h Gray placed on
the tomb of his own mother in Stoke Pogis church-yard--the tomb in
which he himself was afterward buried "She was the careful, tender
mother of many children," says the inscription, "only one of whom had
the misfortune to survive her."]

[Footnote 39: From a letter to Horace Walpole, dated "Pembroke
College, February 25, 1768."]

[Footnote 40: This refers to Boswell's visit to Corsica in 1766. The
book he wrote was his "Journal of a Tour to Corsica, with Memoirs of
Pascal Paoli."]

[Footnote 41: From a letter to Bonstetten, dated "Cambridge, April 12,
1770." Bonstetten was a Swiss philosopher and essayist who had formed
a close friendship with Gray and many other eminent English men of
culture. Bonstetten left England in March of the year in which this
letter was written, Gray going with him as far as London, where he
pointed out in the street the "great bear," Samuel Johnson, and saw
Bonstetten safely into a coach bound for Dover.]

HORACE WALPOLE

Born in 1717, died in 1797; third son of Sir Robert Walpole,
the Prime Minister; educated at Eton and Cambridge; traveled
with Thomas Gray in 1739-41; entered Parliament in 1741;
settled at Strawberry Hill in 1747; made fourth Earl of
Orford in 1791; author of many books, but best known now for
his letters.

I

HOGARTH[42]

Hogarth was born in the parish of St. Bartholomew, London, the son of
a low tradesman, who bound him to a mean engraver of arms on plate;
but before his time was expired he felt the impulse of genius, and
felt it directed him to painting, tho little apprized at that time of
the mode nature had intended he should pursue. His apprenticeship was
no sooner expired than he entered into the academy in St. Martin's
Lane, and studied drawing from the life, in which he never attained to
great excellence. It was character, the passions, the soul, that his
genius was given him to copy. In coloring he proved no greater a
master; his force lay in expression, not in tints and chiaroscuro. At
first he worked for booksellers, and designed and engraved plates for
several books; and, which is extraordinary, no symptom of genius
dawned in those plates. His "Hudibras" was the first of his works that
marked him as a man above the common; yet what made him then noticed
now surprizes us, to find so little humor in an undertaking so
congenial to his talents. On the success, however, of those plates, he
com