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LIFE OF GRAY.

that time assistant to Dr. George, and also a fellow of Pembroke College, at Cambridge, where Gray was admitted as a pensioner in 1734, in his nineteenth year. I should be unwilling to pass over this period of his life, without mentioning that while at Eton, as well as at Cambridge, he depended for his entire support on the affection and firmness of his mother; who, when his father had refused all assistance, cheerfully maintained him on the scanty produce of her separate industry. At Eton his friendship with Horace Walpole, and more particularly with Richard West,^[1] commenced. In him he met with one, who, from the goodness of his heart, the sincerity of his friendship, and the excellent cultivation of his mind, was worthy of his warmest attachment. The purity of taste, indeed, as well as the proficiency in literature which the letters of West display, were remarkable at his age;

↑ Richard West was the son of the right honourable Richard West, lord chancellor of Ireland; who died in 1727 or 1728, aged 36; and his grandfather, by the mother's side, was Bishop Burnet. His father was the maternal uncle of Glover the poet, and is supposed to be the author of a tragedy called 'Hecuba,' published in 1726. Mason says that, when at school, West's genius was thought to be more brilliant than his friend's. A portrait of the father is in the ball of the Inner Temple, given by Richard Glover. He was appointed Lord Chancellor in the reign of George the First, in 1725. He wrote on Treasons and Bills of Attainder, also on the Manner of Creating Peers. See this last tract highly praised in Quarterly Review, No. lxxxiv, p. 303. See King's poem, The Toast, p. 117.

[1] Richard West was the son of the right honourable Richard West, lord chancellor of Ireland; who died in 1727 or 1728, aged 36; and his grandfather, by the mother's side, was Bishop Burnet. His father was the maternal uncle of Glover the poet, and is supposed to be the author of a tragedy called 'Hecuba,' published in 1726. Mason says that, when at school, West's genius was thought to be more brilliant than his friend's. A portrait of the father is in the ball of the Inner Temple, given by Richard Glover. He was appointed Lord Chancellor in the reign of George the First, in 1725. He wrote on Treasons and Bills of Attainder, also on the Manner of Creating Peers. See this last tract highly praised in Quarterly Review, No. lxxxiv, p. 303. See King's poem, The Toast, p. 117.

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