and, to give you a proof of it, I have sent you an elegy* of Tibullus translated. Tibullus, you must know, is my favourite elegiac poet; for his language is more elegant and his thoughts more natural than Ovid's. Ovid excels him only in wit, of which no poet had more in my opinion. The reason I choose so melancholy a kind of poesy, is because my low spirits and constant ill health (things in me not imaginary, as you surmise, but too real, alas! and I fear constitutional) "have tuned my heart to elegies of woe ;" and this likewise is the reason why I am the most irregular thing alive at college; for you may depend upon it, I value my health above what they call discipline. As for this poor unlicked thing of an elegy, pray criticise it unmercifully, for I send it with that intent. Indeed, your late translation of Statius might have deterred me, but I know you are not more able to excel others, than you are apt to forgive the want of excellence, especially when it is found in the productions of

Christ Church, Dec. 22, 1736.

Your most sincere friend.

vi.t

MR. GRAY TO MR. WALPOLE.

You can never weary me with the repetition of any thing that makes me sensible of your kindness; since that has been the only idea of any social happiness that I have almost ever received, and which (begging your pardon for thinking so differently from you in such

* This I omit for the reason given in a preceding note, and for another also, because it is not written in alternate but heroic rhyme; which I think is not the species of English measure adapted to elegiac poetry.

Mr. Walpole, on my informing him that it was my intention to publish the principal part of Mr. Gray's correspondence with Mr. West, very obligingly communicated to me the letters which he had also received from Mr. Gray at the same period. From this collection I have selected such as I thought would be most likely to please the generality of readers; omitting, though with regret, many of the more sprightly and humorous sort, because either from their personality, or some other local circumstance, they did not seem so well adapted to hit the public taste. I shall say more upon this subject in a subsequent Section, when I give my idea of Mr. Gray's peculiar vein of humour.

cases) I would by no means have parted with for an exemption from all the uneasiness mixed with it: but it would be unjust to imagine my taste was any rule for yours; for which reason my letters are shorter and less frequent than they would be, had I any materials but myself to entertain you with. Love and brown sugar must be a poor regale for one of your goût; and, alas ! you know I am by trade a grocer.* Scandal (if I had any) is a merchandize you do not profess dealing in ; now and then, indeed, and to oblige a friend, you may perhaps slip a little out of your pocket, as a decayed gentlewoman would a piece of right mecklin, or a little quantity of run tea, but this only now and then, not to make a practice of it. Monsters appertaining to this climate you have seen already, both wet and dry. So you perceive within how narrow bounds my pen is circumscribed, and the whole contents of my share in our correspondence may be reduced under the two heads of 1st, You; 2dly, I: the first is indeed a subject to expatiate upon, but you might laugh at me for talking about what I do not understand; the second is so tiny, so tiresome, that you shall hear no more of it than that it is ever, Yours.

Peterhouse, Dec. 23, 1736.

VII. MR. WEST TO MR. GRAY.

I HAVE been very ill, and am still hardly recovered. Do you remember Elegy 5th, Book the 3d, of Tibullus, Vos tenet, &c. and do you remember a letter of Mr. Pope's, in sickness, to Mr. Steele? This melancholy elegy and this melancholy letter, I turned into a more melancholy epistle of my own, during my sickness, in the way of imitation; and this I send to you and my friends at

* i. e. A man who deals only in coarse and ordinary wares: to these he com1 pares the plain sincerity of his own friendship, undisguised by flattery; which, had he chosen to carry on the allusion, he might have termed the trade of a confectioner.

Cambridge, not to divert them, for it cannot, but merely to shew them how sincere I was when sick: I hope my sending it to them now may convince them I am no less sincere, though perhaps more simple, when well.

AD AMICOS.*

Yes, happy youths, on Camus' sedgy side
You feel each joy that friendship can divide;
Each realm of science and of art explore,
And with the ancient blend the modern lore.
Studious alone to learn whate'er may tend
To raise the genius or the heart to mend :
Now pleas'd along the cloister'd walk you rove,
And trace the verdant mazes of the grove,
Where social oft, and oft alone, ye choose
To catch the zephyr and to court the muse.
Meantime at me (while all devoid of art
These lines give back the image of my heart)
At me the pow'r that comes or soon or late,
Or aims, or seems to aim, the dart of Fate:
From you remote, methinks alone I stand
Like some sad exile in a desert land;
Around no friends their lenient care to join

In mutual warmth, and mix their heart with mine.
Or real pains, or those which fancy raise,
For ever blot the sunshine of my days;
To sickness still, and still to grief a prey,
Health turns from me her rosy face away.

Just Heav'n! what sin, ere life begins to bloom,
Devotes my head untimely to the tomb :
Did e're this hand against a brother's life
Drug the dire bowl or point the murd'rous knife?
Did e'er this tongue the slanderer's tale proclaim,
Or madly violate my Maker's name?

Did e'er this heart betray a friend or foe,

Or know a thought but all the world might know?

As yet just started from the lists of time,

My growing years have scarcely told their prime;
Useless, as yet, through life I've idly run,
No pleasures tasted, and few duties done.

+Ah! who, ere autumn's mellowing suns appear,
Would pluck the promise of the vernal year:

Almost all Tibullus's elegy is imitated in this little piece, from whence his transition to Mr. Pope's letter is very artfully contrived, and bespeaks a degree of judgment much beyond Mr. West's years.

So the original.

+ Quid fraudare juvat vitem crescentibus uvis?

Et modo nata mala vellere poma manu?

The paraphrase seems to me infinitely more beautiful. There is a peculiar blemish in the second line, arising from the synonimes mala and poma.

Or, ere the grapes their purple hue betray,
Tear the crude cluster from the mourning spray.
Stern power of Fate, whose ebon sceptre rules
The Stygian deserts and Cimmerian pools,
Forbear, nor rashly smite my youthful heart,
A victim yet unworthy of thy dart;
Ah, stay till age shall blast my withering face,
Shake in my head, and falter in my pace;
Then aim the shaft, then meditate the blow,
*And to the dead my willing shade shall go.

How weak is man to Reason's judging eye!
Born in this moment, in the next we die;
Part mortal clay, and part ethereal fire,
Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire.
In vain our plans of happiness we raise,
Pain is our lot, and patience is our praise;
Wealth, lineage, honours, conquest, or a throne,
Are what the wise would fear to call their own.
Health is at best a vain precarious thing,
And fair-fac'd youth is ever on the wing;
+'Tis like the stream, beside whose wat❜ry bed
Some blooming plant exalts his flow'ry head,
Nurs'd by the wave the spreading branches rise,
Shade all the ground and flourish to the skies;
The waves the while beneath in secret flow,
And undermine the hollow bank below;
Wide and more wide the waters urge their way,
Bare all the roots and on their fibres prey.
Too late the plant bewails his foolish pride,
And sinks, untimely, in the whelming tide.
But why repine, does life deserve my sigh?
Few will lament my loss whene'er I die.
For those the wretches I despise or hate,

I neither envy nor regard their fate.

For me, whene'er all-conquering Death shall spread
His wings around my unrepining head,

§I care not; though this face be seen no more,
The world will pass as cheerful as before;

*Here he quits Tibullus, the ten following verses have but a remote reference to Mr. Pope's letter.

"Youth, at the very best, is but the betrayer of human life in a gentler and smoother manner than age; 'tis like the stream that nourishes a plant upon a bank, and causes it to flourish and blossom to the sight, but at the same time is undermining it at the root in secret." Pope's Works, vol. 7, page 254, 1st. edit. Warburton. Mr. West, by prolonging his paraphrase of this simile, gives it additional beauty from that very circumstance, but he ought to have introduced it by Mr. Pope's own thought, "Youth is a betrayer;" his couplet preceding the simile conveys too general a reflection.

+ "I am not at all uneasy at the thought that many men, whom I never had any esteem for, are likely to enjoy this world after me.' Vide ibid.

"The morning after my exit the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green:" so far Mr. West copies his original;

Bright as before the day-star will appear,
The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear;
Nor storms nor comets will my doom declare,
Nor signs on earth, nor portents in the air;
Unknown and silent will depart my breath,
Nor nature e'er take notice of my death.
Yet some there are (ere spent my vital days)
Within whose breasts my tomb I wish to raise.
Lov'd in my life, lamented in my end,

Their praise would crown me as their precepts mend
To them may these fond lines my name endear,
Not from the Poet, but the Friend sincere.

Christ Church, July 4, 1737.

VIII. MR. GRAY TO MR. WEST.

AFTER a month's expectation of you, and a fortnight's despair, at Cambridge, I am come to town, and to better hopes of seeing you. If what you sent me last be the product of your melancholy, what may I not expect from your more cheerful hours? For by this time the ill health that you complain of is (I hope) quite departed, though, if I were self-interested, I ought to wish for the continuance of any thing that could be the occasion of so much pleasure to me. Low spirits are my true and faithful companions; they get up with me, go to bed with me, make journeys and returns as I do; nay, and pay visits, and will even affect to be jocose, and force a feeble laugh with me; but most commonly we sit alone together, and are the prettiest insipid company in the world. However, when you come, I believe they must undergo the fate of all humble companions, and be discarded. Would I could turn them to the same use that you have done, and make an Apollo of them. If they could write such verses with me, not

but, instead of the following part of the sentence," People will laugh as heartily and marry as fast as they used to do," he inserts a more solemn idea,

Nor storms nor comets, &c.

justly perceiving that the elegiac turn of his epistle would not admit so ludicrous a thought, as it was in its place in Mr. Pope's familiar letter; so that we see, young as he was, he had obtained the art of judiciously selecting, one of the first provinces of good taste.