“In one of Philip Gray’s fits of extravagance he seems to have had a full-length of his son painted about this time, by the fashionable portrait-painter of the day, Jonathan Richardson the elder. This picture is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. The head is good in colour and modelling; a broad pale brow, sharp nose and chin, large eyes, and a pert expression, give a lively idea of the precocious and not very healthy young gentleman of thirteen. He is dressed in a blue satin coat, lined with pale shot silk, and crosses his stockinged legs so as to display dapper slippers of russet leather.”—1729.

“Gray, judging from his portrait by Echardt, lately at Strawberry Hill, was eminently the poet and the scholar in his appearance. A delicate frame, a pale complexion, an expansive forehead, clear eyes, a small mouth, and regular features, bearing the general impression of thoughtfulness and melancholy, surrounded by his own hair, worn long, prepossessed the spectator in his favour, and charmed those who were already his admirers.”

“Mr. Gray’s singular niceness in the choice of his acquaintance makes him appear fastidious in a great degree to all who are not acquainted with his manner. He is of a fastidious and recluse distance of carriage, rather averse to all sociability, but of the graver turn, nice and elegant in his person, dress, and behaviour, even to a degree of finicality and effeminacy.”—1770.