John Gray (poet) French, German, Latin, music and art. In 1882 he passed the Civil Service exams and, five years later, the University of London matriculation exams. He joined the Foreign Office where he became a librarian. Gray is best known today as an aesthetic poet of the 1890s and as a friend of Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde. He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French Symbolists Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Jules Laforgue and Arthur Rimbaud into English, often for the first time. He is purported to be the inspiration behind the title character in Wilde's "The
William Atkinson (poet) William Atkinson (poet) William Atkinson (1757–1846), was an English poet. Atkinson was born at Thorp Arch, in the ainsty of the city of York, in 1757, and was the son of a clergyman. He was admitted a sizar of Jesus College, Cambridge, 29 December 1775, graduated B.A. in 1780, was elected a fellow of his college, and proceeded to the degree of M.A. in 1783. Having taken orders he was appointed lecturer at the parish church of Bradford, in Yorkshire, and subsequently, in 1792, he was presented by the lord chancellor to the rectory of Warham All Saints, in Norfolk.