creasing. Dodsley, in 1768, printed two editions of his works, one of 1500 copies, the other of 750, and shortly afterwards an edition, published by Foulis, of Glasgow,1 was entirely sold off. Another piece of prosperity awaited him. At the close of 1762 the Professorship of Modern History fell vacant, and he was persuaded by his friends to ask the appointment from Lord Bute. He was passed over in favour of the tutor of Sir James Lowther, Mr. Brocket, who fell from his horse, in July, 1768, and broke his neck. The Duke of Grafton was then in power, and had for his private secretary his former tutor, Mr. Stonehewer, an old college friend, and a correspondent of Gray. Without the solicitation, or knowledge of the poet, the private secretary spoke a good word to the premier, and, three days after the death of Brocket, Gray received the appointment. The letter of the Duke was very complimentary, and when the poet attended the levee, which his shyness rendered extremely embarrassing to him, the king told him "he had a particular knowledge of him."? The salary was £400 a year, the equivalent was only to read a lecture a term, and that on a subject with which the new professor was intimately acquainted. He acted on this occasion in his wonted manner. He drew up plans for private and public instruction; he laid down schemes for historical study; he composed the opening of his inauguration thesis, and being completely exhausted by this faint exertion, he relinquished all further attempts to discharge the duties of his easy office. His neglect troubled his conscience, and he relieved his mind by talking of resigning, but clung to his post notwithstanding. Though failing health affords some apology for his conduct, there is abundant evidence that his vigour of mind and strength of constitution were more than equal to the demand. It was the self-indulgence, which is the 1 1 [Oct. 31, 1768, Works, vol. iv. pp. 126, 137, note.] 2 [Ibid., vol. iv. pp. 121-7; vol. v. p. 76.] 3 [To Wharton, May 1771, Poetical Works, p. xl.] ODE FOR MUSIC 501 dark stain upon his career, that kept him inactive-a continuance of those long habits of intellectual epicurism, which shrunk from every mental occupation that involved fatigue. His labours, after all, would have been of no great service if they had assumed the form that he designed, for being free to speak in what language he pleased, he absurdly decided to deliver lectures on English History to an English audience in the Latin tongue.1 He had an opinion that lectures read in public were generally things of more ostentation than use, and he seems to have resolved that his should be for ostentation alone. 2 Though Gray's appointment to the Professorship did not produce its proper fruits, it gave rise to an Ode, which was the last poem he penned. In 1769 the Duke of Grafton was elected Chancellor of the University, and Gray, who said that “he did not see why gratitude should sit silent, and leave it to expectation to sing," volunteered to write the panegyrical verses which, according to usage, are set to music, and performed at the installation. He told his friends, however, that he only offered what he expected the duke to ask, and what it was impossible to refuse. In addition to the exertion of composing, he shrunk from the abuse in which his praise of the chancellor was sure to involve him at a period of such political excitement, and it was long before he could bring himself to commence his Ode. On Mr. Nicholls knocking one morning at his door, he threw it open, and thundered out the first line of the poem, Hence! avaunt! 'tis holy ground! The astonished Mr. Nicholls supposed for a moment that he had gone crazy during the night, but it was the exuberance of his satisfaction at having completed his task.3 He thought meanly of his performance, and said that the music was as good as the words-that the former might 1 [Poetical Works, p. xl., note.] 2 [To Stonehewer, June 12, 1769, Works, vol. iv. p. 137, note.] be taken for his, and the latter for Dr. Randal's.1 "I do not," he also wrote to Dr. Beattie, "think the verses worth sending you, because they are by nature doomed to live but a single day."2 The world had a higher opinion of them than the author, and, though the Ode for Music is not equal to the Bard, or the Progress of Poetry, it is better than any other that was ever composed for a kindred purpose. In the winter of 1769 Mr. Nicholls fell in, at Bath, with Bonstetten, a young Swiss upon his travels, and, conceiv ing a strong partiality for him, gave him a letter of introduction to Gray. His youth, his enthusiasm, his industry, his passion for knowledge, interested the poet, who formed an immediate and violent friendship for him.3 He read English authors with the young foreigner every evening from five till twelve, and after the departure of Bonstetten, in April, 1770, wrote both of him and to him in terms of greater fondness than he ever bestowed upon any other person. "Such as I am," he said, "I expose my heart to your view, nor wish to conceal a single thought from your penetrating eyes." But confidential as he professed himself, he could endure no allusion to his poetry or to his past history. When Bonstetten asked him about his works he remained obstinately silent, and to the question, "Why do you not answer me?" he was silent still. His expectations and designs in life, whatever they may have been, had not been answered, and he was the victim of a profound and increasing chagrin. The society of Bonstetten had helped to beguile him, and the loss of it, to judge from his letters, turned his ordinary gloom into positive misery. "All my time," he wrote, "I am employed with more than Herculean toil in pushing 1 [To Nicholls, June 24, 1769, Works, vol. v. p. 92.] 2 [July 16, 1769, Ibid., vol. iv. p. 137.] 3 [Ibid., vol. v. pp. 101 seq.] 5 [May 9, 1770, Ibid., vol. iv. p. 187.] 4 [Ibid., p. 181.] 6 [Ibid., vol. v. p. 181, from Bonstetten's Souvenirs, p. 118.] |