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Richard West to Thomas Gray, [11 May 1742]

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Your fragment is in Aulus Gellius; and both it and your Greek delicious. But why are you thus melancholy? I am so sorry for it, that you see I cannot forbear writing again the very first opportunity; though I have little to say, except to expostulate with you about it. I find you converse much with the dead, and I do not blame you for that; I converse with them too, though not indeed with the Greek. But I must condemn you for your longing to be with them. What, are there no joys among the living? I could almost cry out with Catullus 'Alphene immemor, atque unanimis false sodalibus!' But to turn an accusation thus upon another, is ungenerous; so I will take my leave of you for the present with a 'Vale et vive paullisper cum vivis.'

Letter ID: letters.0124 (Source: TEI/XML)

Correspondents

Writer: West, Richard, 1716-1742
Writer's age: 26[?]
Addressee: Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771
Addressee's age: 25

Dates

Date of composition: [11 May 1742]
Date (on letter): [May 11, 1742]
Calendar: Julian

Places

Place of composition: [Pope's, United Kingdom]
Address (on letter): [Popes]

Content

Languages: English, Latin
Incipit: Your fragment is in Aulus Gellius; and both it and your Greek delicious....
Mentioned: Aulus Gellius
Catullus
Nonius Marcellus

Holding Institution

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

Print Versions

  • 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 ix, section iii, 150
  • The Works of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. Ed. by Thomas James Mathias. London: William Bulmer, 1814, section III, letter IX, vol. i, 268
  • The Works of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. Ed. by John Mitford. London: J. Mawman, 1816, section III, letter IX, vol. ii, 137-138
  • The Letters of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. in one. London: J. Sharpe, 1819, letter LVII, vol. i, 126-127
  • The Works of Thomas Gray, 5 vols. Ed. by John Mitford. London: W. Pickering, 1835-1843, section III, letter IX, vol. ii, 164
  • Gray and his Friends: Letters and Relics, in great part hitherto unpublished. Ed. by Duncan C. Tovey. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1890, section II, letter no. 40, 166-168
  • 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. 150, vol. ii, 41-42
  • 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. 108, vol. i, 203