent. With a small fortune, which her husband's imprudence had materially impaired,‡ Mrs. Gray and a maiden sister retired to the house

* See Letter XI. dated Turin, November 16, 1739.

Gray came to town about the 1st of September, 1741. His father died on the 6th of November following, at the age of 65. Mason.

Mr. Philip Gray built a country house at Wanstead, at a very considerable expense, which was sold after his death at £2000 less than its original cost. It was purchased by Alderman Bal, who was still resident in it in 1776. Isaac Reed

of Mrs. Rogers,* another sister, at Stoke, near Windsor: and Gray, thinking his fortune not sufficient to enable him to prosecute the study of the law, and yet unwilling to hurt the feelings of his mother, by appearing entirely to forsake his profession, changed or pretended to change the line of study, and went to Cambridge to take his degree in civil law. That in his own mind, however, he had entirely given up all thoughts of his profession, seems to appear from a letter to West: "Alas for one (he says) who has nothing to do but to amuse himself! I believe my amusements are as little amusing as most folks'; but no matter, it makes the hours pass, and is better than ev åμália καὶ ἀμοῦσιᾳ καταβιῶναι.”

"But the narrowness of his circumstances," says Mr. Mason, “ was not the only thing that distressed him at this period. He had, as we have seen, lost the friendship of Mr. Walpole abroad. He had also lost much time in his travels; a loss which application could not easily retrieve, when so severe and laborious a study as that of the Common Law was to be the object of it; and he well knew that whatever improvement he might have made in this interval, either in taste or science, such improvement would stand him in little stead with regard to his present situation and exigencies.

* Mason describes Mrs. Rogers as the widow of a clergyman, but Isaac Reed, in a MS. note, has said that he was a gentleman of the law.

This was not all: his other friend, Mr. West, he found on his return oppressed by sickness and a load of family misfortunes. These the sympathizing heart of Mr. Gray made his own. He did all in his power (for he was now with him in London) to soothe the sorrows of his friend, and try to alleviate them by every office of the purest and most perfect affection: but his cares were vain. The distresses of Mr. West's mind had already too far affected a body from the first weak and delicate."

6

West was indeed at this time rapidly declining in health, and had gone into Hertfordshire for the benefit of the air. To him Gray sent part of his Tragedy of Agrippina,' then commenced; and which, Mr. Mason thinks, was suggested by a favourable impression left on his mind from a representation of the Britannicus of Racine. His friend objected to the length of Agrippina's speech; and the Fragment is now published, not exactly as Gray left it, but altered by Mr. Mason from the suggestions of West. The plan of this play seems to have been drawn after the model of the plays of Racine; though it displays perhaps more spirit and genius than ever informed the works of that elegant and correct tragedian. Mr. Mason, in a letter to Dr. Beattie, mentions among the Poetry left by Gray, "the opening scene of a tragedy called Agrippina, with the first speech of the second, written much in Racine's manner, and with many

masterly strokes.” * The language resembles rather that of Rowe or Addison, than of Shakespeare; though it is more highly wrought, and more closely compacted. If finished, it would, I think, have delighted the scholar in the closet; but it is too descriptive to have pleased upon the stage. dè ol Βαστάζονται δὲ οἱ ἀναγνωστικοί ...... Καὶ παραβαλλόμενοι, οἱ μὲν τῶν γραφικῶν, ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι στενοὶ φαίνον

ται.

Gray now employed himself in the perusal of the ancient authors. He mentions that he was reading Thucydides, Theocritus, and Anacreon. He translated some parts of Propertius with great elegance of language and versification, and selected for his Italian studies the poetry of Petrarch. He wrote an Heroic Epistle in Latin, in imitation of the manner of Ovid; and a Greek Epigram, which he communicated to West: to whom also in the summer, when he retired to his family at Stoke, he sent

* I have said that Gray kept an attentive eye upon Racine during the composition of his tragedy; an assertion, I think, that the notes will serve to prove: but the learned Mr. Twining, in his notes on Aristotle's Poetics, (p. 385, 4to.) says: "I have often wondered what it was that could attach Mr. Gray so strongly to a poet whose genius was so little analogous to his own. I must confess I cannot, even in the Dramatic Fragment given us by Mr. Mason, discover any other resemblance to Racine, than in the length of the speeches. The fault, indeed, is Racine's; its beauties are surely of a higher order," &c.

+ Aristotelis Rhetorica, lib. y. cap xii.