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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.
I heartily rejoice with you, that your little family are out of danger, & all apprehensions of that kind over with them for life. yet I have heard, you were ill yourself, & kept your bed: as this was (I imagine) only by way of regimen, & not from necessity; I hope soon to be told, you have no farther occasion for it. yet take care of yourself, for there is a bad fever now very frequent. it is among the boys at Eton, & (I am told), is much spread about London too. my notion is, that your violent quick pulse, & soapy diet would not suit well with feverish disorders. tho' our party at Slough turn'd out so ill, I could not help being sorry, that you were not with us.
Have you read Mr. Hurd's (printed) Letter to Mason on the Marks of Imitation? you do not tell me
your opinion of it. you bid me send you criticisms on myself, & even compliments. did I tell you, what the
Speaker says? the 2d Ode, he says, is a good pretty tale, but nothing to the Churchyard. Mr. Bedingfield in a golden shower of panegyrick writes me word, that at Yorkraces he overheard three People, whom
by their dress & manner he takes for Lords, say, that I was impenetrable & inexplicable, and they wish'd, I had told them in
prose, what I meant in verse, & then they bought me (wch was what most displeased him) & put me in their pocket. Dr Warburton is come to Town, & likes them extremely. he says the World
never pass'd so just an opinion upon any thing as upon them: for that in other things they have affected to like or dislike, whereas
here they own, they do not understand, wch he looks upon to be very true; but yet thinks, they understand them as well as they do
Milton or Shakespear, whom they are obliged by fashion to admire. Mr G:k's compliment you have seen; I
am told it was printed in the Chronicle of last Saturday. the Review I have read, & admire it,
particularly that observation, that the Bard is taken from Pastor, cum traheret,
& the advice to be more an original, & in order to be so, the way is
(he says) to cultivate the native flowers of the soil, & not introduce the exoticks of another climate.
I am greatly pleased with M:n s Caractacus in its present state. the contrivance & arrangement of events, the manners of the country, the characters & passions, strike me wonderfully. the difficult part is now got over, nothing remains but to polish, & retouch a little: yet only the beginning of the first Chorus is done of the lyric part. have you seen it?
I shall be in Town probably sooner than you come to stay there.