Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole (23 December 1734) Alexander Huber Editor Thomas Gray Archive
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Oxford

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 UK Cambridge Pembroke College, Cambridge College Library GBR/1058/GRA/3/4/16

The original letter is extant and usually available for academic research purposes

 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. 6, vol. i, 12-14 http://www.e-enlightenment.com/search/letters/print/?printref_sourceedition=graythOU0084&printref_docnumber=6 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. 22, vol. i, 53-54 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/TyP_1915i/1/53 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. i, 67-68 https://libsvcs-1.its.yale.edu/hwcorrespondence/page.asp?vol=13&page=67 Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771 Cambridge, United Kingdom Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797 London, United Kingdom

Julian

 English Cole, William, 1714-1782

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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.

 Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF) Dec: 24–Peter-house [           ]

After having been very piously at St Mary's church yesterday; as I was coming home; somebody told me, that you was come, & that your Servant had been to enquire for me: whereupon throwing off all the Pruderie & Reserve of a Cambridge Student, in a great extasie, I run in a vast hurry to set the Bells a-ringing, & kindle a thousand Bonfires–when amidst these Convulsions of Joy, I was stopt by one of our Colledge, who inform'd me, that a fine Gentleman in a laced hat & scarlet Stockings wanted me: so, you may conclude, as soon as I set eyes on him, I was ready to eat him for having your Livery on; but he soon checked me by acquainting me 'twas not You, that was come; but–Your Service: now undoubtedly after being so terribly bauked; one could not have lived, but by the help of Hartshorn, Hungary-Water, & your Journal, which gives one a greater Flow of Spirits, than ei[ther of them.] [but, dear Celadon], nothing gave me half so much pleasure, as to find; that after the toil of the day was over, you could be so good as to throw away a moment in thinking of me, & had Spirits enough left, to make all the hideosities you underwent agreable by describing them: – by all that's frightful, I was in agonies for you, when I saw you planted at the upper end of a Table so elegantly set out; like the King of Monsters in the Fairy-tales: never was any one's curiosity half so much raised by a blot, as mine is by that in your Diary: 'tis so judicious a Scratch, so genteel a Blurr, that I shall never be easy, till I know what it conceals; no more than I shall be, till I receive the things that are to come by word of mouth, wch (if 'twere possible) would make me wish to see you more than ever: sure West is as much improved as he says Plato is; since you could have the conscience to persuade him to come to Cambridge[...]