16. Thomson’s place as a poet is high in the second rank. His +Seasons+ have always been popular; and, when Coleridge found a well-thumbed and thickly dog’s-eared copy lying on the window-sill of a country inn, he exclaimed “This is true fame!” His +Castle of Indolence+ is, however, a finer piece of poetical work than any of his other writings. The first canto is the best. But the +Seasons+ have been much more widely read; and a modern critic says: “No poet has given the special pleasure which poetry is capable of giving to so large a number of persons in so large a measure as Thomson.” Thomson is very unequal in his style. Sometimes he rises to a great height of inspired expression; at other times he sinks to a dull dead level of pedestrian prose. His power of describing scenery is often very remarkable. Professor Craik says: “There is no other poet who surrounds us with so much of the truth of nature;” and he calls the +Castle of Indolence+ “one of the gems of the language.” 17. THOMAS GRAY (+1716-1771+), the greatest elegiac poet of the century, was born in London in 1716. His father was a “money-scrivener,” as it was called; in other words, he was a stock-broker. His mother’s brother was an assistant-master at Eton; and at Eton, under the care of this uncle, Gray was brought up. One of his schoolfellows was the famous Horace Walpole. After leaving school, Gray proceeded to Cambridge; but, instead of reading mathematics, he studied classical literature, history, and modern languages, and never took his degree. After some years spent at Cambridge, he entered himself of the Inner Temple; but he never gave much time to the study of law. His father died in 1741; and Gray, soon after, gave up the law and went to live entirely at Cambridge. The first published of his poems was the +Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College+. The +Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard+ was handed about in manuscript before its publication in 1750; and it made his reputation at once. In 1755 the +Progress of Poesy+ was published; and the ode entitled +The Bard+ was begun. In 1768 he was appointed Professor of Modern History at Cambridge; but, though he studied hard, he never lectured. He died at Cambridge, at the age of fifty-four, in the year 1771. Gray was never married. He was said by those who knew him to be the most learned man of his time in Europe. Literature, history, and several sciences-- all were thoroughly known to him. He had read everything in the world that was best worth reading; while his knowledge of botany, zoology, and entomology was both wide and exact.