a town of Kent in England, situated on the banks of the Thames. It is 25 miles from London; and has a blockhouse well mounted with cannon, to command the ships and river, directly opposite to Tilbury fort in Essex. The town was plundered and burnt by the French and Spaniards in the reign of Richard II. to compensate which, the king, at the request of the abbot of St Mary-le-Grace of Tower-hill, to whom he had granted a manor there called Parrockes, vested it and Milton with the sole privilege of carrying passengers by water from hence to London at 4s. the whole fare, or 2d. a-head; which was confirmed by Henry VIII.; but now the fare is 9d. a-head in the tilt-boat, and 1s. in the wherry. The former must not take in above forty passengers, the latter no more than eight. Coaches ply here at the landing of people from London, &c. to carry them to Rochester. This town and Milton were incorporated by Queen Elizabeth by the name of the portreeve, (now the mayor), jurats, and inhabitants of Gravesend and Milton: And as Gravesend is the place where most passengers through Kent from foreign parts take boat for London, that queen, in order to show the grandeur of the metropolis of her kingdom, ordered the lord mayor, aldermen, and city companies, to receive all ambassadors and eminent strangers here in their formalities, and to attend them to London in barges if by water; or if they chose to come by land, they were to meet them on horseback on Blackheath in their livery gowns. The towns for several miles round are supplied from hence with garden stuffs; of which great quantities are also sent to London, where the asparagus of Gravesend is preferred to that of Battersea. All outward-bound ships are obliged to anchor in this road till they have been visited by the customhouse officers; and for this purpose a sentinel at the blockhouse fires a musket: but the homeward-bound all pass by without notice, unless it be to put waiters on board, if they are not supplied before. As the outward-bound generally take in provisions here, the place is full of seamen, who are all in a hurry. The whole town being burn down in 1727, 5000... Gray, Thomas, an admired English poet, was the youngest and only surviving son of a reputable citizen of London, and was born in Cornhill in 1716. He was educated at Eton, where he contracted a friendship with Mr Horace Walpole, and with Mr Richard West son of the lord chancellor of Ireland. Mr West and Mr Gray were both intended for the bar; but the former died early in life, and the latter was diverted from that pursuit by an invitation to accompany Mr Walpole in his travels; which he accepted without any determined plan for his future life. During Mr Gray's travels, he wrote a variety of letters to Mr West and to his parents, which are printed with his poems; and when he returned, finding himself in narrow circumstances, yet with a mind indisposed for active employment, he retired to Cambridge, and devoted himself to study. Soon after his return, his friend West died; and the melancholy impressed on him by this event may be traced in his admired "Elegy written in a country churchyard;" which is thought to have been begun, if not finished, at this time; though the conclusion, as it stands at present, is certainly different from what it was in the first manuscript copy. The first impulse of his sorrow for the death of his friend gave birth to a very tender sonnet in English, on the Petrarchian model; and also to a sublime apostrophe in hexameters, written in the genuine strain of classical majesty, with which he intended to begin one of his books De Principiis Cogitandi.

From the winter of the year 1742, to the day of his death, his principal residence was at Cambridge; from which he was seldom absent any considerable time, except between the years 1759 and 1762; when on the opening of the British Museum, he took lodgings in Southampton-row, in order to have recourse to the Harleian and other manuscripts there deposited, from which he made several curious extracts, amounting in all to a tolerable sized folio, at present in the hands of Mr Walpole.

About the year 1747, Mr Mason, the editor of Mr Gray's poems, was introduced to him. The former had written, a year or two before, some imitations of Milton's juvenile poems, viz. A Monody on the Death of Mr Pope, and two pieces entitled Il Bellicoso and Il Pacifico on the peace of Aix la-Chapelle; and the latter revised them at the request of a friend. This laid the foundation of an intimacy which continued without interruption to the death of Mr Gray.

About the year 1750, Mr Gray had put his last hand to his celebrated Elegy written in a country churchyard, and had communicated it to his friend Mr Walpole, whose good taste was too much charmed with it to suffer him to withhold the sight of it from his acquaintance. Accordingly it was shown about for some time in manuscript, and received with all the applause it so justly merited. At last the publisher of one of the magazines having obtained a surreptitious copy of it, Mr Gray wrote to Mr Walpole, desiring that he would put his own manuscript into the hands of Mr Doddley, and order him to print it immediately. This was the most popular of all our author's publications. It ran through 11 editions in a very short space of time; was finely translated into Latin by Messrs Ansty and Roberts; and in the same year by Mr Lloyd.

From July 1759 to the year 1762, he generally re- sided in London, with a view, as we have already observed, of having recourse to the British Museum. In July 1786, his grace the duke of Grafton wrote him a polite letter, informing him, that his majesty had been pleased to offer to him the professorship of Modern History in the university of Cambridge, then vacant by the death of Mr Laurence Brocket. This place was valuable in itself, the salary being £400 a year; but what rendered it particularly acceptable to Mr Gray was its being given him without any solicitation. He was indeed remarkably disinterested in all his pursuits. Though his income, before this addition, was very small, he never read or wrote with a view of making his labours useful to himself. He may be said to have been of those few personages in the annals of literature, especially in the poetical class, who are devoid of self-interest, and at the same time attentive to economy; and also was among mankind in general one of those very few economists, who possess that talent, untinctured with the slightest stain of avarice. When his circumstances were at the lowest, he gave away such sums in private charity, as would have done credit to an ampler purse. But what chiefly deterred him from seeking any advantage by his literary pursuits, was a certain degree of pride, which led him to despise the idea of being thought an author by profession.

However, it is probable, that early in life he had an intention of publishing an edition of Strabo; for his papers contain a great number of notes and geographical disquisitions on that author, particularly with respect to that part of Asia which comprehends Persia and India. The indefatigable pains which he took with the writings of Plato, and the quantity of critical as well as explanatory observations which he has left upon almost every part of his works, plainly indicate, that no man in Europe was better prepared to republish and illustrate that philosopher than Mr Gray. Another work, on which he bestowed uncommon labour was the Anthologia. In an interleaved copy of that collection of Greek epigrams, he has transcribed several additional ones, which he selected in his extensive reading; has inserted a great number of critical notes and emendations, and subjoined a copious index. But whether he intended this performance for the press or not, is uncertain. The only work which he meditated upon with this direct view from the beginning was a history of English poetry, upon a plan sketched out by Mr Pope. He has mentioned this himself in an advertisement to those three fine imitations of Norse and Welsh poetry, which he gave the world in the last edition of his poems. But after he had made some considerable preparations for the execution of this design, and Mr Mason had offered him his assistance, he was informed, that Mr Wharton, of Trinity College, Oxford, was engaged in a work of the same kind. The undertaking was therefore relinquished, by mutual consent; and soon after, on that gentleman's desiring a sight of the plan, our author readily sent him a copy of it.

Among other sciences, Mr Gray had acquired a great knowledge of Gothic architecture. He had seen and accurately studied in his youth, while abroad, the Roman proportions on the spot, both in ancient times, and in the works of Palladio. In his later years he applied himself to consider those stupendous structures of more modern date that adorn our own country; which, if they have not the same grace, have undoubtedly equal dignity. He endeavoured to trace this mode of building from the time it commenced through its various changes, till it arrived at its perfection in the reign of Henry VIII., and ended in that of Elizabeth. For this purpose, he did not so much depend upon written accounts, as that internal evidence which the buildings themselves give of their respective antiquity; since they constantly furnish to the well-informed eye, arms, ornaments, and other marks, by which their several ages may be ascertained. On this account he applied himself to the study of heraldry as a preparatory science; and has left behind him a number of genealogical papers, more than sufficient to prove him a complete master of it. By these means he arrived at so very extraordinary a pitch of sagacity, as to be enabled to pronounce, at first sight, on the precise time when every particular part of any of our cathedrals was erected. But the favourite study of Mr Gray for the last ten years of his life was natural history, which he then rather resumed than began; as by the instructions of his uncle Antrobus, he was a considerable botanist at 15. The marginal notes which he has left on Linnæus and other writers on the vegetable, animal, and fossil kingdoms, are very numerous: but the most considerable are on Hudson's Flora Anglicæ, and the tenth edition of the Systema Naturæ; which latter he interleaved and filled almost entirely. While employed on zoology, he read Aristotle's treatise on that subject with great care, and explained many difficult passages of that obscure ancient by the lights he had received from modern naturalists. In a word, excepting pure mathematics, and the studies dependent on that science, there was hardly any part of human learning in which he had not acquired a competent skill, and in most of them a consummate mastery. To this account of his literary character we may add, that he had a fine taste in painting, prints, gardening, and music; and was moreover a man of good breeding, virtue, and humanity.

He died in 1771: and an edition of his poems, with memoirs of his life and writings, were published in 4to, in 1775, by Mr Mason. This gentleman, however, instead of employing his own pen in drawing Mr Gray's character, has adopted one drawn by the reverend Mr Temple, rector of Mamhead in Devonshire, in a letter to Mr Boswell; to whom the public are indebted for communicating it. "Perhaps (says Mr Temple) he was the most learned man in Europe. He was equally acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, and that not superficially but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both natural and civil; had read all the original historians of England, France, and Italy; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysics, morals, politics, made a principal part of his plan of study; voyages and travels of all sorts were his favourite amusement; and he had a fine taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening. With such a fund of knowledge, his conversation must have been equally instructing and entertaining; but he was also a good man, a well-bred man, a man of virtue and humanity. There is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think the greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather effeminacy, and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his inferiors in science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which disgusted Voltaire so much in Mr Congreve: though he seemed to value others chiefly according to the progress they had made in knowledge, yet he could not bear to be considered himself merely as a man of letters; and though without birth, or fortune, or station, his desire was to be looked upon as a private independent gentleman, who read for his amusement. Perhaps it may be said, What signifies so much knowledge, when it produces so little? Is it worth taking so much pains to leave no memorial but a few poems? But let it be considered, that Mr Gray was, to others, at least innocently employed; to himself, certainly beneficially. His time passed agreeably; he was every day making some new acquisition in science; his mind was enlarged, his heart softened, and his virtue strengthened; the world and mankind were shown to him without a mask; and he was taught to consider every thing as trifling, and unworthy the attention of a wise man, except the pursuit of knowledge, and the practice of virtue in that state wherein God hath placed us."