Introduction

I. The Life of Gray

Thomas Gray, one of the most eminent men of letters of his time, was born in Cornhill, London, on December 26, 1716, the son of Philip and Dorothy Antrobus Gray. He was the fifth of twelve children; all the others died in infancy. His father, a well-to-do merchant, was extremely eccentric, not to say brutal, and was probably insane. He refused to educate the lad, and the expense of his education was borne by his mother, who with her sister Mary "kept a kind of India warehouse." About 1727 Thomas Gray was sent to Eton College, where his uncle Robert Antrobus was assistant to Dr. George, the principal. At Eton Gray formed lasting friendships with Horace Walpole, son of the Prime Minister; Richard West, son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and Thomas Ashton, nicknamed "Plato." The four formed what they called "the Quadruple Alliance,"¹ which produced at least the interesting letters collected by Mr. Tovey in Gray and His Friends.

After seven years of Eton, Gray was ready for the university. Robert Antrobus was a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and his younger brother Thomas was a fellow of King's College. It was natural, therefore, that their nephew should proceed to Cambridge; thither

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