ABSTRACT
Thomas Gray gave his own explanation of what had inspired him to finish his second 'Odikle' in late May 1757, when sending lines 101-44 of 'The Bard' to William Mason, his friend and future biographer. While Gray continued to emphasize the Lady Randolph-Old Norval scene in Douglas, Bedingfield had evidently already raised the troublesome question of Lady Randolph's suicide at the end of the play, which must have been a sensitive issue for Gray in view of the similar ending of 'The Bard'. While there may be only slight verbal resemblances between the two passages, both works end with spectacular suicides in precipitous landscapes. As for Lady Randolph's self-inflicted fate, London comment was less heated than in Edinburgh, usually resting on aesthetic rather than religious grounds. If Gray himself were in any way indebted to Douglas, his own professed fascination with its ballad source might seem to serve a similarly deflecting purpose.
