s Dorothy Antrobus. Gray was the fifth of twelve
children, and the only one that survived. His life was saved in
infancy by his mother, who, during a paroxysm which attacked her son,
opened a vein with her own hand. This, and many other acts of maternal
tenderness, rendered her memory unspeakably dear to the poet, who
seldom mentioned her, after her death, "without a sigh." He was sent
to study at Eton College, the happy days spent in which he has so
beautifully commemorated in his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton
College." It added to his comfort here that his maternal uncle, Mr
Antrobus, was an assistant-teacher. From Eton he passed to Pembroke
College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as a pensioner in 1734, in
the nineteenth year of his age. He had at Eton become intimate with
Horace Walpole and with Richard West, a young man of high promise, who
died early. It is worth noticing that, during his residence both at
Eton and Cambridge, he was supported entirely out of the separate
industry of his mother, his father refusing him all aid.

At Cambridge, Gray studied very hard, attending less to mathematics
than to classical literature, modern languages, history, and poetry.
He aspired to be a universally accomplished as well as a minutely
learned man. His compositions, from 1734 to 1738, were translations
from Italian into Latin and English, and one or two small pieces of
original verse. In September 1738, he returned to his father's house,
and remained there for six months, doing little except carrying on a
correspondence he had begun at Cambridge with West and other friends.
Correspondence, from the first and to the last, was the best OUTCOME
of Gray's mind--he felt himself most at home in it; and, next to
Cowper's, his letters are the most delightful in the English language.

He had intended to study law, but was diverted from his purpose by
Horace Walpole, who invited him to take in his Company the "grand
tour." To no Briton, since Milton, could travel have been more
congenial or more instructive than to Gray. He that would travel to
advantage must first have travelled in mind all the countries he
visits, and must be learned in their literature, their politics, their
scenery, and their antiquities, ere ever he sets a foot upon their
shores. To Italy and France, Gray went as to favourite studies, not as
to relaxations; and spent his time in observing their famous scenes
with the eye of a poet--cataloguing their pai