Thomas Gray to Richard West (22 August 1737) Alexander Huber Editor Thomas Gray Archive
info@thomasgray.org https://www.thomasgray.org/
Oxford

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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

 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. 40, vol. i, 66 http://www.e-enlightenment.com/search/letters/print/?printref_sourceedition=graythOU0084&printref_docnumber=40 The Poems of Mr. Gray. To which are prefixed Memoirs of his Life and Writings by W[illiam]. Mason. York: printed by A. Ward; and sold by J. Dodsley, London; and J. Todd, York, 1775, letter viii, section i, 22-23 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/1775/1/22 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. 63, vol. i, 153-154 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/TyP_1915i/1/153 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. VI, vol. i, 6-7 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/ToD_1900i/1/6 Gray and his Friends: Letters and Relics, in great part hitherto unpublished. Ed. by Duncan C. Tovey. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1890, section II, letter fragment, 101-102 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/ToD_1890/1/101 The Works of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. Ed. by John Mitford. London: J. Mawman, 1816, section I, letter VIII, vol. ii, 17 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/MiJ_1816ii/1/17 The Works of Thomas Gray, 5 vols. Ed. by John Mitford. London: W. Pickering, 1835-1843, section I, letter VIII, vol. ii, 19-20 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/MiJ_1843ii/2/19 The Letters of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. in one. London: J. Sharpe, 1819, letter VIII, vol. i, 19-20 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/1819/1/19 The Works of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. Ed. by Thomas James Mathias. London: William Bulmer, 1814, section I, letter VIII, vol. i, 152-153 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/MaW_1814i/1/152 Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771 London, United Kingdom West, Richard, 1716-1742 Oxford, United Kingdom

Julian

 English Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797

This letter is part of the Primary Texts section of the Thomas Gray Archive.

XML created for the Thomas Gray Archive.

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)

After a month's expectation of you, and a fortnight's despair, at Cambridge, I am come to town, and to better hopes of seeing you. If what you sent me last be the product of your melancholy, what may I not expect from your more cheerful hours? For by this time the ill health that you complain of is (I hope) quite departed; though, if I were self-interested, I ought to wish for the continuance of any thing that could be the occasion of so much pleasure to me. Low spirits are my true and faithful companions; they get up with me, go to bed with me, make journeys and returns as I do; nay, and pay visits, and will even affect to be jocose, and force a feeble laugh with me; but most commonly we sit alone together, and are the prettiest insipid company in the world. However, when you come, I believe they must undergo the fate of all humble companions, and be discarded. Would I could turn them to the same use that you have done, and make an Apollo of them. If they could write such verses with me, not hartshorn, nor spirit of amber, nor all that furnishes the closet of an apothecary's widow, should persuade me to part with them: But, while I write to you, I hear the bad news of Lady Walpole's death on Saturday night last. Forgive me if the thought of what my poor Horace must feel on that account, obliges me to have done in reminding you that I am

Yours, &c. London, Aug. 22, 1737.