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INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 15

ease, "All I can say is that your Elegy must not
end with the worst line in it; it is flat, it is prose;
whereas that above all ought to sparkle, or at least to
shine." To read these things in the right spirit we
must replace criticism by the emotional interest which
attaches to the sad story of this brief life. He was
the son of * the Bichard West, who' says Mr G-osse
' was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland when he was
only thirty-five, and who then immediately died/
The mother of our West was the daughter of Bishop
Burnet. West died at the age of 26; and (to quote
from Mitford's Life of Gray) " It is said the cause of
his disorder, a consumption which brought him to an
early grave, was the fatal discovery which he made of
the treachery of a supposed friend, and the viciousness
of a mother whom he tenderly loved. This man,
under the mask of friendship to him and his family,
intrigued with his mother, and robbed him of his
peace of mind, his health and his life." The man in
question is said to have been secretary to West's
father¹; Rogers was told that it was some person of

¹ * A Mr Williams, -whom she finally married when her son
was dead.' Mr G-osse (Life of Gray, p. 47). Gray's post-
script to a letter from Walpole to West (Borne, April 16 N, S.
1740) has this 'We have sent you our compliments by a
friend of yours, and correspondent in a corner, who seems a
very agreeable man, one Mr Williams, I am sorry he staid
so little a while in Borne'. Is this the man ? In any case .we
may infer that Gray did not at this date know that there



	INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 15 ease, "All I can say is that your Elegy must not end with the worst line in it; it is flat, it is prose; whereas that above all ought to sparkle, or at least to shine." To read these things in the right spirit we must replace criticism by the emotional interest which attaches to the sad story of this brief life. He was the son of * the Bichard West, who' says Mr G-osse ' was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland when he was only thirty-five, and who then immediately died/ The mother of our West was the daughter of Bishop Burnet. West died at the age of 26; and (to quote from Mitford's Life of Gray) " It is said the cause of his disorder, a consumption which brought him to an early grave, was the fatal discovery which he made of the treachery of a supposed friend, and the viciousness of a mother whom he tenderly loved. This man, under the mask of friendship to him and his family, intrigued with his mother, and robbed him of his peace of mind, his health and his life." The man in question is said to have been secretary to West's father¹; Rogers was told that it was some person of ¹ * A Mr Williams, -whom she finally married when her son was dead.' Mr G-osse (Life of Gray, p. 47). Gray's post- script to a letter from Walpole to West (Borne, April 16 N, S. 1740) has this 'We have sent you our compliments by a friend of yours, and correspondent in a corner, who seems a very agreeable man, one Mr Williams, I am sorry he staid so little a while in Borne'. Is this the man ? In any case .we may infer that Gray did not at this date know that there