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Richard West to Thomas Gray, [9 May 1737]

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Letter ID: letters.0024

Correspondents

Writer: West, Richard, 1716-1742
Writer's age: 21[?]
Addressee: Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771
Addressee's age: 20

Dates

Date of composition: [9 May 1737]
Calendar: Julian

Places

Place of composition: Oxford, United Kingdom
Place of addressee: [Cambridge, United Kingdom]

Physical description

Addressed: To / Mr Thomas Gray / at Peter-house College in / Cambridge

Content

Languages: English, Latin
Incipit: [not extant]
Contents: "[Among the Walpole MSS. formerly in the Waller Collection was the cover of a letter addressed by West 'To Mr Thomas Gray at Peter-house College in Cambridge', bearing the postmark, 10 May, on the inside of which there was jotted down the following epigram of Martial (iii. 61), with the translation by West, which the latter sent to Ashton in July 1736 (see [Gray-Walpole Correspondence, No. 38):
'Esse nihil dicis quicquid petis, Improbe Cinna,
Si nil, Cinna petis, nil tibi, Cinna, nego.'
'Whenever Cinna asks a Favour,
Oh! Tis but Nothing, Sr, he'll say;
Cinna, you are too Modest rather;
Is't really Nothing? take it, Pray.'
It is possible that this cover belonged to a letter (no longer extant) in which West (who was then at Oxford) sent the epigram to Gray, and that the cover on which some one had copied the epigram was sent to Walpole.]"
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], vol. i, 41.
Mentioned: [Translation from Statius, Thebaid IX 319-26]
[Translation from Statius, Thebaid VI 646-88, 704-24]

Holding Institution

Availability: The original letter is not extant, no copy, transcription, or published version survives

Print Versions

  • 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. 22*, vol. i, 41