Gray now plunged into the mare magnum of classical literature. With greater energy and exclusiveness than before, he read Thucydides, Theocritus, and Anacreon; he translated parts of Propertius, and he wrote a heroic epistle in Latin, after the manner of Ovid, and a Greek epigram. This last he communicated to West, who was now in Hertfordshire, waiting the approach of the Angel of Death. To the same dear friend he sent his "Ode to Spring," which he had written under his mother's roof at Stoke. He was too late. West was dead before it arrived. This amiable and gifted person, who was thought by many superior in natural genius to his friend, and whose name is for ever connected with that of Gray, expired on the 1st of June 1742, and now reposes in the chancel of Hatfield Church. We strongly suspect that it was he whom Gray had in his eye in the close of his "Elegy."
Autumn has often been thought propitious to genius, especially when its tender sun-light is still further sweetened and saddened by the joy of grief. In the autumn of this year, Gray, who was peculiarly susceptible to skiey influences, wrote some of his best poetry—his "Hymn to Adversity," his "Distant Prospect of Eton College," and commenced his "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard." A Sonnet in English, and the Apostrophe which opens the fourth book of his "De Principiis Cogitandi," bore testimony to his esteem for the character and his regret for the premature loss of Richard West.
To Cambridge Gray seems to have had little attachment; but partly from the smallness of his income, and partly from the access he had to its libraries, he was found there to the last, constantly complaining, and always continuing, like the statue of a murmurer. In the winter of 1742 he was admitted Bachelor of Civil Law; and in acknowledgment of the honour of the admission, began an "Address to Ignorance," which it is no great loss to his fame that he never finished. Hazlitt completed what appears to have been Gray's design in that admirable and searching paper of his, entitled, "The Ignorance of the Learned," in which he shows how ill mere learning supplies the want of common sense and practical knowledge, as well as of talent and genius.
In 1744, through the intervention of a lady, the difference between Walpole and Gray was so far made up, that they resumed their correspondence, although never their intimacy. About this time he got acquainted with Mason, then a scholar in St John's College, who became a minor Boswell to a minor Johnson; although he used liberties with Gray's correspondence and poetry, such as Boswell never durst have attempted with his idol. Mason had first introduced himself to Gray by showing him some MS. poetry. With the famous Dr Conyers Middleton, too, he became intimate, and lived to lament his death.
In 1747, Dodsley published for him his "Ode to Eton College," the first of Gray's productions which appeared in print. It excited no notice whatever. Walpole wished him to publish his poems in conjunction with the remains of West; but this he declined, on account of want of materials—perhaps also feeling the great superiority of his own poetry. At Walpole's request, however, he wrote an ode on the death of his favourite cat!
Greek became now his constant study. He read its more recondite authors, such as Pausanias, Athenaeus, Pindar, Lysias, and Æschylus, with great care, and commenced the preparation of a Table of Greek Chronology, on a very minute and elaborate scale.
In 1749 he lost his aunt, Mrs Antrobus, and her death, which he felt as a heavy affliction, led him to complete his "Elegy," which he sent to Walpole, who handed it about in MS., to the great delight of those who were privileged to peruse it. When published, it sold rapidly, and continues still the most popular of his poems.
In March 1753, his beloved and revered mother died, and he erected over her dust a monument, with an inscription testifying to the strength of his filial love and sorrow. In 1755 he finished his "Ode on the Progress of Poetry," and in the same year began his "Bard." All his poems, however short, were most laboriously composed, written and rewritten, subjected, in whole or in part, to the criticism of his friends, and, according to their verdict, either published, or left fragments, or consigned to the flames. About this time he begins, in his letters, to complain of depression of spirits, of severe attacks of the gout, of sleepless nights, feverish mornings, and heavy days. He was now, and during the rest of his life, to pay the penalty of a lettered indolence and studious sloth, of a neglected body and an over-cultivated mind. The accident, it is said, of seeing a blind Welsh harper performing on a harp, excited him to finish his "Bard," which in MS. appears to have divided the opinion of his friends, as it still does that of the critics.
In 1758 Gray left Peterhouse, owing to some real or imaginary offence, and removed to Pembroke Hall, where he was surrounded by his old and intimate friends. The next year he carried his two Odes to London, as carefully as if they had been two Epics. Walpole says that he "snatched them out of Dodsley's hands, and made them 'the first-fruits of his own press at Strawberry Hill,' where a thousand copies were printed. When published, they attracted much attention, but did not gain universal applause. Obscurity was the principal charge brought against them. Their friends, however, including Warburton, Hurd, Mason, and Garrick, were vehement in their admiration, and loud in their encomiums. In this year Colley Cibber, the laureate, died, and the office was offered to Gray, with the peculiar and highly honourable condition, that he was to hold it as a sinecure. The poet, however, refused, on the ground, as he tells Mason, that the office had 'hitherto humbled its possessor.'"
In 1758, he composed, for his amusement, a "Catalogue of the Antiquities, Houses, &c., in England and Wales," which was, after his death, printed and distributed by Mason among his friends.