ing, and hunting, and tobacco, and, Heaven be praised,
you too can pretty well bear it; while our evils are no
more, I believe we shall not much repine. I imagine,
however, you will rather choose to converse with the
living dead, that adorn the walls of your apartments,
than with the dead living, that deck the middles of
them; and prefer a picture of still life to the realities
of a noisy one, and, as I guess, will imitate what you
prefer, and for an hour or two at noon will stick yourself
up as formal as if you had been fixed in your frame for
these hundred years, with a pink or rose in one hand,
and a great seal ring on the other. Your name, I as-
sure you, has been propagated in these countries by a
convert of yours, one **, who has brought over his
whole family to you; they were before pretty good
Whigs, but now they are absolute Walpolians. We have
hardly any body in the parish but knows exactly the
dimensions of the hall and saloon at Houghton, and
begin to believe that the lanthorn* is not so great a con-
sumer of the fat of the land as disaffected
said : for your reputation, we keep to ourselves your not
hunting nor drinking hogan, either of which here would
be sufficient to lay your honour in the dust. To-morrow
se'nnight I hope to be in town, and not long after at
Cambridge.

I am, &c.
Burnham, Sept. 1737.

persons have

XI. MR. WEST TO MR. GRAY. RECEIVING no answer to my last letter, which I writ above a month ago, I must own I am a little uneasy. The slight shadow of you which I had in town, has only served to endear you to me the more.

The moments I passed with you made a strong impression upon me. I singled you out for a friend, and I would have

you * A favourite object of Tory satire at the time.

know me to be yours, if you deem me worthy.-Alas, Gray, you cannot imagine how miserably my time passes away. My health and nerves and spirits are, thank

my stars, the very worst, I think, in Oxford. Four-andtwenty hours of pure unalloyed health together, are as unknown to me as the 400,000 characters in the Chinese vocabulary. One of my complaints has of late been so over-civil as to visit me regularly once a month-jam. certus conviva. This is a painful nervous headache, which perhaps you have sometimes heard me speak of before. Give me leave to say, I find no physic comparable to your letters. If, as it is said in Ecclesiasticus,

Friendship be the physic of the mind,” prescribe to me, dear Gray, as often and as much as you think proper,

1 shall be a most obedient patient.

I venture here to write you down a Greek epigram, which I lately turned into Latin, and hope you will ex

cuse it.

Perspicui puerum ludentem in margine rivi

Immersit vitreæ limpidus error aquæ :
At gelido ut mater moribundum e flumine traxit

Credula, et amplexu funus inane fovet:
Paulatim puer in dilecto pectore, somno

Languidus, æternùm lumina composuit;
Adieu! I am going to my tutor's lectures on one
Puffendorff, a very jurisprudent author as you shall read
on a summer's day.

Believe me yours, &c. Christ Church, Dec. 2, 1738.

* Of Posidippus. Vide Anthologia, H. Stephan. p. 220. Mr. Gray in his MS. notes to this edition of the Anthologia (of which I shall give an account in a subsequent section) inserts this translation, and adds, “ Descriptio pulcherrima et quæ tenuem illum Græcorum spiritum mirificè sapit;" and in conclusion, “Posidippus inter principes Anthologiæ poetas emicat, Ptolemæi Philadelphi seculo vixit.”

D

LITERAS mi Favonî !* abs te demum, nudiustertiùs credo, accepi planè mellitas, nisi fortè quà de ægritudine quâdam tuâ dictum : atque hoc sane mihi habitum est non paulò acerbiùs, quod te capitis morbo implicitum esse intellexi; oh morbum mihi quam odiosum ! qui de industria id agit, ut ego in singulos menses, dii boni, quantis jucunditatibus orbarer ! quàm ex animo mihi dolendum est, quod

Medio de fonte leporum

Surgit amari aliquid. Salutem mehercule, nolo, tam parvipendas, atq; amicis tam improbè consulas : quanquam tute fortassis æstuas angusto limite mundi, viamq; (ut dicitur) affectas Olympo, nos tamen non esse tam sublimes, utpote qui hisce in sordibus et fæce diutius paululum versari volumus, reminiscendum est: illæ tuæ Musæ, si te ament modo, derelinqui paulisper non nimis ægrè patientur : indulge, amabo te, plusquam soles, corporis exercitationibus : magis te campus habeat, aprico magis te dedas otio, ut ne id ingenium quod tam cultum curas, diligenter nimis dum foves, officiosarum matrum ritu, interimas. Vide quæso, quam iatpikos tecum agimus,

ηδ' επιθήσω Φάρμαχ, ά κεν παύσησι μελαινάων οδυνάων. si de his pharmacis non satis liquet; sunt festivitat meræ, sunt facetiæ et risus; quos ego equidem si adhibere nequeo, tamen ad præcipiendum (ut medicorum fere mos est) certè satis sim; id, quod poeticè sub finem epistolæ lusisti, mihi gratissimum quidem accidit; admodum Latinè coctum et conditum tetrasticon, Græcam tamen illam apelelav mirificè sapit: tu quod restat, vide, sodes, hujusce hominis ignorantiam; cum, unde hoc

tibi sit depromptum, (ut fatear) prorsus nescio: sanè ego equidem nihil in capsis reperio quo tibi minimæ partis solutio fiat. Vale, et me ut soles, ama.

A.D. 11 Kalend. Februar.

my other

I ought to answer you in Latin, but I feel I dare not enter the lists with you-cupidum, pater optime, vires deficiunt. Seriously, you write in that language with a grace and an Augustan urbanity that amazes me: your Greek too is perfect in its kind. And here let me wonder that a man, longè Græcorum doctissimus, should be at a loss for the verse and chapter whence my epigram is taken. I am sorry I have not my Aldus with me, that I might satisfy your curiosity; but he, with all literary folks, are left at Oxford, and therefore you must still rest in suspense.

I thank you again and again for your medical prescription. I know very well that those “risus, festivitates, et facetiæe" would contribute greatly to my cure, but then you must be my apothecary as well as physician, and make up the dose as well as direct it: send me, therefore, an electuary of these drugs, made up secundùm artem, “et eris mihi magnus Apollo,” in both his capacities as a god of poets and god of physicians Wish me joy of leaving my college, and leave yours as fast as you can

I shall be settled at the Temple very

*BARBARAS ædes aditure mecum,
Quas Eris semper fovet inquieta,
Lis ubi latè sonat, et togatum

Æstuat agmen!
Dulcius quanto, patulis sub ulmi
Hospitæ ramis temerè jacentem,
Sic libris horas tenuiq; inertes

Fallere Musà !
Sæpe enim curis vagor expedita
Mente; dum, blandam meditans Camcnam,
Vix malo rori, meminive seræ

Cedere nocti;
Et, pedes quò ine rapiunt, in omni
Colle Parnassum videor videre
Fertilem sylvæ, gelidamq; in omni

Fonte Aganippen.
Risit et Ver me, facilesq; Nymphæ
Nare captantem, nec ineleganti,
Manè quicquid de violis eundo

Surripit aura :
Me reclinatum teneram per herbam;
Quà leves cursus aqua cunque ducit,
Et moras dulci strepitu lapillo

Nectit in omni.
Hæ novo nostrum ferè pectus anno
Simplices curæ tenuere, cælum
Quamdiù sudum explicuit Favonî

Purior hora :
Otia et campos nec adhuc relinquo,
Nec magis Phæbo Clytie fidelis ;
(Ingruant venti licet, et senescat

Mollior æstas.)
Namque, seu, lætos hominum labores
Prataq; et montes recreante curru,
Purpurà tractus oriens Ecos

Vestit, et auro;
Sedulus servo veneratus orbem
Prodigum splendoris : amæniori
Sive dilectam meditatur igne

Pingere Calpen;
Usque dum, fulgore magis magis jam
Languido circum, variata nubes
Labitur furtim, viridisq; in umbras

Scena recessit.

* I choose to call this delicate Sapphic Ode the first original production of Mr. Gray's muse ; for verses imposed either by schoolmasters or tutors ought not, I think, to be taken into the consideration. There is seldom a verse that flows well from the pen of a real poet if it does not flow voluntarily