sion to Geneva, and visited the ‘Grande Chartreuse,’ when both travellers were duly affected by the romantic scenery, which it was then thought proper to compare to Salvator Rosa. In the beginning of November they crossed and shuddered at Mont Cenis, Walpole's lapdog being carried off by a wolf on the road. After a short stay at Turin they visited Genoa and Bologna, and reached Florence in December. In April they started for Rome, and after a short excursion to Naples returned to Florence 14 July 1740. Here they lived chiefly with Mann, the English minister, afterwards Walpole's well-known correspondent. Gray apparently found it dull, and was detained by Walpole's convenience. They left Florence 24 April, intending to go to Venice. At Reggio a quarrel took place, the precise circumstances of which are unknown. One story, preserved by Isaac Reed, and first published by Mitford (Gray, Works, ii. 174), is that Walpole suspected Gray of abusing him, and opened one of his letters to England. Walpole's own account, given to Mason, is a candid confession that his own supercilious treatment of a companion socially inferior and singularly proud, shy and sensitive, was the cause of the difference. Walpole had made a will on starting, leaving whatever he possessed to Gray (Walpole, Letters, v. 443); but the tie between the fellow-travellers has become irksome to more congenial companions. Gray went to Venice alone, and returned through Verona, Milan, Turin, and Lyons, which he reached on 25 Aug. On his way he again visited the ‘Grande Chartreuse,’ and wrote his famous Latin ode. Johnson (Piozzi, Anecdotes, p. 168) also wished to leave some Latin verses at the ‘Grande Chartreuse.’ Gray was at London in the beginning of September. He had been a careful sightseer, made notes in picture-galleries, visited churches, and brushed up his classical associations. He observed, and afterwards advised, the judicious custom of always recording his impressions on the spot.
Gray's father died on 6 Nov. 1741. Several letters addressed to him by his son during the foreign tour show no signs of domestic alienation. Mrs. Gray retired with her sister, Mary Antrobus, to live with the third sister, Mrs. Rogers, whose husband died on 31 Oct. 1742. The three sisters now took a house together at West End, Stoke Poges. Gray had found West in declining health. They renewed their literary intercourse, and Gray submitted to his friend the fragment of a tragedy, ‘Agrippina.’ West's criticism appears to have put a stop to it. On 1 June 1742 West died, to the great sorrow of his friend, whose constitutional melancholy was deepened by his friendlessness and want of prospects. He thought himself, it is said, too poor to follow the legal profession. Unwilling to hurt his mother's feelings by openly abandoning it, he went to Cambridge to take a degree in civil law, and settled in rooms at Peterhouse as a fellow-commoner in October 1742. He never became a fellow of any college. He proceeded LL.B. in the winter of 1743. He preferred the study of Greek literature to that of either civil or common law, and during six years went through a severe course of study, making careful notes upon all the principal Greek authors. He always disliked the society of Cambridge and ridiculed the system of education. The place was recommended to him by its libraries, by the cheapness of living, and, perhaps, by an indolence which made any change in the plan of his life intolerable.
Cambridge was Gray's headquarters for the rest of his life. The university was very barren of distinguished men. He felt the loss of Conyers Middleton (d. 28 July 1750), whose house, he says, was ‘the only easy place he could find to converse in.’ He took a contemptuous interest in the petty intrigues of the master and fellows of Pembroke, where were most of his friends; but he had few acquaintances, though he knew something of William Cole, also a friend of Walpole, and a few residents, such as Keene, master of Peterhouse from 1748 to 1756, and James Browne, master of Pembroke from 1770 to 1784. Among his Cambridge contemporaries was Thomas Wharton (B.A. 1737, M.D. 1741; see also Munk, Roll, ii. 197), who was a resident and fellow of Pembroke till his marriage in 1747. He afterwards lived in London, and in 1758 settled in his paternal house at Old Park, Durham, where he died, aged 78, 15 Dec. 1794 (Gray, Works, iv. 143). A later friend, William Mason (b. 1725), was at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he attracted Gray's notice by some early poems, and partly through Gray's influence was elected a fellow of Pembroke in 1749. He became a warm admirer and a humble disciple and imitator. About 1754 he obtained the living of Aston in Yorkshire. Gray occasionally visited Wharton and Mason at their homes, and maintained a steady correspondence with both. In the summer he generally spent some time with his mother at Stoke Poges. His aunt, Mary Antrobus, died there on 6 Nov. 1749. His mother died on 11 March 1753, aged 62. He was most tenderly attached to her, and placed upon her tomb an inscription to the ‘careful tender
