THE LETTERS OF THOMAS GRAY

IT could not be said of Gray's letters, as Coleridge said of Cowper's, that they are " divine chit-chat " ; for in his work and his character, Gray was a terrestrial being. His quick

sympathies, his broad scholarship, his never-flagging interest in the seething life of his times, are all part of a mundane nature, that rarely soars up to catch those higher lights of the heavens, and to shine with a beauty that makes us awe-stricken. In consequence, a long-continued acquaintance with him leaves us a little stifled, and we long to encounter someone who has only a tithe of his knowledge, but has that little with a more passionate conviction, and with an enthusiasm that is born of fervour rather than of dilettante curiosity. There was a sort of spinster-like timidity about Gray. It stamped itself on his features—if we can trust the portraits—and it coloured, or rather etiolated, his work, and gave its dignity a certain formalism and preciseness, that must be distinguished by the critic from the influence of the mental and technical qualities of the age in which Gray lived. In one of his letters he speaks of himself very discerningly.

" I am a sort of spider ; and have little else to do but spin it over again, or creep to some other place and spin there."

That is indeed the man ; a rather dry, spidery being, spinning a web that is a miracle of silken excellence ; commanding our admiration, yet faintly repellant by reason of his shrunken nature, his dryness, his desiccated emotions. Had he been less content

" Along the cool sequestered vale of life. To keep the noiseless tenor of his way,"

we might be able to feel somewhat more warmly towards him, and to convince ourselves that this blameless being

was worthy of the admiration which his poetry awakes in us. Alas ! his spinsterly conciseness was the other side of the medallion-like perfection of his art. Had his nature been more explosive, more overwhelmed by the burden of the

mystery," he could not have had so rounded and composed a tonitte, capable of such conclusive lines as make up the memory- haunting stanias of the Elegy.

This is rather carping Criticism of a character who is, after

all, one of the major figures of English literature. But in

according him that place, we must lay a certain cooling emphasis on the word " literature." Thoughts of Collins and

Cowper—two contemporaries—occur, and we feel a warmth and a going-out of the heart towards these tortured beings, which more than outweighs our regard for the superiority of his work over theirs.

He is a valuable letter writer, for here his faults become virtues. His contact with his world is immediately translated, and presented with all manner of pleasantness and wit. His friends must have thought him a delightful fellow, and have looked for a letter from him with the keenest relish. But they must, on its receipt, have first filled their churchwardens, lit up, drawn the cork, and found a comfortable chair. They

could not have been impelled to break the seal impetuously. The seals broken, however, there was much to delight them—

and us. He visits his uncle at Burnham, and we get a descrip- tion of the interior of the house.

" I live with my uncle, a great hunter in imagination ; his Dogs take up every chair in the house, so I'm forced to stand at this present writing, and tho' the Gout forbids him galloping after 'em in the field, yet he continues still to regale his ears and nose with their comfortable noise and stink ; lie holds me mighty cheap I see for walking, when I should ride, and reading, when I should hunt."

In spite of his insatiable curiosity, he was never drawn towards mathematics. His inclination was more feminine, and not towards so structural a passion.

" Must I plunge into metaphysics ? Alas, I cannot see in the clin.lc ; nature has not furnished me with the optics of a cat. Must I pore upon mathematics ? Alas, I cannot 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."

That is another good commentary of this temperate man upon himself. He is afraid of both light and dark ; he must havo a nice and judicious blend. Metaphysics arc a darkness to him ; he can get no comfort or inspiration from extra-terres- trial speculation, and lacks the vitality to attempt a re- construction of the universe, that shall accommodate the phenomena of his daily life, and fit them with something more than accidental interest. Rather than be so searching, he is content with a gentle incoherence, and so with the melancholy that is the inevitable counterpart of this vague conception of

the ordering of life.

" Low spirits are my true and faithful companions ; they get up with me, go to bed with me, make journeys and returns as I do ; nay, and pay visits, and will even affect to be jocose, and force a feeble laugh with me ; but most commonly we sit alone together, and arc the prettiest insipid company in the world."

But in spite of all this, he informs his letters with much activity. We read with pleasure of his travels with Horace Walpole in France, Italy, and the Alps ; though the scenery never lifts him up and gives him wings, as it did to Shelley. Yet both poets remark on the stunted goitrous inhabitants

of the Alps. Gray describes how he saw the Old Pretender in Rome.

"For him, he is a thin, ill-made man, extremely tall and awkward, of a most unpromising countenance, a good deal resembling James the Second, and has extremely the look and air of an idiot, particu. larly when he laughs or prays."

He records a fine saying of Walpole's, that in Rome, " out memory sees more than our eyes."

Thus throughout his correspondence he is filled with wit: erudition, and a certain crisp quaintness—but to his disadvan• tage we compare him with Charles Lamb. He has, toa, a certain genial humanity and goodness—but here we compare him with Cowper, who burned with this flame, but with how much clearer and purer a light !