verything except love
(one wonders whether there were any unpublished, and feels pretty sure
that there must have been some unwritten, letters to Miss Speed which
would have filled the gap) and with a result of artistic success even
more decided than that assigned to Goldsmith's versatility by Gray's
enemy or at least "incompatible" Johnson.[20] His letters of travel are
admirable: his accounts of public affairs, though sometimes extremely
prejudiced, very clever; those of University society and squabbles among
the very best that we have in English; those touching "the picturesque"
extremely early and remarkably clear-sighted; those touching literature
among the least one-sided of their time. If there are, as observed or
hinted above, some unamiable touches, his persistent protection of the
poor creature Mason; his general attitude to his friends the Whartons;
and his communications with younger men like Norton Nicholls and
Bonstetten, go far to remove, or, at least, to counterbalance, the
impression.

This last division indeed, and the letters to Mason, emphasize what is
evident enough in almost all, a freedom on his part (which from some
things in his character and history we might not altogether have
expected) from a fault than which hardly any is more disagreeable in
letters. This is the manifestation of what is called, in various more or
less familiar terms, "giving oneself airs," "side," "patronising," etc.
He may sometimes come near this pitfall of "intellectuals," but he never
quite slips into it, being probably preserved by that sense of humour
which he certainly possessed, though he seldom gave vent to it in verse
and not very often in prose. Taking them altogether, Gray's letters may
be said to have few superiors in the combination of intellectual weight
and force with "pastime" interest. To some of course they may be chiefly
or additionally interesting because of such light as they throw or
withhold on a rather problematic character, but this, like the allegory
in Spenser according to Hazlitt, "won't bite" anyone who lets it alone.
They are extremely good letters to read: and the more points of interest
they provide for any reader the better for that reader himself. Once
more too, they illustrate the principle laid down at the beginning of
this paper. They are good letters because they are, with the usual
subtle difference necessary, like very good talk, recorded.[21]

[Sidenote: COWPER]

Nor is there any