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Julian
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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.
Thank God, I had a very good night's rest, and am sufficiently awake to answer your letter, tho' likely to be more dull, than you that write in your sleep: and indeed I do not believe, that you ever are so much asleep, but you can write to a relation, play a sober game at Picquet, keep up a tete á tete conversation, sell a bargain, or perform any of the little offices of life with tolerable spirit; certain I am, there are many people in the world, who in their top spirits are no better eveillés, than you are at four in the morning, reclined upon your pillow. I believe, I partly guess [what is] your hopeful branch; I fancy you may find the first letters of both somewhere between H & T inclusive; if I interpret your hieroglyphs aright. as to my journey to London, which you are so good as to press, alas! what can I do? if I come, it is for good & all, & I don't know how it is, I have a sort of reluctance to leave this place, unamiable as it may seem; 'tis true Cambridge is very ugly, she is very dirty, & very dull; but I'm like a cabbage, where I'm stuck, I love to grow; you should pull me up sooner, than any one, but I shall be ne'er the better for transplanting: poor Mr Cornwallis is here, sadly alter'd, so that one can very hardly know him; Towers still stands out, & refuses to admit him; so that they have called in their visitours, that is the Vice-chancellour, Dr Bently, & Dr Ashton; but nothing is yet determined: the Assizes are just over, I was there; but I a'nt to be transported: Adieu,