His parents resolved to educate him for the Free Kirk, and through their self-denial and his own exertions as a pupil teacher and private tutor he was able to complete a course of four sessions at the university of Glasgow.
His most intimate companion at this time was Robert Buchanan, the poet; and in May 1860 the two agreed to proceed to London, with the idea of finding literary employment.
He was unsuccessful in his efforts to place Gray's poem, The Luggie, in Cornhill Magazine, but gave him some light literary work.
He also showed him great kindness when a cold which had seized him assumed the serious form of consumption, and sent him to Torquay; but as the disease made rapid progress, an irresistible longing seized Gray to return to Merkland, where he arrived in January 1861, and died on 3 December following, having the day before had the gratification of seeing a printed specimen copy of his poem The Luggie, published eventually by the exertions of Sydney Dobell.
[3] The Luggie, the principal poem of Gray, is a kind of reverie in which the scenes and events of his childhood and his early aspirations are mingled with the music of the stream which he celebrates.
Encyclopædia Britannica says that most of his poems necessarily bear traces of immaturity, and lines may frequently be found in them which are mere echoes from Thomson, Wordsworth or Tennyson, but they possess, nevertheless, distinct individuality, and show a real appreciation of natural beauty.