It is curious to observe a man draw his own picture, without intending it. Pomposo, when censuring some of Gray's odes, observes, That 'Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded. The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. _Double, double, toil and trouble._' He (the author of an Elegy in a country church-yard) 'has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease, or nature. In all Gray's odes, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away[52].' We may say like Nathan, _Thou art the man_. Mr. Gray, and Mr. Horace Walpole, are said to have _wandered_ through France and Italy[53]. And as a contrast to this polite expression, I shall add some remarks which have occurred on the Doctor's own mode of wandering. 'It must afford peculiar entertainment to see a person of his character, who has scarcely ever been without the precincts of this metropolis (London), and _who has been long accustomed to the adulation of a little knot of companions of his own trade_, sallying forth in quest of discoveries--Neither the people nor the country that he has visited will perhaps be considered as the most extraordinary part of the phaenomena he has described.--The Doctor has endeavoured to give an account of his travels; but he has furnished his readers with a picture of himself. He has seen very little, and observed still less. His narration is neither supported by vivacity, to make it entertaining, nor accompanied with information, to render it instructive. It exhibits the pompous artificial diction of the Rambler with the same _vacuity of thought_.--The reader is led from one Highland family to another merely to be informed of the number of their children, the barrenness of their country, and of the kindness with which the Doctor was treated. In the Highlands he is like a foolish peasant brought for the first time into a great city, staring at every sign-post, and gaping with equal wonder and astonishment at every object he meets[54].' 'At Florence they (Gray and Walpole) quarelled and parted; and Mr. Walpole is _now_ content to have it told that it was by his fault[55].' This is a dirty insinuation; and the rant which follows in the next period is of equal value. He observes, That '_A long story_ perhaps adds little to Gray's reputation[56].' _Perhaps_ was useless here, and indeed the Doctor has introduced it in a thousand places, where it was useless, and left it out in as many where it was necessary. In justice to Gray, he ought to have added, that their Author rejected, from a correct edition of his works, this insipid series of verses.