pique to him. I send you my translation which I did not engage in because I liked that part of the Poem, nor do I now send it to you because I think it deserves it, but merely to shew you how I mispend my days.

I AGREE with you that you have broke Statius's head, but it is in like manner as Apollo broke Hyacinth's, you have foiled him infinitely at his own weapon: I must insist on seeing the rest of your translation, and then I will examine it entire, and compare it with the Latin, and be very wise and severe, and put on an inflexible face, such as becomes the character of a true son of Aristarchus, of hypercritical memory. In the mean while,

And calm'd the terrors of his claws in gold,

Is exactly Statius-Summos auro mansueverat ungues. I never knew before that the golden fangs on hammercloths were so

*Here followed the Translation of Statius.

old a fashion, Your Hymenêal* I was told was the best in the Cambridge Collection before I saw it, and, indeed, it is no great compliment to tell you I thought it so when I had seen it, but sincerely it pleased me best. Methinks the college bards have run into a strange taste on this occasion. Such soft unmeaning stuff about Venus and Cupid, and Peleus and Thetis, and Zephyrs and Dryads, was never read. As for my poor little Eclogue it has been condemned and beheaded by our Westminster judges; an exordium of about sixteen lines absolutely cut off, and its other limbs quartered in a most barbarous manner. I will send it you in my next as my true and lawful heir, in exclusion of the pretender, who has the impudence to appear under my name..

As yet I have not looked into Sir Isaac. Public disputations I hate; mathematics I reverence; history, morality, and natural philosophy have the greatest charms in my eye; but who can forget poetry? they call it idleness, but it is surely the most enchanting thing in the world," ac dulce otium & pœne omni negotio pulchrius."

I am, dear Sir, yours while I am

Christ Church, May 24, 1736.

R. W.

* Published in the Cambridge Collection of verses on the Prince of Wales's marriage. I have not thought it necessary to insert these hexameters, as adulatory verses of this kind, however well written, deserve not to be transmitted to posterity; and, indeed, are usually buried, as they ought to be, in the trash with which they are surrounded. Every person, who feels himself a poet, ought to be above prostituting his powers on such occasions; and extreme youth (as was the case with Mr. Gray) is the only thing that can apologize for his having done it.-Mason. -To this Note, by Mr. Mason, I must add, that there is not the slightest shade of adulation or courtly incense' discoverable in the verses alluded to; except it may be found in the Poet likening Princess Augusta to a stone statue; and Prince Frederick to Pygmalion.-Ed.

[The following letter seems to require some little preface, not so much as it expresses Mr. Gray's juvenile sentiments concerning the mode of our academical education, as that these sentiments prevailed with him through life, and that he often declared them, with so little reserve, as to create him many enemies. It is certain that at the time when he was admitted, and for some years after, Jacobitism, and its concomitant hard drinking, prevailed still at Cambridge, much to the prejudice not only of good manners but of good letters; for, if this spirit was then on the decline, it was not extinguished till after the year 1745. But we see (as was natural enough in a young man) he laid the blame rather on the mode of education than the mode of the times; and to this error the uncommon proficiency he had made at Eton in classical learning might contribute, as he found himself in a situation where that species of merit held not the first rank. However this be, it was necessary not to omit this feature of his mind, when employed in drawing a general likeness of it; and what colours could be found so forcible as his own to express its true light and shadow? I would further observe, that whatever truth there might be in his satire' at the time it was written, it can by no means affect the present state of the university. There is usually a much greater fluctuation of taste and manners in an academical, than a national body; occasioned (to use a scholastic metaphor) by that very quick succession of its component parts, which often goes near to destroy its personal identity. Whatever therefore may be true of such a society at one time, may be, and generally is, ten years after absolutely false.]—Mason.

LETTER IV.

MR. GRAY TO M" WEST.

YOU must know that I do not take degrees, and, after this term, shall have nothing more of College impertinencies to undergo, which I trust will be some pleasure to you, as it is a great one to me. I have endured lectures daily and hourly since I came last, supported by the hopes of being shortly at full liberty to give myself up to my friends and classical companions, who, poor souls! though I see them fallen into great contempt with most people here, yet I cannot help sticking to them, and out of a spirit of obstinacy (I think) love them the better for it; and indeed, what can I do else? Must I plunge into metaphysics? Alas, I cannot see in the dark; nature has not furnished me with the optics of a cat. Must I pore upon mathematics?* Alas, I cannot

* The Reader must consider the spirit of humour in which this letter is written, before he regards these sentiments familiarly thrown out to his Correspondent, as the mature or settled opinions of Gray, on the valuable and inestimable science of Mathematics. If however he were really expressing, in a jocose manner, the result of his serious deliberations on the subject, he found ample reason to change them, when the experience of his more advanced life shewed to him it's important effects upon some of the noblest faculties of the human mind, and when he could not but acknowledge the supereminent accuracy of its means, the unrivalled dignity of its end. "Mr. Gray (says Mr. Mathias) much regretted that he had never applied his mind to the study of the mathematics; and once, rather late in life, he hinted to his friend an intention to undertake it. No one was ever more convinced of it's dignity and it's importance. He wished, however, to appreciate it with discreet approbation, not considering it as the only mode by which the understanding could be matured: as he

"

see in too much light; I am no eagle. It is very possible that two and two make four, but I would not give four farthings to demonstrate this ever so clearly; and if these be the profits of life, give me the amusements of it. The people I behold all around me, it seems, know all this and more, and yet I do not know one of them who inspires me with any ambition of being like him. Surely it was of this place, now Cambridge, but formerly known by the name of Babylon, that the prophet spoke when he said, "the wild beasts of "the desert shall dwell there, and their houses shall be full "of doleful creatures, and owls shall build there, and satyrs "shall dance there; their forts and towers shall be a den for ever, a joy of wild asses; there shall the great owl make her nest, and lay and hatch and gather under her shadow; "it shall be a court of dragons; the screech owl also shall "rest there, and find for herself a place of rest." You see here is a pretty collection of desolate animals, which is verified in this town to a tittle, and perhaps it may also allude to your habitation, for you know all types may be taken by abundance of handles; however, I defy your owls to match mine.

conceived that a fixed attention to any works of close and of deep reasoning might produce the same accurate precision of thought. But he felt, and he owned it too, the commanding power of those speculations, to which the mathematician alone can conduct the patient inquirers into nature. And he could not but admire the strong and animated expressions of Halley,—

"Nubem pellente Mathesi

"Claustra patent Cœli, rerumque immobilis ordo."

While he contemplated, with reverence, the laws and the system of the Universe fixed by a sublime geometry." See Mathias's Observations on Gray's Writings. P. 68. 8vo.-Ed.