Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole, [20 March 1738]
To
The Honble Horatio Walpole, Esq
at the Treasury St James's
CAMBRIDGE 20 MR
[ ]
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,
yours sincerely
T: GRAY
Cam: March: 20
Letter ID:
letters.0055 (Source: TEI/XML)
Correspondents
Writer's age: 21
Addressee's age: 20
Dates
Date (on letter): March: 20:
Calendar: Julian
Places
Address (on letter): Cam:
Physical description
Addressed: To / The Honble Horatio Walpole, Esq / at the Treasury St James's (postmark: CAMBRIDGE 20 MR)
Content
Language: English
Incipit: Thank God, I had a very good night's rest, and am sufficiently awake...
Holding Institution
Location:
(confirmed)
GBR/1058/GRA/3/4/37, College Library, Pembroke College, Cambridge , Cambridge, UK <http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/>
(confirmed)
GBR/1058/GRA/3/4/37, College Library, Pembroke College, Cambridge , Cambridge, UK <http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/>
Availability: The original letter is extant and usually available for academic research purposes
Print Versions
- 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. 78, vol. i, 182-184
- The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence. Ed. by W. S. Lewis. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP; London: Oxford UP, 1937-83, vols. 13/14: Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Thomas Gray, Richard West and Thomas Ashton i, 1734-42, Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Thomas Gray ii, 1745-71, ed. by W. S. Lewis, George L. Lam and Charles H. Bennett, 1948, vol. i, 154-155
- 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. 51, vol. i, 82-83