Thomas Gray

Born on December 26, 1716, in Cornhill, London, Thomas Gray was the fifth of twelve children and the only one to survive infancy. His father, a scrivener given to violent rages, made home life miserable; his mother and her sister ran a millinery shop to pay for his education. He was sent to Eton College, where he formed a close circle of friends including Horace Walpole, Richard West, and Thomas Ashton , a quartet they styled the “Quadruple Alliance.” He proceeded to Peterhouse, Cambridge, and in 1739 embarked on a Grand Tour of France and Italy with Walpole, though they quarreled and parted ways in Reggio Emilia. Gray returned to Cambridge, where he would remain , shy, learned, and largely reclusive , for the rest of his life. He was among the most erudite men of his age, deeply read in classical and modern languages, botany, music, and architecture, yet he published almost nothing. His entire poetic output amounts to barely a thousand lines. The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751), composed over several years and set in the churchyard at Stoke Poges, became one of the most quoted poems in the English language, its meditation on mortality and obscurity striking a note that resonated across every level of society. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1747) and The Bard (1757) confirmed his reputation. In 1757 he was offered the Poet Laureateship following the death of Colley Cibber, but declined the honor. In 1768 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, a post he held without delivering a single lecture. He died on July 30, 1771, at Pembroke College and was buried beside his mother at Stoke Poges.