"Gray's production was scanty, and scanty, as we have seen, it could not but be. Even what he produced is not always pure in diction, true in evolution. Still, with whatever drawbacks, he is alone, or almost alone (for Collins has something of the like merit) in his age. Gray said himself that "the style he aimed at was extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical." Compared, not with the work of the great masters of the golden ages of poetry, but with the poetry of his own contemporaries in general, Gray's may be said to have reached, in style, the excellence at which he aimed; while the evolution also of such a piece as his Progress of Poesy must be accounted not less noble and sound than its style."
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Matthew Arnold, 'Thomas Gray' (1880), in Essays in Criticism. Second Series (1888), pp. 98-99
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Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray (December 26, 1716 – July 30, 1771) was an English poet, classical scholar, and professor of history at Cambridge University.
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