Thomas Gray to Thomas Wharton, [9 November 1758]
To
Dr Wharton, M:D:, in
Southampton-Row, Bloomsbury
London
10 NO
My judgement is, that if your picture possess but any one of the beauties you see & describe in it, it must be certainly worth eight or ten times as much as you gave for it. I only wonder, you should forget to say by what lucky chance you came by it. Old Frank was a Dutch Master of some note: the history of that School I am very little acquainted with, but if I am not mistaken, there was lately publish'd a French account of their lives in two or more Volumes, 4to, wch I have seen at Nourse's, in wch you may meet with better information.
I am agreeably employ'd here in dividing nothing with an old Harridan, who is the spawn of Cerberus & the Dragon of Wantley. When I shall get to Town I can not divine, but doubtless it will be between this & Christmas. you were so good to offer me house-room for some of my lumber: I am therefore packing up certain boxes & baskets, wch I believe you will be troubled with. but I beg Mrs Wharton to consider well first, whether it will be inconvenient to her. if she assures me, it will not, I shall inform you shortly of their shapes & numbers. at present it seems to me, that there will be 3 or 4 large boxes; & five baskets of China: the rest Madam Foster shall accommodate.
Ah poor King of Prussia! what will become of him? I am told here, that matters are much worse, than is yet avowed. I also hear that seven Generals have refused the command, wch Hopson is now gone with, who has been before censured for ill conduct, & is besides so infirm, that he will not live the voyage.
Yours
Correspondents
Dates
Places
Physical description
Content
Holding Institution
(confirmed)
Egerton MS 2400, ff. 118-119, Manuscripts collection, British Library , London, UK <http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/bldept/manuscr/>
Print Versions
- The Works of Thomas Gray, 2 vols. Ed. by John Mitford. London: J. Mawman, 1816, section IV, letter LXXIX, vol. ii, 324-325
- The Works of Thomas Gray, 5 vols. Ed. by John Mitford. London: W. Pickering, 1835-1843, section IV, letter LXXXVII, vol. iii, 208-209
- 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. CLXXVII, vol. ii, 58-60
- 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. 282, vol. ii, 591-592