The son of a London scrivener in noisy Cornhill, Gray (1716-1771) was unfortunate in his paternal relations. His father was of a harsh, despotic disposition; and Mrs. Gray was obliged to separate from him, and open a millinery shop for her maintenance. To the love of this good mother, who lived to witness the eminence of her son, Thomas owed his superior education. Her brother being a master at Eton, the lad went there to school, and found among his classmates young Horace Walpole, with whom he became intimate, and afterward travelled on the Continent. At Cambridge Gray seems to have found college-life irksome. He hated mathematics and metaphysics. He passed his time principally in the study of languages and history, leaving in 1738 without taking a degree. He fixed his residence at Cambridge. Severe as a student, he was indolent as an author. His charm

ing letters, and his splendid but scanty poetry, leave the world to regret his lack of productive industry. He was a man of ardent affections, of sincere piety, and practical benevolence; but his sequestered student-life, and an affectation of the character of a gentleman who studied from choice, gave a tinge of effeminacy and pedantry to his manners that incurred the ridicule of the wilder spirits of Cambridge.

The scenery of the Grande Chartreuse in Dauphiné awakened all his enthusiasm. He wrote of it: "Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other argument. One need not have a very fantastic imagination to see spirits there at noonday."

Charles Dickens remarked of Gray that no poet ever gained a place among the immortals with so small a volume under his arm. Gray's first public appearance as a poet was in 1747, when his "Ode to Eton College" (written in 1742) was published by Dodsley. In 1751 his "Elegy written in a Country Church-yard" was printed, and immediately attained a popularity which has gone on increasing up to the present time. The "Pindarie Odes" appeared in 1757, but met with little success. Gray was offered the appointment of poet-laureate, vacant by the death of Colley Cibber, but declined it, and accepted the lucrative situation of Professor of Modern History, which brought him in about £400 per annum. He died of gout in the stomach, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

In a letter to his publisher (1751), Gray requested that the Elegy should be "printed without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them." In those stanzas to which he refers we have here endeavored to conform to his wish by not dividing them.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower

The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built

shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team a-field! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted
vault

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre: But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood:

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Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;-
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.'

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet even these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
decked,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;
And many a holy text around she strews
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

1 Between this stanza and that beginning, "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife," came, in Gray's earlier MS. draft, these four stanzas marked at the side for omission, of which one is used, in an altered form, lower down:

"The thoughtless World to Majesty may bow,
Exalt the brave, and idolize success;
But more to Innocence their safety owe
Than Power and Genius e'er conspired to bless.
"And thou who, mindful of th' unhonored dead,
Dost in these notes their artless tale relate,
By Night and lonely Contemplation led
To linger in the gloomy walks of Fate,
"Hark how the sacred calm that broods around
Bids every fierce, tumultuous passion cease,
In still small accents whispering from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

"No more, with Reason and thyself at strife,

Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;
But through the cool, sequestered vale of life
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom."

Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue;
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer of vigor born; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly the approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom,

The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,

Nor care beyond to-day.

Yet see how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, show them where in ambush stand, To seize their prey, the murd'rous band! Ab, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind-
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame, that skulks behind;

Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged, comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' altered eye,

That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorse, with blood defiled, And moody Madness, laughing wild Amid severest woe.

Lo in the vale of years beneath

A grisly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen:

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every laboring sinew strains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men, Condemned alike to groan:

The tender for another's pain,

The unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more where ignorauce is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

James Merrick.

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Merrick (1720-1769) was a clergyman, as well as a writer of verse. He produced a version of the Psalms, a Collection of Hymns, and a few miscellaneous poems. His "Chameleon" is still buoyant among the productions that the world does not willingly let die. At Oxford, Merrick was tutor to Lord North. Owing to incessant pains in the head, he was obliged to abandon his vocation of clergyman.

THE CHAMELEON.

Oft has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark,
With eyes that hardly served at most
To guard their master 'gainst a post;
Yet round the world the blade has been,
To see whatever could be seen.
Returning from his finished tour,
Grown ten times perter than before,-
Whatever word you chance to drop,
The travelled fool your mouth will stop:
"Sir, if my judgment you'll allow-
I've seen-and sure I ought to know."-
So begs you'd pay a due submission,
And acquiesce in his decision.

Two travellers of such a cast,
As o'er Arabia's wilds they passed,
And on their way, in friendly chat,
Now talked of this, and then of that,
Discoursed awhile, 'mongst other matter,
Of the chameleon's form and nature.
"A stranger animal," cries one,
"Sure never lived beneath the sun :
A lizard's body, lean and long,
A fish's head, a serpent's tongue,
Its foot with triple claw disjoined;
And what a length of tail behind!
How slow its pace! and then its hue-
Who ever saw so fine a blue!"

"Hold, there" the other quick replies: ""Tis green; I saw it with these eyes,

As late with open mouth it lay,
And warmed it in the sunny ray;
Stretched at its ease the beast I viewed,
And saw it eat the air for food."

"I've seen it, sir, as well as you,
And must again affirm it blue.
At leisure I the beast surveyed,
Extended in the cooling shade."

""Tis green, 'tis green, sir, I assure ye."— "Green ?" cries the other, in a fury; "Why, sir, d'ye think I've lost my eyes?"— "Twere no great loss," the friend replies; "For if they always use you thus, You'll find them but of little use."

So high at last the contest rose, From words they almost came to blows: When luckily came by a third: To him the question they referred; And begged he'd tell them, if he knew, Whether the thing was green or blue. "Sirs," cries the umpire, "cease your pother, The creature's neither one nor t'other. I caught the animal last night, And viewed it o'er by candle-light: I marked it well-'twas black as jet. You stare; but, sirs, I've got it yet, And can produce it."—"Pray, sir, do; I'll lay my life the thing is blue.""And I'll be sworn that when you've seen The reptile, you'll pronounce him green.""Well, then, at once to end the doubt," Replies the man, "I'll turn him out; And when before your eyes I've set him, If you don't find him black, I'll eat him." He said: then full before their sight Produced the beast; and lo! 'twas white.

Both stared; the man looked wondrous wise. "My children," the chameleon cries (Then first the creature found a tongue), "You all are right, and all are wroug. When next you talk of what you view, Think others see as well as you, Nor wonder if you find that none Prefers your eyesight to his own."

Mark Akenside.

The author of "Pleasures of Imagination" (1721-1770) was the son of a butcher at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. An accident in his early years-the fall of one of his father's cleavers on his foot-rendered him lame for life. His parents were Dissenters, and Mark was sent to the Uni

versity of Edinburgh to be educated for the Presbyterian ministry. He entered, however, the ranks of medicine, and received in 1744 the degree of M.D. from the University of Leyden. As a boy of sixteen, he had contributed pieces of some merit to the Gentleman's Magazine. His "Pleasures of Imagination," published when he was twenty-three years old, placed him in the list of conspicuous poets. Instead of pressing forward to better things, he passed several years in altering and remodelling his first successful poem; but he gained nothing in reputation by the attempt, and died before it was completed. His Hymns and Odes are deservedly forgotten.

Removing to London, Akenside took a house in Bloomsbury Square, where he resided till his death. As a physician, he never rose to eminence. His manner in a sick-room was depressing and unsympathetic. His chief means of support were derived from the liberality of his friend Jeremiah Dyson, a man of fortune, who secured to him an income of £300 a year. As a poet, Akenside may not have reached the highest mark; but his "Pleasures of Imagination" will always be regarded as a remarkable production for a youth of twenty-three. In our extracts we have preferred the original text. Few of the author's subsequent alterations are improvements. Gray censures the tone of false philosophy which he found in the work.

THE SOUL'S TENDENCIES TO THE INFINITE.

FROM "THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION."

Say, why was man so eminently raised
Amid the vast creation; why ordained
Through life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame ;—
But that the Omnipotent might send him forth
In sight of mortal and immortal powers,
As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice; to exalt
His generous aim to all diviner deeds;

To chase each partial purpose from his breast:
And through the mists of passion and of sense,
And through the tossing tide of chance and pain,
To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice
Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent
Of Nature, calls him to his high reward,
The applauding smile of Heaven? Else wherefore