One Large Funeral Procession

Though discussing the graves of the obscure, Gray uses two similar techniques to give them the reverence he feels they're due.


They're very similar.  Personification and pathetic fallacy.

The latter is

"the attribution of human emotion...to...inanimate things" (OED, 3b).

However, it's typically associated with nature, which is quite prevalent.  From the "somber stillness" (6) to the "drowsy tinklings" (8), nature only contributes to the speaker's solemn mood and his view of death as similar to sleep.

But "[t]he moping owl...complain[ing]/Of such...[that] molest her ancient, solitary reign" (10-12) creates a gravitas seemingly contrary to the "many...mouldering heap[s]" (14) serving as graves.

Until...

"Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield" (25)

"How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke" (28)

This reverence does not seem to be exclusively postmortem.

So...if nature personified respects the interred souls, does personification itself do the same?

Most of the personified abstracts are just disrespected.

Examples!

"Let not Ambition mock their useful toil" (29)

"Chill Penury repressed their noble rage" (51)

"Can Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?" (36)

Although Death gets some slack here, the line “Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries” (91) lessens its usual grim effects, as between the pathetic fallacy and the human grief (89-90), even death is reduced in the face of a good life.

Especially as more transcendent abstracts like "Heaven" (124), "Fair Science" (119), and "Melancholy", or empathy (120), are not similarly criticized.

So...by serving as foils against the peasants' relatively harmless lives, personifications associated with the powerful do accomplish the same goal as pathetic fallacy:

Respecting the dead while taking the arrogant living down a peg...or two...or...

Actually there are numerous examples so feel free to leave one (or anything else) as a comment!