" Of the laurel,
he probably was not more ambitious than of the mitre; though he was
still so obstinate as to believe that he might unite the characters of a
clerk and a poet, to which he would fain have superadded that of a
statist also. Caractacus, another tragedy on the ancient plan, but which
made a better figure on the stage, appeared in 1759; and in 1762, three
elegies. In 1769, Harris heard him preach at St. James's early prayers,
and give a fling at the French for the invasion of Corsica. Thus
politics, added his hearer, have entered the sanctuary. The sermon is
the sixth in his printed collection. A fling at the French was at all
times a favourite topic with him. In the discourse delivered before
George III on the Sunday preceding his Coronation, he has stretched the
text a little that he may take occasion to descant on the blessings of
civil liberty, and has quoted Montesquieu's opinion of the British
Government. In praising our religious toleration, he is careful to
justify our exception of the church of Rome from the general indulgence.
Nor was it in the pulpit only that he acted the politician. He was one
of those, as we are told in the Biographical Dictionary, who thought the
decision of Parliament on the Middlesex election a violation of the
rights of the people; and when the counties began, in 1779, to associate
for parliamentary reform, he took an active part in assisting their
deliberations, and wrote several patriotic manifestos. In the same year
appeared his Ode to the Naval Officers of Great Britain, on the trial of
Admiral Keppel, in which the poetry is strangled by the politics. His
harp was in better tune, when, in 1782, an Ode to Mr. Pitt declared the
hopes he had conceived of the son of Chatham; for, like many others, who
espoused the cause of freedom, he had ranged himself among the partisans
of the youthful statesman, who was then doing all he could to persuade
others, as he had no doubt persuaded himself, that he was one of the
number.

In the mean time Gray, who, if he had lived longer, might, perhaps, have
restrained him from mixing in this turmoil, was no more. The office
which he performed of biographer, or rather of editor, for his deceased
friend, has given us one of the most delightful books in its kind that
our language can boast. It is just that this acknowledgment should be
made to Mason, although Mr. Mathias has recently added many others of
Gray's most valuable papers, which his