fell vacant in 1762, and, by the advice of his friends, he made application to Lord Bute, but was unsuccessful. Lord Bute had designed it for the tutor of his son-in-law, Sir James Lowther. No one had heard of the tutor, but the Bute influence was all-prevailing. In 1765 Gray took a journey into Scotland, penetrating as far north as Dunkeld and the Pass of Killiecrankie; and his account of his tour, in letters to his friends, is replete with interest and with touches of his peculiar humour and graphic description, One other poem proceeded from his pen. In 1768 the professorship of modern history was again vacant, and the duke of Grafton bestowed it upon Gray. A sum of £400 per annum was thus added to his income; but his health was precarious—he had lost it, he said, just when he began to be easy in his circumstances. The nomination of the duke of Grafton to the office of chancellor of the university enabled Gray to acknowledge the favour conferred on him self. He thought it better that gratitude should sing than expectation, and he honoured his grace's installation with an ode. Such occasional productions are seldom happy; but Gray preserved his poetic dignity and select beauty of expression. He made the founders of Cambridge, as Mr Hallam has remarked, "pass before our eyes like shadows over a magic glass." When the ceremony of the installation was over, the poet-professor went on a tour to the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and few of the beauties of the lake-country, since so famous, escaped his observation. This was to be his last excursion. While at dinner one day in the college-hall he was seized with an attack of gout in his stomach, which resisted all the powers of medicine, and proved fatal in less than a week. He died on the 30th of July 1771, and was buried, according to his own desire, beside the remains of his mother at Stoke Pogis, near Slough in Buckinghamshire, in a beautiful sequestered village churchyard that is supposed to have furnished the scene of his elegy.[1]
The literary habits and personal peculiarities of Gray are familiar to us from the numerous representations and allusions of his friends. It is easy to fancy the recluse poet sitting in his college-chambers in the old quadrangle of Pembroke Hall. His windows are ornamented with mignonette and choice flowers in China vases, but outside may be discerned some iron-work intended to be service able as a fire-escape, for he has a horror of fire. His furniture is neat and select; his books, rather for use than show, are disposed around him. He has a harpsichord in the room. In a corner of one of the apartments is a trunk containing his deceased mother's dresses, carefully folded up and preserved. His fastidiousness, bordering upon effeminacy, is visible in his gait and manner,—in his handsome features and small well-dressed person, especially when he walks abroad and sinks the author and hard student in "the gentleman who sometimes writes for his amusement." He writes always with a crow quill, speaks slowly and sententiously, and shuns the crew of dissonant college revellers who call him "a prig," and seek to annoy him. Long mornings of study, and nights feverish from ill-health, are spent in those chambers; he is often listless and in low spirits; yet his natural temper is not desponding, and he delights in employment. He has always something to learn or to communicate, some sally of humour or quiet stroke of satire for his friends and correspondents, some note on natural history to enter in his journal, some passage of Plato to unfold and illustrate, some golden thought of classic inspiration to inlay on his page, some bold image to tone down, some verse to retouch and harmonize. His life is on the whole innocent and happy, and a feeling of thankfulness to the Great Giver is breathed over all.
Various editions of the collected works of Gray have been published. The first, including memoirs of his life and his correspondence, edited by his friend, the Rev. W. Mason, appeared in 1775. It has been often reprinted, and forms the groundwork of the editions by Mathias (1814) and Mitford (1816). Mr Mitford, in 1843, published Gray's correspondence with the Rev. Norton Nicholls, and in 1854 his correspondence with Mason, from which Mason had made only a partial selection in his memoirs of Gray. A second edition of the correspondence with additional notes was published in 1855.[2](r. ca.)
GRAYLING (Thymallus) are fishes belonging to the family of Salmonidæ, which resemble the vendace and gwyniad (Coregonus) in having scales of considerable size, and a narrow mouth with very small teeth. They are distinguished by their large, wing-like, dorsal fin. Only a few species are known, which inhabit clear streams of the north of Europe, Asia, and North America. The best known are the "Poisson bleu" of the Canadian voyageurs, and the European species, Thymallus vulgaris (the Asch or Aesche of Germany, Ombre of France, and Temola of Upper Italy). This latter species is esteemed on account of its agreeable colours (especially of the dorsal fin), its well-flavoured flesh, and the sport it affords to anglers. It is very fastidious in the choice of the rivers it inhabits. In England it is found in the Test, the Avon, the Dove, the Lug, the Wye, the Irvon, the Teme, the Clun, the Hodder, the Trent, the Dee, the Wiske, the Wharfe, the Ure, the Kibble, and the Derwent; but it is not found either in Scotland or in Ireland. It is more generally distributed in Scandinavia and Russia, and the mountain streams of central Europe southwards to the Alpine waters of Upper Italy. Specimens attaining to a weight of four pounds are very scarce. See Ichthyology.
GRAZALEMA (the Roman Lacidulermium), a town of Spain, in the province of Cadiz, is situated on the great road from Cadiz to Ronda, 60 miles E.N.E. of Cadiz. It stands in a very strong position on a rocky hill, and to capture it was reckoned one of the chief feats of the esforzado Rodrigo Ponce de Leon. It possesses three hermitages, a parish church, and a convent. The manufactures are chiefly woollen, linen, leather, and soap, and there is considerable trade in sheep and swine from the neighbouring sierra of the same name. Inscriptions and other Roman antiquities still exist in the town. The population is about 6000.
- ↑ A claim has been put up for the churchyard of Granchester, about two miles from Cambridge, the great bell of St Mary's serving for the "curfew." But Stoke Pogis is more likely to have been the spot, if any individual locality were indicated. The poet often visited the village, his aunt and mother residing there, and his aunt was interred in the churchyard of the place. Gray's epitaph on his mother is characterized, not only by the tenderness with which he always regarded her memory, but by his style and cast of thought. It runs thus:—"Beside her friend and sister here sleep the remains of Dorothy Gray, widow, the careful tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her. She died March 11, 1753, aged 72." She had lived to read the Elegy, which was perhaps an ample recompense for her maternal cares and affection. Mrs Gray's will commences in a similar touching strain:—"In the name of God, amen. This is the last will and desire of Dorothy Gray to her son Thomas Gray." They were all in all to each other. The father's cruelty and neglect, their straitened circumstances, the sacrifices made by the mother to maintain her son at the university, her pride in the talents and conduct of that son, and the increasing gratitude and affection of the latter, nursed in his scholastic and cloistered solitude—these form an affecting but noble record in the history of genius.
- ↑ A volume of the original autograph letters of Gray addressed to Dr Thomas Wharton, fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and latterly of London and Old Park, near Darlington, was added in 1877 to the Egerton library of manuscripts in the British Museum.
