he Progress of Poetry" and "The Bard," two
compositions at which the readers of poetry were at first content to
gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried them confessed their inability
to understand 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 lyric
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 elegant; 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 a 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 duty,
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) Westmo