GRAY'S LETTERS.

GRAY'S LETTERS.

SECTION THE FIRST.

I.

MR. WEST TO MR. GRAY.

You use me very cruelly: you have sent me but one letter since I have been at Oxford, and that too agreeable not to make me sensible how great my loss is in not having more. Next to seeing you is the pleasure of seeing your hand-writing; next to hearing you is the pleasure of hearing from you. Really and sincerely I wonder at you, that you thought it not worth while to answer my last letter. I hope this will have better success in behalf of your quondam school-fellow; in behalf of one who has walked hand in hand with you, like the two children in the wood,

Thro' many a flow'ry path and shelly grot,
Where learning lull'd us in her private* maze.

The very thought, you see, tips my pen with poetry, and brings Eton to my view. Consider

* This expression prettily distinguishes their studies when out of the public school, which would naturally, at their age, be vague and desultory.—Mason.

me very seriously here in a strange country, inhabited by things that call themselves Doctors and Masters of Arts; a country flowing with syllogisms and ale, where Horace and Virgil are equally unknown; consider me, I say, in this melancholy light, and then think if something be not due to yours.

Christ Church, Nov. 14, 1735.

P.S. I desire you will send me soon, and truly and positively, a history of your own time.

II. MR. GRAY. TO MR. WEST.

PERMIT me again to write to you, though I have so long neglected my duty, and forgive my brevity, when I tell you it is occasioned wholly by the hurry I am in to get to a place where I expect to meet with no other pleasure than the sight of you; for I am preparing for London in a few days at furthest. I do not wonder in the least at your frequent blaming my indolence, it ought rather to be called ingratitude, and I am obliged to your goodness for softening so harsh an appellation. When we meet it will, however, be my greatest of pleasures to know what you do, what you read, and how you spend your time, &c. &c. and to tell you what I do not read, and how I do

* Alluding to his grandfather, Bishop Burnet's history.