Thomas Gray was one of the most important poets of the eighteenth century. This scholar and poet was the most famous for his poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Thomas Gray was born on December 26, 1716 in Cornhill section of London, England. He was the only child in his family of eight to survive infancy. Gray was saved by his brave mother. She opened one of his veins with her own hand to prevent suffocation. His father was Philip Gray, a scrivener and exchange broker. Philip Gray was indolent, selfish, abusive, and insane. He depleted the fortune. In addition, he treated his wife with extreme cruelty. As a result, Dorothy Antrobus Gray left him. She looked forward to filing a legal action against him. However, because of her love for him, she managed to return. It was Gray's mother who saw to her son's education. She, therefore, conducted a millinery business to earn money for Gray's education. At the age of eight, he was sent to Eton College where her brothers, Robert and William Antrobus, were teaching. (Eton College is neither public nor a college. It is the equivalent of a prep school for boys who expected to go to Cambridge or Oxford.) He had a good classical training at Eton as well as the personal interest of his uncles. Robert Antrobus taught his nephew the fundamentals of botany and bequeathed him his scientific books. Robert Antrobus died in 1730. However, Eton gave him the most important thing -- companionship with other boys, especially with ones who had the same interest, such as books and poetry, as he. It was here where he and his three friends--Horace Walpole, son of England's prime minister, Thomas Ashton, and Richard West, son of Ireland's lord chancellor and grandson of the famous Bishop Burnet--formed the Quadruple Alliance. Because his highborn companions as West and Walpole had much influence on him, he brought out his poetical side. The poetical genius displayed imagination and emotion for the love of literature.

In 1734 he entered Peterhouse College, Cambridge University where he studied for four years. He was deeply interested in literature and history; he was bored by mathematics, philosophy and metaphysics. He decided not to take a degree; however, he held two scholarships. Instead, he decide to change interests into law at the Inner Temple in London. However, he decided to make a Grand Tour of the continent with Walpole who paid all the expenses in March 29, 1739. Gray was a guest on this poetic journey to France, Switzerland, and Italy. Gray concluded the tour alone and returned to London in September, 1741. He was not reconciled with Walpole until 1745. After Gray's return from the Continental tour, he faced a tragic moment. In November Gray's father died. His mother, aunt, and he moved to the Village of Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. Here he wrote his first important English poems: the "Ode on the Spring," "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," "Hymn to Adversity." Here too he began his greatest masterpiece, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." The poem was said to be the most famous and diversified of all graveyard poems written. It was these poems that solidified his reputation.

Not getting a chance to overcome the grief of his father's death, he was once again stricken with the lost of his best friend. Richard West, at the age of twenty-four, died of tuberculosis the following year. West's death inspired some of Gray's best works: "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West." This period was depicted as Gray's most emotional period. In October of 1742, Gray returned to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, as a Fellow-commoner. In December of 1743, he achieved his degree of Bachelor of Civil Law (LL.B.) at Cambridge. However, he was never called to practice law. He remained at Cambridge, and tolerated it only because it had libraries to study Greek. He wrote and rewrote but was never satisfied; as a result, he left most of his work unfinished. Walpole insisted on having some of them printed on his own press. Gray was always reluctant to publish his works. Unlike other poets, he did not want the world's applause. Throughout the years, he spent most of his time writing poetry, such as "Ode on the Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes," which he had published. Most of the poems are elegant, gloomy, and artificial: exactly what mid-century taste demanded. His other poems anticipated the Romantic age.

He was often with his mother and aunt at Stoke Poges. He traveled a great deal to London and to other parts of England, Scotland and Wales after his mother's death on March 11, 1753. On her tomb, he wrote that she was "the tender careful mother of many children: one of whom had the misfortune to survive her." When the British Museum (now the British Library) was opened to the public in 1759, he spent two years working in the great library. In 1762 he applied for the Regius Professorship of Modern History but was declined. However, in 1768 he was given the position because the successful candidate was killed. Although he was made professor of history at Cambridge, he never delivered any lectures, which is all that a professor did in those days.

In 1764 he had an operation from which he never recovered. At the age of fifty-five, Gray suffered a violent attack of gout in the stomach and finally died in his room on July 30, 1771 in Cambridge, London. He was buried beside his beloved mother at Stoke Poges churchyard, the scene of the "Elegy".

Gray was an exceptional poet. He wrote with sincerity, honesty, and integrity. He wrote of true thoughts, feelings, inspirations, and experience. Every word he wrote reflected upon his emotion. His works were written about peacefulness, passiveness, thoughts of joy, of nostalgia, and most importantly, of innocence. He shared his values experiences through his writings about life and displayed his intelligence, unique outlook on life, and righteous standards. His words will always be valued. Still, his words wave a heavy impact on life.