y in his plan. "His
picture of man is grand and beautiful, but unfinished. The immortality
of the soul, which is the natural consequence of the appetites and
powers she is invested with, is scarcely once hinted throughout the
poem. This deficiency is amply supplied by the masterly pencil of
Dr. Young, who, like a good philosopher, has invincibly proved the
immortality of man from the grandeur of his conceptions and the meanness
and misery of his state; for this reason a few passages are selected
from the 'Night Thoughts,' which, with those from Akenside, seem to form
a complete view of the powers, situation, and end of man."--"Exercises
for Improvement in Elocution," p. 66.

His other poems are now to be considered; but a short consideration
will despatch them. It is not easy to guess why he addicted himself so
diligently to lyric poetry, having neither the ease and airiness of the
lighter, nor the vehemence and elevation of the grander ode. When he
lays his ill-fated hand upon his harp his former powers seem to desert
him; he has no longer his luxuriance of expression or variety of images.
His thoughts are cold, and his words inelegant. Yet such was his love of
lyrics that, having written with great vigour and poignancy his "Epistle
to Curio," he transformed it afterwards into an ode disgraceful only to
its author.

Of his odes nothing favourable can be said; the sentiments commonly want
force, nature, or novelty; the diction is sometimes harsh and uncouth,
the stanzas ill-constructed and unpleasant, and the rhymes dissonant or
unskilfully disposed, too distant from each other, or arranged with too
little regard to established use, and therefore perplexing to the ear,
which in a short composition has not time to grow familiar with an
innovation. To examine such compositions singly cannot be required; they
have doubtless brighter and darker parts; but, when they are once found
to be generally dull, all further labour may be spared, for to what use
can the work be criticised that will not be read?

GRAY.

Thomas Gray, the son of Mr. Philip Gray, a scrivener of London, was born
in Cornhill, November 26, 1716. His grammatical education he received
at Eton, under the care of Mr. Antrobus, his mother's brother, then
assistant to Dr. George, and when he left school, in 1734, entered a
pensioner at Peterhouse, in Cambridge. The transition from the school
to the college is, to most young scholars, the time from whic