d them, though Warburton said that they were understood as
well as the works of Milton and Shakespeare, which it is the fashion to
admire. Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Some hardy champions
undertook to rescue them from neglect; and, in a short time, many were
content to be shown beauties which they could not see.

Gray's reputation was now so high, that, after the death of Cibber, he
had the honour of refusing the laurel, which was then bestowed on Mr.
Whitehead.

His curiosity, not long after, drew him away from Cambridge to a lodging
near the Museum, where he resided near three years, reading and
transcribing; and, so far as can be discovered, very little affected by
two odes on Oblivion and Obscurity, in which his lyrick performances
were ridiculed with much contempt and much ingenuity.

When the professor of modern history at Cambridge died, he was, as he
says, "cockered and spirited up," till he asked it of lord Bute, who
sent him a civil refusal; and the place was given to Mr. Brocket, the
tutor of sir James Lowther.

His constitution was weak, and believing that his health was promoted by
exercise and change of place, he undertook, 1765, a journey into
Scotland, of which his account, so far as it extends, is very curious
and eleg'ant; for, as his comprehension was ample, his curiosity
extended to all the works of art, all the appearances of nature, and all
the monuments of past events. He naturally contracted a friendship with
Dr. Beattie, whom he found a poet, a philosopher, and a good man. The
Mareschal college at Aberdeen offered him the degree of doctor of laws,
which, having omitted to take it at Cambridge, he thought it decent to
refuse.

What he had formerly solicited in vain was at last given him without
solicitation. The professorship of history became again vacant, and he
received, 1768, an offer of it from the duke of Grafton. He accepted,
and retained it to his death; always designing lectures, but never
reading them; uneasy at his neglect of fluty, and appeasing his
uneasiness with designs of reformation, and with a resolution which he
believed himself to have made of resigning the office, if he found
himself unable to discharge it.

Ill health made another journey necessary, and he visited, 1769,
Westmorland and Cumberland. He that reads his epistolary narration,
wishes, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his
employment; but it is by studying at home that