acquired all his knowledge from the most deep, legitimate sources. He abhorred a smattering of anything; he went to the fountain-head; he thought it an evil sign of the age that it produced Encyclopædias and Universal Dictionaries, as only serving to supply a fund for the vanity and affectation of general knowledge. For him even the fountain-head often failed in sufficient detail to satisfy his desires; and there are marvellous examples on record of the minuteness of his research. He was perfectly versed in the works of the Latin and Greek authors, historians, geographers, philosophers, poets; devoting six years to their perusal, digesting and examining their contents, marking their peculiarities, and noting their corrupt and difficult passages, writing these comments in margins or common-place books, with a delicacy and accuracy of penmanship little inferior to print. He formed a system of Greek chronology for his own use. The literature of Italy and France were studied with the same accuracy. History,-modern, ancient, medieval,-was his particular study; antiquities, voyages, travels, were his chosen relaxations from deeper studies. He was deeply learned in the history of English poetry, and projected a work upon it which should have included specimens of Provençal, Scandinavian, British, and Saxon poetry, with all of which he was familiar. He had more knowledge of Gothic architecture than any man of his time; indeed he may be considered to have begun the modern study of it. He was curiously learned in heraldry and genealogy. His knowledge and taste for music were remarkable. He introduced Pergolesi's music into England, and was himself a fine performer on the harpsichord, to which he sang with great taste; maintaining the poet's view, that music should be subservient to poetry. He was also a lover of less severe music, was a diligent visitor at the opera whenever he was in town, when we have frequent critical notices of the first singers. More than once, we come upon a mention of our old friends the musical glasses,' immortalized in the Vicar of Wakefield,' whose soft tones delighted Gray's ear. He calls them a cherubim in a box.' His knowledge of painting and sculpture was of the same order, exactly like that of a connoisseur with whom it was the main pursuit, yet with a poet's application of the knowledge: as, for instance, where we learn that Raphael's wonderful picture of the prophet Ezekiel suggested to him the grand form and aspect of his 'Bard.' He was a diligent observer of nature. He kept diaries and journals of the most exact accuracy of wind and weather, of plants and flowers, of birds, insects, fishes,-being profoundly read in all the books that treat of natural history, and adding, in their margins, the fruits of a most loving and vigilant daily personal observation. Indeed, the only studies which did not engage his attention

were theology and mathematics; the former from a want of inclination; the latter, that his respect for this science came too late for more than longings and regrets.

Having enlarged on this accuracy of knowledge, we are tempted to give some examples, and that rather upon those subjects of least general interest, as proving his independence of fashion or common opinion, and indeed trenching, as Mr. Mitford says, on the verge of rational inquiry :—

I possess, among several others of his books, his copy of "Voyage de Bergeron ;" and all through this book, which is a thick quarto volume, he has followed the author in his account of the names and succession of the Persian, Tartar, and Chinese dynasties; sometimes illustrating, sometimes enlarging his account, with the same apparent pains which he had previously taken in his classical and poetical studies. As one example of this minute and extended curiosity, Bergeron says, speaking of Bagdo, "Second fils de Hoccato Cham, il fut noyé avec un nombre des siens." Gray first adds, "Bagdo was nephew to Oglai. Bergeron is wrong: the drowning took place in 1235, and Bagdo Khan was certainly alive many years after: he died in 1256." Again, Bergeron says, "Mango Cham fut noyé;" Gray adds in the margin, "Muncaca or Mango Khan was not drowned, but in reality slain in China, at the siege of Ho-chew, in 1256." Another traveller had said, "The name of this king was Abassidus Admeh:" Gray adds, "Admeh Emir ali Mumenin; this Abassid, surnamed Al-Nasor, was 52d khaliff; but he came not to the throne till A.D. 1175; so that the Khaliff then reigning must be Hassan Al Moothaday, his predecessor."—Gray's Poetical Works.

The following passage shows the minuteness and accuracy of his geographical researches. It is a dissertation on the situation of a city, of whose existence (beyond perhaps a dim recollection of the name) in any part of its career, we venture to surmise, many of our readers have lived in contented ignorance. This extract from the ample page of his knowledge begins after the question of what extent of country Ptolemy included in his Parthia, and how far it was enlarged beyond its original boundaries, has already been treated at great length. Our readers may think it dry, but it is important he should remember that Gray did not, though this region had not then the interest which modern events invest it with. No study was dull to him, because he pursued each with a poet's faculty of realizing. Here he sees the country, the city, and the mountain that overshadows it, in the relief and vividness of an actual prospect, not tracing it out on the flat lifeless surface of a map. It is the same with the climate and the people.

'As it was a remarkable pass through the mountains, which divided the Persian empire (as it were) into two parts, and led out of Media Rhagiana into Parthyene, we must, in the first place, find out where the district and city of Rhaga or Rhagea lay, which (as Isidorus tells us) was the largest in all Media in his time. What Strabo calls by the name of 'Payeta, I take to be that particular spot of ground on which the city stood, founded by Seleucus the first, and by him called Europus, to which the Parthian kings

gave the name of Arsacia, yet more generally known by that of Rhagea. This appears to me to be the meaning of that expression of his, pos Ῥαγαῖς καὶ αὕτη Ράγεια τὸ τοῦ Νικάτορος κτίσμα, &c. ; and he says, the place was so called (Payaí, in the Greek tongue, signifying clefts or fissures) from the earthquakes that had happened there, by which many cities, and, as Posidonius relates, 2,000 villages, had been overturned. He adds that it lay south of the Porta Caspiæ, at the distance of 500 stadia from them, and that all this part of Media was low, and sheltered by the mountains, excessively fertile, and productive of everything but the olivetree. We are told farther, that the district of Rhage was eleven days' march from Ecbatana; and that the Greek cities of Heraclea, Charax and Apamea (all of them upon or near the north-eastern frontier of Media) were not very remote from the city of Rhagea. Nothing (I think) can be more evident than that Rhaga (or Media Rhagiana) is the territory so often mentioned by the Eastern writers, under the name of Rey. It is the north-eastern part of the great province of Irak Agemi (Media Major), which is in general so rough and elevated a country, as to be called by way of distinction Al Gebal, or the mountainous region; yet it is remarked that hereabouts, from Hamadan towards Com and Rey, it opens mostly into plains: it was a very extensive district, full of villages, and celebrated for its fertility, well-watered, but excessively hot and stifling, and not healthy, the mountains keeping off the northern breezes. The city of Rey itself was about twenty-seven leagues to the south-east of Casbin; one day's journey south of Demavend, a chain of mountains (inclosing several fine valleys) which separates this part of Irak from Taberistan; to one of them (the loftiest in all Persia) the name of Demavend is particularly appropriated. It may be seen at fifty leagues distance, being usually covered with snow, and appears to hang directly over the city of Rey, though it is three leagues off. On its top is a dry and sandy plain, of a hundred acres in extent, in which are above sixty openings which breathe forth smoke and sometimes flame. The tradition of the country is, that Solomon imprisoned there a dreadful demon, which he had subdued; others say that Dahak, an ancient tyrant of the fabulous Pishdadian race, lies under it (like the Typhoeus of the Greeks beneath Mount Etna), breathing fire. There are many hot springs near it, and mines of lead, vitriol, and antimony. All these are indications of a soil impregnated with sulphur, and subject to frequent earthquakes. Hushenk, another of those old monarchs, whom they believe to have reigned before the deluge, is said to have fought here with a race of giants who inhabited the Demavend, and to have been overwhelmed by a huge rock which they flung at him. This seems to be but the ancient Greek fable of the Phlegra transferred to these distant countries; and the Greeks themselves used to apply it to all places where there were eruptions of fire,-as in Campania, in Cilicia, in Sicily, in Lydia, &c. To this Hushenk the Persians attribute the foundation of Suster (Susa), which they take to be the most ancient city in the world, and of Rey; which, fabulous as it is, shows the opinion of the people concerning their great antiquity. Pliny informs us that the Medes of this country were called Pratitæ, or the oi map' ódóv: the reason of this latter appellation is plain; for all persons who came from the western and southern parts of the empire, (in their way to Hyrcania north, or to Aria and to the other provinces east, or from these provinces on their way to the south and west,) were obliged to fetch a compass round and pass through the territory of Rhagea, in order to avoid that vast desert, which lies between Media and Asia, Persis and Parthia. No wonder, then, if a city so advantageously seated, both for commerce and defence, maintained for many ages the figure and dignity of a capital. It was declining after the conquest of the Saracens, when Al Mahadi (the 21st Khalif) repaired its walls and

improved and enlarged it with sumptuous buildings, towards the end of the 8th century; and in the next it was looked upon as the largest city of Irak Agemi, being above a league in length, and half as much in breadth, and in multitude of inhabitants inferior to none in the whole empire, except Bagdad, the residence of the Khalifs. In 1062 it was the capital of Togrulbeg, the first sultan of the great Selgiukid dynasty; but under the Khuäresmian monarchs, into whose hands it fell next, it was reduced to a miserable condition by the factions that prevailed in it; the Sunni and the Shaï, two religious sects, tearing one another to pieces, till in 1220 the city was little better than a heap of ruins; and the Mogol Tartars, immediately after overrunning the country, totally destroyed what remained of it. Some attempts were made in succeeding times to restore it, but they came to nothing; and the city of Casbin seems to have succeeded to those advantages that Rey once enjoyed. The proofs which I have given above that Rhagea and Rey were the same cities are so convincing, it is a wonder that Golius, a man better versed in the Greek and Roman authors than most Orientalists have been, should not have seen it. He says,' &c.-Works, p. 245.

But we hold that our readers will be satisfied without being eye-witnesses of the defeat of Golius. It must be remembered that this pains is taken to satisfy the writer's own mind-apparently without much distinct idea of making further use of it, or allowing others to be the gainers of so much erudition. However, though we cannot treat of Gray without touching upon his learning, the work with which we are now most concerned shows Gray not in this light so much as in that of a critic, not of the dead, but of the living, the poet being his friend. Friendship called him very much to the practice of this art, and yet it was not one that he loved; indeed, he often expresses a poet's contempt for it. You know,' he says, 'I do not pique myself upon criticism, and think even a bad verse as good a thing, or better, than the best observation that ever was made upon it.' And in the same spirit he expresses dissatisfaction with himself after a few sharp and just sentences on Akenside:- And so methinks, in a few words, I have very pertly despatched what perhaps may for several years have employed a very ingenious man, worth fifty of myself.' A reflection which it would be well for critics by profession to retain in their memories. We have said that his estimate of Mason was too high, yet all his criticisms are so just, that we clearly see partial friendship had the main hand in the mistaken general estimate, though there was also a sympathy with Mason's subjects. Where the poetry itself is forgotten, the verbal criticism upon it loses its interest, but good general maxims must always retain their original value. One principal difference between these two friends was in their modes of composition. Mason always supposed himself in a hurry of invention which admitted no pause for hesitation or reflection; he never waited for epithets, but if they did not occur at the time, left spaces for

them to be put in after-a plan which accounts for any degree of languor and insipidity. Gray was always fighting against this practice:-

'Extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, conspicuous, and musical, is one of the grand beauties of lyric poetry; this I have always aimed at, and never could attain. The necessity of rhyming is one great obstacle to it another, and, perhaps, a stronger is, that way you have chosen of casting down your first ideas carelessly and at large, and then clipping them here and there, and forming them at leisure; this method, after all possible pains, will leave behind it, in some places, a laxity, a diffuseness; the frame of a thought (otherwise well invented, well turned, and well placed) is often weakened by it. Do I talk nonsense, or do you understand me? I am persuaded what I say is true in my head, whatever it may be in prose, -for I do not pretend to write prose.'-Mitford, p. 128.

To this Mason (who had previously acknowledged the difference, and described Gray's verses as coming from him armed cap-a-piè, at all points, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter) replies with a submissive sort of testiness::-

'I do wish indeed that these Odes were all of them finished; and yet, by what you talk of "measure, and rhythm, and expression," I think I shall never be able to finish them--never, certainly, at all, if I am not to throw out my ideas at large; so, whether I am right or wrong, I must have my way in that; therefore talk no more about it.'-Ibid. p. 131.

Readers having nothing to do but with results, it matters not to them how a good verse was written, so it is a good one. Still, is not this hurry, which is, we imagine, the more common mood of composition, a sort of confession of weakness? As if the poet were conscious he had not got fairly hold of an idea, which a stronger mind once possessed of would have no fear of losing, and, therefore, would not let go till it was thoroughly and deliberately mastered. Expression Gray avows to be the main point-the great distinguishing characteristic of poetry with him: We think in words,' he says; 'poetry consists in expression, if that term be properly understood;' and in commending a passage, we find, exemplary for the expression, always the great point with me;' and pursuing the same view, he argues upon one of Mason's old British scenes:

Now, I insist that sense is nothing in poetry, but according to the dress she wears, and the scene she appears in. If you should lead me into a superb Gothic building, with a thousand clustered pillars, each of them half a mile high, the walls all covered with fret-work, and the windows full of red and blue saints that had neither head nor tail, and I should find the Venus de Medici, in person, perched up in a long niche over the high altar as naked as ever she was born, do you think it would raise, or damp my devotions? I say that Mador must be entirely a Briton, and that his preeminence amongst his companions must be shown by superior wildness, more barbaric fancy, and a more striking and deep harmony both of words and numbers.'-Ibid. p. 164.

Of course, there is a fallacy in this argument, though the