n Row--a
pleasant locality then, opening to the fields--in order to be near the
British Museum, at that time just opened to the public. Here his intense
studies were, it may be presumed, relieved by the lighter task of
perusing the Harleian Manuscripts; and here he formed the acquaintance
of Mason, a dull, affected poet, whose celebrity is greater as the
friend and biographer of Gray, than even as the author of those verses
on the death of Lady Coventry, in which there are, nevertheless, some
beautiful lines. Gray died in college--a doom that, next to ending one's
days in a jail or a convent, seems the dreariest. He died of the gout: a
suitable, and, in that region and in those three-bottle days, almost an
inevitable disease; but there is no record of his having been
intemperate.

[3: Gray migrated to Pembroke in 1756.]

Whilst Gray was poring over dusty manuscripts, Horace was beginning that
career of prosperity which was commenced by the keenest enjoyment of
existence. He has left us, in his Letters, some brilliant passages,
indicative of the delights of his boyhood and youth. Like him, we linger
over a period still fresh, still hopeful, still generous in impulse--
still strong in faith in the world's worth--before we hasten on to
portray the man of the world, heartless, not wholly, perhaps, but wont
to check all feeling till it was well-nigh quenched; little minded;
bitter, if not spiteful; with many acquaintances and scarce one
friend--the Horace Walpole of Berkeley Square and Strawberry Hill.

'Youthful passages of life are,' he says, 'the chippings of Pitt's
diamond, set into little heart-rings with mottoes; the stone itself more
worth, the filings more gentle and agreeable. Alexander, at the head of
the world, never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his age have
enjoyed at the head of a school. Little intrigues, little schemes and
policies engage their thoughts; and at the same time that they are
laying the foundation for their middle age of life, the mimic republic
they live in, furnishes materials of conversation for their latter age;
and old men cannot be said to be children a second time with greater
truth from any one cause, than their living over again their childhood
in imagination.'

Again: 'Dear George, were not the playing-fields at Eton food for all
manner of flights? No old maid's gown, though it had been tormented into
all the fashions from King James to King George, ever underwent so many
t