Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole (<hi rend="it">c.</hi> 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.

 UK Cambridge Pembroke College, Cambridge College Library GBR/1058/GRA/3/4/30

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. 41, vol. i, 67 http://www.e-enlightenment.com/search/letters/print/?printref_sourceedition=graythOU0084&printref_docnumber=41 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. 64, vol. i, 155-156 https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/diglib/primary/TyP_1915i/1/155 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, 140-141 https://libsvcs-1.its.yale.edu/hwcorrespondence/page.asp?vol=13&page=140 Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771 London, United Kingdom Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797

Julian

 English

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)

Forgive me, my poor dear Horace, if I intrude upon your Grief, sooner possibly than I ought; yet hardly soon enough for the Anxiety I am in upon your account; far from having any such confidence in myself, as to imagine any thing I can say should lighten your affliction; I fear your own good Sense, and Resignation to Him, who has spared so long the best of Mothers to you, is hardly able to support you under it; I can the easier imagine the Situation you are in from the fears, which are continually before my eyes, of a like misfortune in my own case; if that were really to happen, I know not the least Shadow of comfort, that could come to me, but what I perhaps might find in my dearest Horace's compassion, & that pity, he never denies the unhappy: would to God, I might alleviate in some measure his Sorrows, in the part I willingly would bear in them, & in that commiseration, which I should feel for any one in such circumstances, how much more then for him whose friendship has been my greatest joy, & I hope shall continue so many years: for God's sake, as soon as melancholy reflection shall give you any intermission, let me hear of your welfare; let me have the pleasure of a line, or the sight of you, as soon as it can be proper: believe, I shall not enjoy a moments ease, till I have some information of your condition;

I am, my dearest Walpole, with the greatest truth, your faithful friend, & servant, T: G: