well-known poet; and in May 1860 the two agreed to proceed to London, with the indefinite purpose of finding some kind of employment in connexion with literature. Shortly after his arrival in London Gray introduced himself to Mr Monckton Milnes, now Lord Houghton, with whom he had previously corresponded, who, though unsuccessful in his application for a place for Gray's poem, "The Luggie," in the Cornhill Magazine, gave him some light literary work. He also showed him great attention when a cold which had seized him assumed the serious form of consumption, and procured him the means of staying for a time in the south of England; but as the disease made rapid progress, an irresistible longing seized Gray to return to Merkland, where he arrived in January 1861, and died on the 3d December following, having the day before had the gratification of seeing a printed specimen copy of his poem The Luggie. He was buried in the Auld Aisle Churchyard, Kirkintilloch, where in 1865 a monument was erected by "friends far and near" to his memory.
The Luggie, the principal poem of Gray, is a kind of reverie in which the scenes and events of his childhood and his early aspirations are mingled with the music of the stream which he celebrates. The series of sonnets In the Shadows, composed during the latter part of his illness, possess, without the smallest taint of morbidness, a touching and solemn beauty in keeping with the circumstances in which they were written. Most of his poems necessarily bear traces of immaturity, and lines may frequently be found in them which are mere echoes from Thomson, Wordsworth, or Tennyson, but they possess, nevertheless, the distinct individuality of true genius. They nearly all have a direct or indirect reference to phases of outward nature, and they give evidence of an underlying wealth of imagination and sentiment, of a true and vigorous power of conception, and of a gift of clear and strong, yet subtle and tender, musical utterance, which apparently only required to have been mellowed by time and experience in order to have fashioned a poetry which would have given him an enduring name in English literature.
The Luggie and other Poems, with an introduction by R. Monckton Milnes, and a brief memoir by James Hedderwick, was published in 1862, and a new and enlarged edition of Gray's Poetical Works, edited by the late Sheriff Glassford Bell, appeared in 1874. See also the "Essay on David Gray," published originally in Cornhill Magazine, and reprinted in David Gray and other Essays, by Robert Buchanan, 1868, and the poem on David Gray, reprinted therefrom Idyls and Legends of Inverburn.
GRAY, John Edward (1800-1875), a distinguished English naturalist, born at Walsall, Staffordshire, in 1800, was the eldest of the three sons of Mr S. F. Gray, of that town, druggist and writer on botany, author of the Supplement to the Pharmacopœia, &c., and grandson of Mr S. Gray, who translated for Lee the Philosophia Botanica of Linnæus, and assisted in the composition of the Introduction to Botany. Gray studied at St Bartholomew's and other hospitals for the medical profession, but was attracted to the more enlivening pursuit of botany, on which he wrote and lectured. At an early age he assisted his father by collecting notes on botany and comparative anatomy and zoology in Sir Joseph Banks's library at the British Museum, aided by Dr W. E. Leach, assistant-keeper. The systematic synopsis of the Natural Arrangement of British Plants, 2 vols., 1821, was prepared by him, his father writing the preface and introduction only. This work, which introduced the natural system of plants on Jussieu's plan to the student of English botany, gave offence to the Linnean Society, who rejected Gray's application for a fellowship in 1822. Chafed at this unmerited rebuff, he turned to the study of zoology, writing on zoophytes, shells, Mollusca, and Papilionidæ, still aided by Dr Leach at the British Museum. In December 1824 Gray obtained the post of assistant in that institution; and from that date to December 1839, when Mr J. G. Children retired from the keepership, he had so zealously applied himself to the study, classification, and improvement of the national collection of zoology that he was selected as the fittest person to be entrusted with its charge. Immediately on his appointment as keeper, Gray took in hand the revision of the systematic arrangement of the collections; scientific catalogues followed in rapid succession; the department was raised in importance; its poverty as well as its wealth became known, and whilst increased grants, donations, and exchanges made good many deficiencies, great numbers of students, foreign as well as English, availed themselves of its resources to enlarge the knowledge of zoology in all its branches. Gray found the representatives of the animal kingdom confusedly huddled together in old Montagu House; and the science of zoology was just then emerging from infancy, with little public support to foster it. But, in spite of numerous obstacles, he worked up the department, within a few years of his appointment as keeper, to such a state of excellence as to make it the rival of the cabinets of Leyden, Paris, and Berlin; and later on it was raised under his management to the dignity of the largest and most complete zoological collection in the world. The extensive acquaintance which he had obtained with practical zoology, his love of the subject, close application, and original views, his skill and accuracy of observation, his readiness to impart the information he had acquired to any one who sought it, and above all his marvellous industry, place Gray in the foremost rank of naturalists. It has been said that he tried to accomplish too much, that he wrote hurriedly and paid little attention to anatomy; but it must be remembered that he laboured for the past generation, not among the one-subject men of the present age. He did his work nobly, though somewhat roughly; and it will ever be appreciated by generous men of science. His eagerness for controversy, and the outspoken plainness with which he asserted his views, sometimes brought him into unpleasant relations with those he had to do with. Of this the catalogue dispute with Panizzi, and the gorilla dispute with Du Chaillu, Owen, and others, are well-known instances. Although seized with paralysis in 1870, Gray continued to discharge the functions of keeper of zoology, and to contribute papers to the Annals of Natural History, his favourite journal, and to the transactions of a few of the learned societies. At Christmas 1874, having completed half a century of official work, he resigned office; and on the 7th of March 1875 this indefatigable naturalist expired.
Gray was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1832; in 1852 the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy of the university of Munich was conferred upon him, in recognition of his formation of the largest zoological collection in Europe; and in 1860 the king of Würtemberg, desiring to mark the estimation in which he held Gray, who had declined an offer of knighthood, bestowed upon him the gold medal of merit. He was a president of the Entomological Society, vice-president of the Zoological and Microscopical Societies, fellow of the Geographical and Palæontological Society, in the formation of which he took part; he was president of the Botanical Society, and also a fellow of the Linnean and Geological Societies; he founded the Greenwich Society of Useful Knowledge; and he was an honorary or corresponding member of numerous foreign societies and academies. He was deputy-chairman of the section of the animal and vegetable substances of the Exhibition of 1851, and a juror of the educational section of the Exhibition of 1862. He took an active part in questions of public importance of his day, such as slave emancipation, prison discipline, abolition of imprisonment for debt, sanitary and municipal organizations, the decimal system, public education, extension of the opening of public institutions, &c.
Works.—Dr Gray commenced to publish in 1820, and continued till the year of his death. He began with an Historical Sketch of the Improvements in Comparative Anatomy and Zoology in 1819, and ended with a paper "On the Madagascar River-Hog (Potamochærus), and on the skulls of the three species of the genus," Ann. N. H., xv., 1875. The titles of the books, memoirs, and miscellaneous
