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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.
Venga, venga, V: S: si serva! I shall be proud to see you both. the lodgings over the way will be
empty, but such an entry, such a staircase! how will Mrs N: be able to crowd thro' it? with what grace, when she gets out of her chair,
can she conduct her hoop-petticoat thro' this augre-hole, and up the dark windings of the grand escalier, that
leads to her chamber? it is past my finding out. so I delay, till I hear from you again, before I engage them. I believe, there may be
a bed for you, but is there room for Mrs Kipiffe, Mamma's Maid? I am sure, I know not.
I was very ill, when I received your letter, with a feverish disorder; but have cured it merely by dint of sage-tea, the beverage of life. it is a polydynamious plant, take my word: tho' your Linnæus would persuade us, it is merely diandrious.
I applaud your industry; it will do you a power of good one way or another, only don't mistake a
Carabus for an Orchis, nor a Lepisma for an Adenanthera. here is Mr Foljambe has got a Flying Hobgoblin
from the E: Indies, & a power of rarities; & then he has given me such a Phalæna
with looking-glasses in its wings; & a Queen of the White Ants,
whose belly alone is as big as many hundred of her subjects, I do not mean their bellies only, but
their whole persons: and yet her head & her tetons & her legs are no bigger than other people's. oh, she
is a jewel of a pismire!
I hear the triumphs & see the illuminations of Alloa hither, but did Mrs E: lie a night at Edinburgh in her way thither? does she meet with no signs of mortality about her castle? are her subjects all civet-cats & musk-deer?
My respects to your Mother. Adieu! I have had an infinite letter from Bonst:n, he goes in October
to Rocheguion
on the Loire, with the Dutchess d'Enville. the people in several
provinces are starving to death on the highways. the King (in spite to his parliaments & nation) it is thought, will make the Duke
d'Aiguillon his chief Minister.