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Julian
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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.
I congratulate you on your being about to leave college, and rejoice much you carry no degrees with you. For I would not have had You dignified, and I not, for the world, you would have insulted me so. My eyes, such as they are, like yours, are neither metaphysical nor mathematical; I have, nevertheless, a great respect for your connoisseurs that way, but am always contented to be their humble admirer. Your collection of desolate animals pleased me much; but Oxford, I can assure you, has her owls that match yours, and the prophecy has certainly a squint that way. Well, you are leaving this dismal land of bondage, and which way are you turning your face? Your friends, indeed, may be happy in you, but what will you do with your classic companions? An inn of court is as horrid a place as a college, and a moot case is as dear to gentle dulness as a syllogism. But wherever you go, let me beg you not to throw poetry 'like a nauseous weed away': Cherish its sweets in your bosom, they will serve you now and then to correct the disgusting sober follies of the common law, misce stultitiam consiliis brevem, dulce est desipere in loco; so said Horace to Virgil, those sons of Anac in poetry, and so say I to you, in this degenerate land of pigmies,
Mix with your grave designs a little pleasure,
Each day of business has its hour of leisure.
In one of these hours I hope, dear sir, you will sometimes think of me, write to me, and know me yours,
'
Εξαύδα,μὴκεῦθενόῳ,ἵναεἴδομενἄμφω·
that is, write freely to me and openly, as I do to you, and to give you a proof of it I have sent you an elegy of Tibullus translated. Tibullus, you must know, is my favourite elegiac poet; for his language is more elegant and his thoughts more natural than Ovid's. Ovid excells him only in wit, of which no poet had more in my opinion. The reason I choose so melancholy a kind of poesie, is because my low spirits and constant ill health (things in me not imaginary, as you surmise, but too real, alas! and, I fear, constitutional) 'have tuned my heart to elegies of woe'; and this likewise is the reason why I am the most irregular thing alive at college, for you may depend upon it I value my health above what they call discipline. As for this poor unlicked thing of an elegy, pray criticise it unmercifully, for I send it with that intent. Indeed your late translation of Statius might have deterred me, but I know you are not more able to excell others, than you are apt to forgive the want of excellence, especially when it is found in the productions of