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LIFE OF GRAY.

as speedily and directly as he could, yet he once diverged from his way, between Turin and Lyons, again to contemplate the wild and magnificent scenery that surrounded the Grande Chartreuse; and in the Album of the Fathers he wrote his beautiful 'Alcaic Ode,' which bears strong marks of proceeding from a mind deeply impressed with the solemnity of the situation; where "every precipice and cliff was pregnant with religion and poetry."[1]

In two months after the return of Gray in 1741, his father died,[2] his constitution being worn out by repeated attacks of the gout; and Gray's filial duty was now solely directed to his mother. To the friend who condoled with Pope on his father's death, he answered in the pious language of Euryalus,—"Genitrix est mihi,"—and Gray, in the like circumstances, assuredly felt no less the pleasure that arose from contributing to preserve the life and happiness of a parent. With a small fortune, which her husband's imprudence had materially impaired,[3] Mrs. Gray and a maiden sister retired to the house

  1. ↑ See Letter XI, dated Turin, November 16, 1739.
  2. ↑ Gray came to town about the 1st of September, 1741. His father died on the 6th of November following, at the age of 65. Mason
  3. ↑ Mr. Philip Gray built a country house at Wanstead, at a very considerable expense, which was sold after his death at £2000 less than its original cost. It was purchased by Alderman Ball, who was still resident in it in 1776.

    Isaac Reed

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