friendship was renewed later. Gray never married. In 1742 he returned
to Cambridge and lived there during the rest of his life, with the
exception of two years spent in London. After he became famous the
laureateship was offered to him, but his dislike of publicity caused
him to refuse it. In 1768 he was made Professor of Modern History and
Languages at Cambridge. All his life he was a student; indeed he was
the most learned of the English poets, except possibly Milton. In some
respects he was in advance of his age. He appreciated certain kinds of
poetry that no one else liked in his time, and he cared greatly for
wild nature. In these days, when almost every one loves rugged
mountains and remote regions by the sea, it is hard to realize that
there ever was a time when most persons preferred to look upon trim or
even stiff gardens or the cultivated grounds of a country seat; but
such was the case. Gray's admiration for wild nature comes out in his
prose, especially in his letters, and in his _Journal in the Lakes_
written in 1769; but later writers, Wordsworth above all, have
expressed the same feeling in delightful verse.

As a poet Gray stands for beauty of form rather than for depth of
thought or breadth of sympathy. He is first of all an artist, and his
poems are among the most perfect in the English language.



ELEGY

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

The curfew[1] tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,