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In the retirement of Peterhouse, Mr. Gray wrote, in 1747, An Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat* and the year afterwards attempted a poem of more importance, On Education and Government †, of which the fragments that remain contain some exquisite lines. His next production (1750) was his far-famed Elegy in a Country Church Yard, which was first communicated to Mr. Walpole, and passed from him into the hands of several persons of distinction §. After having for some time been privately transmitted from one hand to another, it at length found its way to the public eye in "The Magazine of Magazines." This

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This brought him acquainted with Lady Cobham, and furnished an occasion for his Long Story.

THE R

ich were repaid by the Poet with some anzas, of which, however, only a frag

ns *

1, 1753, Mr. Gray lost that mother for all occasions, he showed a most tender

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buried in the same vault in Stoke d, where her sister's remains had been ore than three years before. As the on the tombstone (at least the latter s undoubtedly of Mr. Gray's writing, ere claim a place, even if it had not a

* See p. 150.

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THE REMAINS OF

MARY ANTROBUS.

SHE DIED, UNMARRIED, NOV. V. MDCCXLIX. AGED LXVI.

IN THE SAME PIOUS CONFIDENCE,

BESIDE HER FRIEND AND SISTER,
HERE SLEEP THE REMAINS OF

DOROTHY GRAY, WIDOW,

THE CAREFUL TENDER MOTHER

OF MANY CHILDREN, ONE OF WHOM ALONE

HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO SURVIVE HER.

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About three years afterward (1756) some young men of the College, whose chambers were near

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who says of M They have a muc Odes of the Theb

ind in our own

Enguage, Wildne verse, had usu Way to resemble excellencies of P of conception, bo sile, rapidity of c phraseology. formed

7 he published The Progress of Poesy*, Pard†, which have occasioned some sarervations from the pen of Dr. Johnson, them, "two compositions at which the of poetry were at first content to gaze e amazement. Some that tried them ed their inability to understand them, Warburton said that they were unders well as the works of Milton and Shakewhich it is the fashion to admire. Garrote a few lines in their praise ‡. Some

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upon tho desolations of tim

gery and reg

Tassed by Mr. G

From this splenetic effusion I turn with pleasu to the more just remarks of Mr. Gilbert Wak field, who says of Mr. Gray's Pindaric Odes, th "They have a much greater resemblance to th "Odes of the Theban bard than any thing of th "kind in our own, and probably in any othe "language. Wildness of thought and irregularit "of verse, had usually been esteemed the onl

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way to resemble Pindar. The characterist "excellencies of Pindar's poetry are, sublimit "of conception, boldness of metaphor, dignity "stile, rapidity of composition, and magnificend "of phraseology. If a fair judgment can b "formed upon those few specimens which th "desolations of time have spared, in grandeur "imagery and regularity of thought, he is sur passed by Mr. Gray.-These sublime and ela

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