papers written by him, accompanied by a few notes, fill a privately printed list of 56 octavo pages. The more important of the books, besides those already mentioned, are:—Synopsis of the species of the class Mammalia, 1827 (Griffith's Cuvier, vol. v.); Illustrations of Indian Zoology, 2 vols., 1830-35; A Synopsis of the species of the class Reptilia, 1830 (Cuvier, ix.); Zoological Miscellany, 1831-45; Synopsis Reptilium, 1831; A Descriptive Catalogue of Recent and Fossil Shells, 1832; Turton's Manual of the Land and Freshwater Shells of the British Islands (new ed.), 1840; List of the Specimens of Mammalia in the British Museum, 1843; Catalogue of Tortoises, &c., 1844; Systematic Catalogue of British Land and Freshwater Shells, 1844; Catalogue of Specimens of Lizards, 1845; Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall (superintended at the request of the late earl of Derby), 1846-50; List of the genera of recent Mollusca, 1847; List of Osteological Specimens, 1847, of British Sponges, Radiated Animals (Centroniæ), of British Radiata, separate, 1848; Catalogue of Mollusca,1849-50; Catalogue and Reptiles (Snakes), 1849; Catalogue of Fish (Chondropterygia), 1850; Catalogue of Mammalia (Cetacea, Seals, Hoofed Quadrupeds), 1850–1852; Catalogue of Amphibia, 1850; Catalogue of Bivalve Mollusca, 1850-53; List of Fish (Cartilaginous), of British Fish, separate, 1851; List of British Mollusca and Shells, 1851; Catalogue of Echinidæ or Sea-Eggs, 1851; Catalogue of Phaneropneumona (with L. Pfeiffer), 1852; Catalogue of Fish collected and described by L. T. Gronov, 1854; Catalogue of Shield Reptiles, 1855-72; Catalogue of the recent Echinida, 1855; Catalogue of Pulmonata (with L. Pfeiffer), 1855; Guide to the collection of Mollusca, 1856; Catalogue of Apodal Fish, by Dr J. J. Kaup, translated and edited by Gray, 1856; Catalogue of Auriculidæ, 1857; Systematic arrangement of figures of Conchifera and Brachiopoda, 1857; List of Mollusca, 1858; Handbook of British Waterweeds, or Algæ (with W. Carruthers), 1864; Salisbury's Genera of Plants, edited by Gray, 1866; Catalogue of Seals and Whales, 1866-71; Synopsis of Species of Starfish, 1866; Synopsis of species of Whales and Dolphins, 1868; Catalogue of Carnivorous, Pachydermatous, and Edentate Mammalia, 1869; Catalogue of Monkeys, Lemurs, and Fruit-eating Bats, 1870; Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles, 1872 (re-edited); Hand-list of Seals, Morses, Sea-Lions, and Sea-Bears, 1874.
GRAY, Thomas (1716-1771), the author of the celebrated Elegy written in a Country Churchyard, was born in Cornhill, London, December 26, 1716. His father, Philip Gray, an exchange broker and scrivener, was a wealthy and nominally respectable citizen; but he treated his family with brutal severity and neglect, and the poet was altogether indebted for the advantages of a learned education to the affectionate care and industry of his mother, whose maiden name was Antrobus, and who, in conjunction with a maiden sister, kept a millinery shop. A brother of Mrs Gray was assistant to the master of Eton, and was also a fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Under his protection the poet was educated at Eton, and thence went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, attending college from 1734 to September 1738. At Eton he had as contemporaries Richard West, son of the lord chancellor of Ireland, and Horace Walpole, son of the triumphant Whig minister, Sir Robert Walpole. West died early in his 26th year, but his genius and virtues and his sorrows will for ever live in the correspondence of his friend. In the spring of 1739 Gray was invited by Horace Walpole to accompany him as travelling companion in a tour through France and Italy. They made the usual tour, and Gray wrote remarks on all he saw in Florence, Rome, Naples, &c. His observations on arts and antiquities, and his sketches of foreign manners, evince his admirable taste, learning, and discrimination. Since Milton, co such accomplished English traveller had visited those classic shores. In their journey through Dauphiné, Gray's attention was strongly arrested by the wild and picturesque site of the Grande Chartreuse, surrounded by its dense forest of beech and fir, its enormous precipices, cliffs, and cascades. He visited it a second time on his return, and in the album of the mountain convent he wrote his famous Alcaic Ode. At Reggio the travellers quarrelled and parted. Walpole took the whole blame on himself. He was fond of pleasure and amusements, "intoxicated by vanity, indulgence, and the insolence of his situation as a prime minister's son," his own confession, while Gray was studious, of a serious disposition, and independent spirit. The immediate cause of the rupture is said to have been Walpole's clandestinely opening, reading, and resealing a letter addressed to Gray, in which he expected to find a confirmation of his suspicions that Gray had been writing unfavourably of him to some friends in England. A partial reconciliation was effected about three years afterwards by the intervention of a lady, and Walpole redeemed his youthful error by a life-long sincere admiration and respect for his friend. From Reggio Gray proceeded to Venice, and thence travelled home wards, attended by a laquais de voyage. He arrived in England in September 1741, having been absent about two years and a half. His father died in November, and it was found that the poet's fortune would not enable him to prosecute the study of the law. He therefore retired to Cambridge, and fixed his residence at the university. There he continued for the remainder of his life, with the exception of about two years spent in London, when the treasures of the British Museum were thrown open. At Cambridge he had the range of noble libraries. His happiness consisted in study, and he perused with critical attention the Greek and Roman poets, philosophers, historians, and orators. Plato and the Anthologia he read and annotated with great care, as if for publication. He compiled tables of Greek chronology, added notes to Linnæus and other naturalists, wrote geographical disquisitions on Strabo, and, besides being familiar with French and Italian literature, was a zealous archaeological student, and profoundly versed in architecture, botany, painting, and music. In all departments of human learning, excepting mathematics, he was a master. But it follows that one so studious, so critical, and so fastidious could not be a voluminous writer. A few poems include all the original compositions of Gray—the quintessence, as it were, of thirty years of ceaseless study and contemplation, irradiated by bright and fitful gleams of inspiration. In 1742 Gray composed his Ode to Spring, his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, and his Ode to Adversity,—productions which most readers of poetry can repeat from memory. He commenced a didactic poem, On the Alliance of Education and Government, but wrote only about a hundred lines. Every reader must regret that this philosophical poem is but a fragment. It is in the style and measure of Dryden, of whom Gray was an ardent admirer and close student. His Elegy written in a Country Churchyard was completed and published in 1751. In the form of a sixpenny brochure it circulated rapidly, four editions being exhausted the first year, and within the same period it also appeared in three magazines—the Magazine of Magazines for February, the London Magazine for March, and the Grand Magazine of Magazines for April. This popularity surprised the poet. He said sarcastically that it was owing entirely to the subject, and that the public would have received it as well if it had been written in prose. The solemn and affecting nature of the poem, applicable to all ranks and classes, no doubt aided its sale; it required high poetic sensibility and a cultivated taste to appreciate the rapid transitions, the figurative language, and lyrical magnificence of the odes; but the elegy went home to all hearts; while its musical harmony, originality, and pathetic train of sentiment and feeling render it one of the most perfect of English poems. No vicissitudes of taste or fashion have affected its popularity. When the original manuscript of the poem was offered for sale in 1854, it brought the almost incredible sum of £131. The two great odes of Gray, the Progress of Poetry and The Bard, were published in 1757, and were but coldly received. His name, however, stood high, and, on the death of Cibber the same year, he was offered the laureateship, which he wisely declined. He was ambitious, however, of obtaining the more congenial and dignified appointment of professor of modern history in the university of Cambridge, which
