d, written and
rewritten, subjected, in whole or in part, to the criticism of his
friends, and, according to their verdict, either published, or left
fragments, or consigned to the flames. About this time he begins, in
his letters, to complain of depression of spirits, of severe attacks
of the gout, of sleepless nights, feverish mornings, and heavy days.
He was now, and during the rest of his life, to pay the penalty of a
lettered indolence and studious sloth, of a neglected body and an
over-cultivated mind. The accident, it is said, of seeing a blind
Welsh harper performing on a harp, excited him to finish his "Bard,"
which in MS. appears to have divided the opinion of his friends, as it
still does that of the critics.

In 1758 Gray left Peterhouse, owing to some real or imaginary offence,
and removed to Pembroke Hall, where he was surrounded by his old and
intimate friends. The next year he carried his two Odes to London, as
carefully as if they had been two Epics. Walpole says that he
"snatched them out of Dodsley's hands, and made them 'the first-fruits
of his own press at Strawberry Hill,' where a thousand copies were
printed. When published, they attracted much attention, but did not
gain universal applause. Obscurity was the principal charge brought
against them. Their friends, however, including Warburton, Hurd,
Mason, and Garrick, were vehement in their admiration, and loud in
their encomiums. In this year Colley Cibber, the laureate, died, and
the office was offered to Gray, with the peculiar and highly
honourable condition, that he was to hold it as a sinecure. The poet,
however, refused, on the ground, as he tells Mason, that the office
had 'hitherto humbled its possessor.'"

In 1758, he composed, for his amusement, a "Catalogue of the
Antiquities, Houses, &c., in England and Wales," which was, after his
death, printed and distributed by Mason among his friends.

The next year the British Museum was opened (15th January 1759), and
Gray went to London to read and transcribe the MSS. collected there
from the Harleian and Cottoman libraries. During his residence in the
capital, appeared two odes to "Obscurity" and "Oblivion," in ridicule
of his lyrics, from the pens of Colman and Lloyd, full of spirited
satire, which failed, however, to disturb the poet's equanimity. Like
many fastidious writers, he was more afraid of his own taste, and of
the strictures of good-natured friends, than of the attacks of foes.