Books are so much more interesting than the internet. Lunchtime, so I’m working ahead on the Daily Readings and on December 1st I ran into Pindar. That’s not quite right. I bumped into Thomas Gray’s Pindaric Ode, “The Progress of Posey,” which isn’t quite the same as running into Pindar himself, but close.
So I start searching around. Gray wrote two Pindaric Odes, the other being “The Bard.” He considered them his best work. Mostly, though, it seems that–at least as a first pass–the internet wants to talk about “Elegy.” (Britannica is the exception but I don’t have a subscription.)
What’s a body to do?
When I skimmed the introduction to Sir John Lubbock’s Hundred Books 70: The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray and An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, and An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope (1894) I knew I’d find everything I’d hope to find and more.
This is too lovely not to share.
Dorothy Gray, “the careful mother of many children,” died March 11, 1753, in her seventieth year, one child alone–Thomas, born in Cornhill, December 26, 1716–having, as he said, the misfortune to survive her. … He always mentioned her name with a sigh…. Affection was never more deserved, for he owed his life to the courage of his mother, who prevented suffocation by the immediate opening of a vein.
The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray and An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, and An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope, George Routledge and Sons, London, 1894
They just don’t make ’em like that anymore, do they?
Wow! Times were hard in the way back. 13 children and only one out lived her. Death could have been a blessing to her. To leave behind the earthly burdens and griefs.