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JNTKODUCTORY ESSAY. 29

to please himself; publicity is with him always quite
a secondary matter, and his choice of subjects is
absolutely his own; at the same time his own age
welcomes him, and would gladly have had more from
him; Gibbon, a representative name, regrets that the
Poem on the Alliance of Education and Government
is but a fragment; in his life time Gray had less than
the common share of adverse criticism, and his in-
complete designs were on themes which, whilst they
indicate his own taste and bias, were adapted to the
scope and comprehension of 'an age of prose and
reason.⁷ Yet in his case, we are told, the age is
responsible for his want of production. It is my
conviction, though I have not space to develop it at
large, that 'born in the same year as Burns', Gray, if
he had lived at Cambridge (the Cambridge which we
know from Gunning's Reminiscences) would have
written even less great poetry, but perhaps more
satirical verses and more prose; what is certain is
that his real impediments to production were first
feeble health, next his boundless and discursive
curiosity, and next the extensive scale on which, like
a man who has abundant knowledge, and seems to
have abundant time before him, he formed his plans,
ever delaying, until the consciousness that the day is
far spent, makes him sad and silent about them. To
these causes must be added his remoteness (by the
deliberate choice of one to whom books and comfort



	JNTKODUCTORY ESSAY. 29 to please himself; publicity is with him always quite a secondary matter, and his choice of subjects is absolutely his own; at the same time his own age welcomes him, and would gladly have had more from him; Gibbon, a representative name, regrets that the Poem on the Alliance of Education and Government is but a fragment; in his life time Gray had less than the common share of adverse criticism, and his in- complete designs were on themes which, whilst they indicate his own taste and bias, were adapted to the scope and comprehension of 'an age of prose and reason.⁷ Yet in his case, we are told, the age is responsible for his want of production. It is my conviction, though I have not space to develop it at large, that 'born in the same year as Burns', Gray, if he had lived at Cambridge (the Cambridge which we know from Gunning's Reminiscences) would have written even less great poetry, but perhaps more satirical verses and more prose; what is certain is that his real impediments to production were first feeble health, next his boundless and discursive curiosity, and next the extensive scale on which, like a man who has abundant knowledge, and seems to have abundant time before him, he formed his plans, ever delaying, until the consciousness that the day is far spent, makes him sad and silent about them. To these causes must be added his remoteness (by the deliberate choice of one to whom books and comfort