Born in London, Thomas Gray made friendships at Eton (1727-34) with Horace Walpole and Richard West; he studied at Cambridge (1734-38, LL.B. 1743) before traveling on the Continent with Walpole; after their quarrel Gray returned to Cambridge where he met his future biographer, William Mason. The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard appeared in 1751; in 1757 Gray rejected an offer of the laureateship and continued to live in academic retirement. In 1768 he was made Cambridge professor of modern history.
TEXT RECORDS:
1742An Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
1742Hymn to Adversity.
1742Ode on the Spring.
1742 ca.[Hymn to Ignorance. A Fragment.]
1750A Long Story.
1751An Elegy wrote in a Country Churchyard.
1757The Bard. A Pindaric Ode.
1757The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode.
1769Ode Performed in the Senate-House at Cambridge. [Installation Ode.]
1770Copy of an original Letter from Mr. Gray to Mr. T. Warton, on the History of English Poetry.
1770[Letter to James Beattie; on The Minstrel.]
1771[To James Beattie; on The Minstrel.]
PUBLICATIONS:
Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College. 1747.
An elegy wrote in a country church yard. 1751.
Designs by Mr. R. Bentley for six poems by Mr. T. Gray. 1753.
Odes, by Mr. Gray. 1757.
Poems by Mr. Gray. 1768.
Ode performed ... at the installation. 1769.
Poems of Mr. Gray, ed. William Mason. 1775.
Works, ed. Thomas James Mathias. 2 vols, 1814.
Works, ed. John Mitford. 2 vols, 1816.
Works, ed. John Mitford. 4 vols, 1835-37.
Poetical works, ed. John Moultrie. 1845.
Poetical works, ed. Robert Aris Wilmott. 1854.
Works in prose and verse, ed. Edmund Gosse. 4 vols, 1884.
Essays and criticisms, ed. C. S. Northrup. 1911.
Poetical works of Gray and Collins, ed. A. L. Poole, 1917.
Correspondence of Richard Hurd and William Mason and letters of Richard Hurd to Thomas Gray, ed. E. H. Pearce and L. Whibley. 1932.
Letters, ed. P. Toynbee and L. Whibley. 3 vols, 1935.
Poems, ed. H. W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. 1966.
Poetical works [with Collins and Goldsmith], ed. Roger Lonsdale. 1969.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Eton College
Peterhouse College Cambridge
Bachelor of Laws
lawyer
historian
professor
antiquary
poet
translator
Christopher Anstey
James Beattie
Rev. John Brown
Richard Owen Cambridge
John Chute
William Cole
Robert Dodsley
Rev. Richard Farmer
Bp. Richard Hurd
Sir James Marriott
Rev. William Mason
Rev. Thomas Pentycross
Rev. Joseph Spence
Rev. Michael Tyson
Horace Walpole
Richard West
William Whitehead
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
Robert Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1748-58); "Odes by Mr. Gray" Literary Magazine or Universal Review 2 (October-November 1756) 422-26, 466-68; William Rider, Living Authors of Great Britain (1762); Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 41 (August 1771) 375; Annual Register (1772) 179; "Sketch of the Character of the celebrated Mr. Gray" London Magazine 41 (March 1772) 140; "Remarks on the Life and Writings of Gray" London Magazine 44 (May 1775) 215-19 [portrait]; life by William Mason in Poems (1775); "Memoirs of Mr. Gray" Edinburgh Magazine and Review 3 (July 1775) 337-44; "Account of the Life and Writings of Gray" Oxford Magazine 12 (August 1775) 239-42; "Memoirs of the celebrated Mr. Gray" Annual Register for 1775 (1775) 36-45; Bell's Poets of Great Britain (1776-82); Samuel Johnson, Life in Works of the English Poets (1779-81); "Memoirs of Gray" Universal Magazine 69 (September-November 1781) 137-40, 200-01; "Verbal Criticisms on Mr. Gray's Poems" Gentleman's Magazine 51 (December 1781) 568-70; Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); A Criticism on the Elegy written in a Country Church-Yard [parody of Johnson's Life of Gray] (1783); John Scott of Amwell, Critical Essays (1785); "Observations on Two of Gray's Odes" European Magazine 12 (October 1787) 264-65; "Character of Gray" New London Magazine 7 (September 1791) 420-21 [portrait]; "Remarks on Gray's Poetry" Gentleman's Magazine 61 (November, December 1791) 981-82, 1094-95, 62 (1792) i 99, 320-21, 604-05, 604-05, 971-72; Lounger's Common-Place Book (1792; 1796) 1:215-16; "Gray the Poet; a Dialogue" The Bee 17 (October 1793) 178-81, 219-23, 251-57; Roach's Beauties of the Poets (1794); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); Edward Gardner, "The Poetry of Gray" Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1798); "Critical Observations on Gray's Poetry" Universal Magazine (August, September 1800) 123-25, 198-201; "Observations on Gray's two Pindaric Odes" European Magazine 37-38 (May, November 1800) 345-48, 329-32; "Critical Remarks on an Ode of Gray" European Magazine 42 (July 1802) 16-18; Alexander Thomson, "Poetical Character of Gray" Scots Magazine 64 (June 1802) 484-86; "Dr. Randall's Music for Gray's Installation Ode" Monthly Magazine 15 (April 1803) 236; "Life of Thomas Gray" Port Folio [Philadelphia] 3 (13-27 August 1803), 260-61, 268-69, 276-78; "Defence of Gray, the Poet" Universal Magazine NS 2 (October, November 1804) 302-06, 505-07; "Gray's Odes" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 1 (8 March-21 June 1806); "Defence of Gray" European Magazine 51 (January, February 1807) 32-43, 106-08; "Criticism: Gray's On the Prospect of Eton College" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 3 (13 June 1807) 376-70; "Criticism: Gray's Elegy" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 4 (24 October 1807) 260-62; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); "Criticism: Gray's Elegy" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 5 (30 January, 20 February 1808) 70-73, 117-20; "Criticism: Gray's Ode to Spring" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 6 (23 September 1808) 203-06; Samuel Egerton Brydges, "Traits in the Character of Gray the Poet" Censura Literaria 7 (1808) 395-99, Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); "Coincidences between Akenside and Gray" Universal Magazine NS 11 (January 1809) 9-10; Capel Lofft, "On Gray" Monthly Mirror NS 5 (February 1809) 77-79; "Latin Translations of Gray's Elegy" 10 (1809) 319-24; "Defence of Gray" Monthly Anthology [Boston] 6 (February 1809) 95-98; "Critique of Gray's Elegy" Universal Magazine NS 14 (September 1810) 209-10; Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); Robert Southey, "Thomas Gray" Quarterly Review 11 (1814); Thomas James Mathias, Observations on the Writings and Character of Mr. Gray (1815); William Hazlitt, Lectures (1818); "Gray's Elegy" Monthly Magazine 48 (December 1819) 404-05; Thomas Campbell, Speciments (1819); Henry Francis Cary, "On Gray's Opinion of Collins" London Magazine 4 (July 1821) 13-16; "Eminent Authors: Gray" Literary Speculum 1 (March 1822) 307-08; "Collins and Gray" Edinburgh Magazine NS 15 (September 1824) 345-46; "Eminent Authors: Gray" The Minerva [New York] NS 1 (6 November 1824) 76; "On Gray's Elegy" Literary Magnet 1 (1824) 99-101; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Biographical Magazine 1 (1829) [portrait]; George B. Cheever, Studies in Poetry ... Elegant Extracts (1830); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Robert Aris Willmott, "Gray and Mason. A Summer Day with the Muses" in Conversations at Cambridge (1836) 160-218; Robert Aris Willmott, Sacred Poets, Second Series (1838); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); John Mitford, "Gray's Poetical Works" Gentleman's Magazine NS 24 (1845) 219-35; "Sale of the Library of Gray the Poet" Gentleman's Magazine NS 25 (January 1846) 29-33; William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); Edward S. Creasy, Memoirs of Eminent Etonians (1850); "Gray's Progress of Poesy" Gentleman's Magazine NS 45 (April 1856) 384-85; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Thomas S. Perry, "Gray, Collins and Beattie" Atlantic Monthly 46 (1880); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Edward Dowden, "Gosse's Gray" The Academy (1882); James Russell Lowell, "Gray" New Princeton Review 1 (1886); Arthur Christopher Benson, "Gray" Macmillan's Magazine 59 (1888); Duncan C. Tovey, Gray and his Friends (1890); Austin Dobson, "Gray's Library" in Eighteenth-Century Vignettes (1892-96); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); A. S. Cook, A Concordance to the English Poems of Thomas Gray (1908); Clark Sutherland Northrup, A Bibliography of Thomas Gray (1917); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); R. S. Crane, "Gray's Elegy and Lycidas" Modern Language Notes 38 (1923) 183-84; Amy L. Reed, The Background of Gray's Elegy (1924); Eton College Register, 1698-1752 (1927); Leonard Whibley, "Thomas Gray at Eton" Blackwood's Magazine 225 (1929) 611-23; Leonard Whibley, "Thomas Gray, Undergraduate" Blackwood's Magazine 227 (1930) 273-86; William P. Jones, "The Contemporary Reception of Gray's Odes" Modern Philology 28 (1930) 61-82; J. Fisher, "Shenstone, Gray, and the Moral Elegy" Modern Philology 34 (1937) 273-94; William P. Jones, "Thomas Gray's Library" Modern Philology 35 (1938) 257-78; William P. Jones, Thomas Gray, Scholar (1937); H. W. Starr, Gray as a Literary Critic (1941); Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1942); Robert W. Ketton-Cremer, Thomas Gray: a Biography (1955); William P. Jones, "Imitations of Gray's Elegy, 1751-1800" Bulletin of Bibliography 23 (1963) 230-32; F. I. McCarthy, "The Bard of Thomas Gray: its Composition and its Use by Painters" National Library of Wales Journal 14 (1965) 105-113; Arthur Johnston, Thomas Gray and The Bard (1966); A. N. L. Munby, Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons (1971-75); Charles H. Hinnant, "Changing Perspectives on the Past: The Reception of Thomas Gray's The Bard" Clio 3 (1974) 315-29; Howard Weinbrot, "Gray's Progress of Poetry and The Bard: an Essay in Literary Transmission" Johnson and His Age, ed. James Engell (1984) 311-32; Valentine, British Establishment (1970); Butt, OHEL (1979); Spenser Encyclopedia, "Gray" (1990) 339-40; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Thomas Gray:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Thomas Gray:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)