He should perish, he swore, did his suit not succeed, "Then he altered his tone, and was heard to declare, If valor deserved the regard of the fair, That his courage was tried, though he scorned to disclose How many brave fellows he'd took by the nose. "For his politics, too, they were thoroughly known, A patriot he was to the very backbone; Wilkes he gratis had shaved for the good of the nation, And he held the Whig club in profound veneration. "For his tenets religious—he could well expound Emanuel Swedenborg's myst'ries profound, And new doctrines could broach with the best of 'em all, For a periwig-maker ne'er wanted a caul. "Indignant she answered: 'No chin-scraping sot "Holborn-bridge and Blackfriars my triumphs can tell, "Let dory, or turbot the sov'reign of fish, Cheek by jowl with red-herring be served in one dish; "But the barber persisted (ah, could I relate 'em!) "He protested, besides, if she'd grant his petition, "Her smiles, he asserted, would melt even rocks, Nay, the fire of her eyes would consume barbers' blocks; On insensible objects bestow animation, And give to old periwigs regeneration. "With fair speeches cajoled, as you'd tickle a trout, "The state of her heart, when the barber once guessed, "The flame to allay that their bosoms did so burn, "The nuptials to grace, came from every quarter, "From their voices united such melody flowed, As the Abbey ne'er witnessed, nor Tott'nham Court-road; "For his fee, when the parson this couple had joined, So the bridegroom dismantled his rev'rence's chin, And the bride entertained him with pilchards and gin." Thomson was a wonderfully good-natured man, and so patient that, even when his friends bribed his servants to annoy him, he was never known to lose his temper. He did not live long to enjoy his peaceful home, for, taking cold from a boat-ride after a long walk one August after noon, a fever ensued, which proved fatal. The year of his death was 1748. It was of him that Lord Lyttleton said, he left "No line which, dying, he could wish to blot." THOMAS GRAY, of all English poets perhaps the most finished artist, was born in that noisy part of London, Cornhill, on a December's day, in 1716. His father, like Milton's, was a scrivener, but, unlike that good man, failed to make his home happy-in fact, drove his wife away from it by his harshness and ill-temper. She was a noble, energetic woman, as are almost all the mothers of the good and great, and, when forced to separate from her husband, at once opened a millinery store, with her sister for a partner, supporting herself and her children. She had a large family, twelve in all, but all except Thomas died in infancy from suffocation, caused by a fullness of blood. He, too, was attacked in the same terrible way, and was only saved by his mother's courage and devotion, for she opened a vein in his neck with her own hand, thus bringing him back from the very grasp of death. "Her brother being a master at Eaton, the lad went there, and soon found among his school-fellows young Horace Walpole, with whom he soon struck up a close friendship. Many a time no doubt Walpole, Gray, and West, another chum of the scrivener's son, did their Latin verses together, and many a golden summer evening they passed merrily with bat and ball in the meadows of the smoothly-flowing Thames." In his nineteenth year Gray was admitted pensioner at Cambridge, maintained both at school and college by the industry of his mother. But he did not enjoy the three years he spent at Cambridge, and complained, in a seriocomic way, of the course of study there: Must Must I pore into metaphysics? Alas! I cannot see in the dark. Nature has not furnished me with the optics of a cat. I pore into mathematics? Alas! I cannot see in too much light. I am no eagle. It is very possible that two and two make four, but I would not give four farthings to demonstrate this ever so clearly, and if these be the profits of life, give me the amusements of it." He gave almost all his time to the languages, ancient and modern, writing a little poetry now and then. Walpole was with him also at college, and when Gray left, in 1739, his friend proposed that they should visit the Continent in company. They did travel together through |