Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole, [c. 18 March 1764]
You had received an answer to your last letter sooner, had I been able to write: but I have been very ill for near a month, & this is the first day, that I have breath'd the open air. I do not believe, I can give you any satisfaction as to the Provençal poetry. Italy & France abound in such Manuscripts, but we (I believe) have little of the kind among us left: at least I remember no such article in our Libraries. as to Eglisham's Pamphlet I have formerly read it here, & think, I know, where it is: Baker's Extract is only a part of it relating to K: James's death, but there is more of it (as I remember) about the Marq:ss Hamilton worth transcribing. if the facts are true, it is curious; & you shall have it soon.
I received your books & former letter unrifled, & thank you much for them. the Anti-Twitcherites are numerous & sanguine, & make themselves sure of throwing him out, whatever becomes of their own Candidate: but as they are nearly equal, I doubt his Lp has some trick left to turn the scale.
You are very perverse & mysterious about your discoveries: but I hope to be satisfied next month. you never said a word about Mr B:y's Patriotism: I hope no body found out, how good some of it is. has he made his market by it?
Correspondents
Dates
Places
Content
Holding Institution
(confirmed)
Class No. LC II, 90, College Library, Pembroke College, Cambridge , Cambridge, UK <http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/>
Print Versions
- 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. 226, vol. ii, 225-228
- 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, 132-134
- 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. 386, vol. ii, 834-835