The ode on the progress of poetry appeared in 1755. Like the _Elegy_, his
poem of _The Bard_ was for several years on the literary easel, and he was
accidentally led to finish it by hearing a blind harper performing on a
Welsh harp.
On the death of Cibber, Gray was offered the laureate's crown, which he
declined, to avoid its conspicuousness and the envy of his brother poets.
In 1762, he applied for the professorship of modern history at Cambridge,
but failed to obtain the position. He was more fortunate in 1768, when it
again became vacant; but he held it as a sinecure, doing none of its
duties. He died in 1770, on the 3d of July, of gout in the stomach. His
habits were those of a recluse; and whether we agree or not, with Adam
Smith, in saying that nothing is wanting to render him perhaps the first
poet in the English language, but to have written a little more, it is
astonishing that so great and permanent a reputation should have been
founded on so very little as he wrote. Gray has been properly called the
finest lyric poet in the language; and his lyric power strikes us as
intuitive and original; yet he himself, adhering strongly to the
artificial school, declared, if there was any excellence in his own
numbers, he had learned it wholly from Dryden.
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