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Julian
This letter is part of the Primary Texts section of the Thomas Gray Archive.
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This letter is part of the correspondence calendar of the complete correspondence of Thomas Gray. The calendar contains detailed bibliographic records for all known original, copied, or published letters written by or to the poet as well as the full-text, where available. Each record is accompanied by digitised images of the manuscript, where available, or digitised images of the first printed edition.
As you take a great deal of pleasure in concluding that I am dead, & resolve not to let me live any longer; methinks you ought to be good to my Ashes, & give 'em leave to rest in peace: but instead of that, whereas I ought to be divested of all human Passions, & forget the Pleasures of your World; you must needs be diverting me, so that I made every nail in my Coffin start with laughing: it happen'd, that on the 26th Instant at twelve of the clock at midnight, being a hard frost; I had wrapt myself up in my Shroud very snugg & warm; when in comes your Letter, which (as I told you before) made me stretch my Skeleton-jaws in such a horse-laugh, that all the dead pop'd up their heads & stared: but to see the frowzy Countenances of the Creatures especially one old Lady-Carcase, that made most hideous Grimaces, & would needs tell me, that I was a very uncivil Person to disturb a Woman of her Quality, that did me the honour to lie so near me: & truly she had not been in such a Surprise, this threescore & ten Year, come next March: besides her Commode was discomposed, & in her hurry she had lost her Wedding Ring, which she was buried in; nay, she said, she believed she should fall in fits, & certainly, that would be her Death: but I gave her a Rowland for her Oliver, 'i'gad: I told her Ladyship the more she stirred, the more she'd stink & that to my knowledge, tho' she put a good face upon the matter; she was not sound: so she lay'd her down very quietly, and crept under her Winding-Sheet for fear of Spirits. now your Arrival only can deliver me from such a state of Separation; for, as your Soul is large enough to serve for both of us, it will be ill-natured of you, if you don't reanimate my Corps: at least I hope for a place in your heart, as formerly: tho', by your last letter, but one; it seems, you have either forgot yourself, or entertain a less favourable Opinion of me, than that; with which you once honoured
As my letter ends so prettily in that p[...]