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Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole, 11 July 1757

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I will not give you the trouble of sending your chaise for me. I intend to be with you on Wednesday in the evening. If the press stands still all this time for me, to be sure it is dead in child-bed.

I do not love notes, though you see I had resolved to put two or three. They are signs of weakness and obscurity. If a thing cannot be understood without them, it had better be not understood at all. If you will be vulgar, and pronounce it Lunnun, instead of London, I can't help it. Caradoc I have private reasons against; and besides it is in reality Carādoc, and will not stand in the verse.

I rejoice you can fill all your vuides. the Maintenon could not, and that was her great misfortune. Seriously though, I congratulate you on your happiness, and seem to understand it. The receipt is obvious: it is only, Have something to do; but how few can apply it! –

Adieu!
I am ever yours,
T. GRAY.
Letter ID: letters.0273 (Source: TEI/XML)

Correspondents

Writer: Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771
Writer's age: 40
Addressee: Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797
Addressee's age: 39

Dates

Date of composition: 11 July 1757
Date (on letter): July 11, 1757
Calendar: Gregorian

Places

Place of composition: Stoke Poges, United Kingdom
Address (on letter): Stoke

Content

Language: English
Incipit: I will not give you the trouble of sending your chaise for me....
Mentioned: Odes by Mr. Gray (1757)
Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764
London
Maintenon, Mme de
Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797

Holding Institution

Availability: The original letter is unlocated, a copy, transcription, or published version survives

Print Versions

  • The Works of Horatio Walpole, Earl of Orford, 5 vols. London: G. G. and J. Robinson and J. Edwards, 1798, vol. v, 397-398
  • The Works of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. Ed. by Thomas James Mathias. London: William Bulmer, 1814, appendix, letter X, vol. i, 552-553
  • The Works of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. Ed. by John Mitford. London: J. Mawman, 1816, section IV, letter LIX, vol. ii, 283
  • The Letters of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. in one. London: J. Sharpe, 1819, letter XCIV, vol. ii, 16
  • The Works of Thomas Gray, 5 vols. Ed. by John Mitford. London: W. Pickering, 1835-1843, section IV, letter LXVII, vol. iii, 161-162
  • The Letters of Thomas Gray, including the correspondence of Gray and Mason, 3 vols. Ed. by Duncan C. Tovey. London: George Bell and Sons, 1900-12, letter no. CXLII, vol. i, 339-340
  • The Correspondence of Gray, Walpole, West and Ashton (1734-1771), 2 vols. Chronologically arranged and edited with introduction, notes, and index by Paget Toynbee. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915, letter no. 204, vol. ii, 169-171
  • The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence. Ed. by W. S. Lewis. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP; London: Oxford UP, 1937-83, vols. 13/14: Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Thomas Gray, Richard West and Thomas Ashton i, 1734-42, Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Thomas Gray ii, 1745-71, ed. by W. S. Lewis, George L. Lam and Charles H. Bennett, 1948, vol. ii, 97-98
  • Correspondence of Thomas Gray, 3 vols. Ed. by the late Paget Toynbee and Leonard Whibley, with corrections and additions by H. W. Starr. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971 [1st ed. 1935], letter no. 240, vol. ii, 507-508