we must obtain the
ability of travelling with intelligence and improvement.

His travels and his studies were now near their end. The gout, of which
he had sustained many weak attacks, fell upon his stomach, and, yielding
to no medicines, produced strong convulsions, which, July 30, 1771,
terminated in death.

His character I am willing to adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from a
letter written to my friend Mr. Boswell, by the reverend Mr. Temple,
rector of St. Gluvias, in Cornwall; and am as willing as his warmest
well-wisher to believe it true.

"Perhaps he was the most learned man in Europe. He was equally
acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, and that not
superficially, but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both
natural and civil; had read all the original historians of England,
France, and Italy; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysicks,
morals, politicks, made a principal part of his study; voyages and
travels of all sorts were his favourite amusements; and he had a fine
taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening. With such a fund
of knowledge, his conversation must have been equally instructing and
entertaining; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and humanity.
There is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think
the greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather
effeminacy, and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his
inferiours in science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which
disgusted Voltaire so much in Mr. Congreve: though he seemed to value
others chiefly according to the progress that they had made in
knowledge, yet he could not bear to be considered himself merely as a
man of letters; and, though without birth, or fortune, or station, his
desire was to be looked upon as a private independent gentleman, who
read for his amusement. Perhaps it may be said, what signifies so much
knowledge, when it produced so little? Is it worth taking so much pains
to leave no memorial but a few poems? But let it be considered, that Mr.
Gray was, to others at least, innocently employed, to himself certainly
beneficially. His time passed agreeably; he was every day making some
new acquisition in science; his mind was enlarged, his heart softened,
his virtue strengthened; the world and mankind were shown to him without
a mask; and he was taught to consider every thing as trifling, and
unworthy of th