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Charles Victor de Bonstetten to Thomas Gray, [February or March 1770]

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Letter ID: letters.0576

Correspondents

Writer: Bonstetten, Charles Victor de, 1745-1832
Writer's age: 24
Addressee: Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771
Addressee's age: 53

Dates

Date of composition: [February or March 1770]
Calendar: Gregorian

Places

Place of composition: [London, United Kingdom]

Content

Language: French
Incipit: [not extant]
Contents: "[In his letter to Bonstetten of 9 May 1770 (Letter 523 [letters.0601]), Gray writes: 'As often as I read over your truly kind letter, written long since from London, I stop at these words: "La mort qui peut glacer nos bras avant qu'ils soient entrelacés".' In a letter to his mother, written from Cambridge on 6 Feb. 1770 (see Appendix V), Bonstetten says, in reference to his approaching departure from England: 'Je ne m'arrêterai à Londres que pour aller au Parlement avec Mr. Pitt et chez quelques seigneurs qui ont eu des bontés pour moi. ... Je partirai Lundi [12 Feb.] de Cambridge et serai peut-être dans 15 jours à Paris.' He did not, however, start for Paris when he intended, but returned once more to Cambridge, as appears from Gray's letter to Norton Nicholls of 20 Mar. (Letter 513 [letters.0577]) in which he says: 'On Wednesday next [21 Mar.], I go (for a few days) with Mons: de B: to London. ... He goes for Dover on Friday.' Bonstetten's letter from London, which apparently, like the rest of the letters written by him to Gray, has not been preserved, was probably written some time between 12 Feb., the date on which he proposed to go to London, and the date (unknown) of his return to Cambridge for the last time.]"
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], vol. iii, 1113.

Holding Institution

Availability: The original letter is not extant, no copy, transcription, or published version survives

Print Versions

  • 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. 512**, vol. iii, 1113