Immediately after writing the preceding letter, Mr. Gray went upon a visit to his relations at Stoke; where he writ that beautiful little ole which stands first in his collection of poems. He sent it as soon as writen to his beloved friend; but he was dead before it reached Hertfordshire. He died only twenty-days after he had written the letter to Mr. Gray, which concluded with "Vale, et vive paulisper cum vivis."

LIX.

TO DR. WHARTON.*

Cambridge, Dec. 27, 1742.

I OUGHT to have returned you my thanks a long time ago, for the pleasure, I should say prodigy, of your letter; for such a thing has not happened above twice within this last age to mortal man, and no one here can conceive what it may portend. You have heard, suppose, how I have been employed a part of the time; how, by my own indefatigable application for these ten years past, and by the care and vigilance of that worthy magis

I

* Of Old-Park, near Durham. With this gentleman Mr. Gray contracted an acquaintance very early and though they were not educated at Eton. yet afterwards at Cambridge, when the doctor was fellow of Pembroke-Hall, they became intimate friends, and continued so to the time of Mr. Gray's death.

trate the man in blue,* (who, I assure you, has not spared his labour, nor could have done more for his own son) I am got half way to the top of jurisprudence,† and bid as fair as another body to open a case of impotency with all decency and circumspection. You see my ambition, I do not doubt but some thirty years hence I shall convince the world and you that I am a very pretty young fellow; and may come to shine in a profession, perhaps the noblest of all, except man-midwifery. As for you, if your distemper and you can but agree about going to London, I may reasonably expect in a much shorter time to see you in your three-cornered villa, doing the honours of a well-furnished table with as much dignity, as rich a mien, and as capacious a belly, as Dr. Mead. Methinks I see Dr. **, at the lower end of it, lost in admiration of your goodly person and parts, cramming down his envy (for it will rise) with the wing of a pheasant, and drowning it in neat Burgundy. But not to tempt your asthma too much with such a prospect, I should think you might be almost as happy and as

A servant of the vice-chancellor's for the time being, usually known by the name of Blue Coat, whose business it is to attend acts for degrees, &c

ti. e. Bachelor of civil law.

great as this even in the country. But you know best, and I should be sorry to say any thing that might stop you in the career of glory; far be it from me to hamper the wheels of your gilded chariot. Go on, sir Thomas; and when you die, (for even physicians must die) may the faculty in Warwick lane erect your statue in the very niche of sir John Cutler's.

I was going to tell you how sorry I am for your illness, but I hope it is too late now: I can only say that I really was very sorry. May you live a hundred Christmasses, and eat as many collars of brawn stuck with rosemary. Adieu, &c.

LX.

TO DR. WHARTON.

Peterhouse, April 26, 1744.

You write so feelingly to Mr. Brown, and represent your abandoned condition in terms so touching, that what gratitude could not effect in several months, compassion has brought about in a few days; and broke that strong attachment, or rather allegiance, which I and all here owe to our sovereign

lady and mistress, the president of presidents and head of heads, (if I may be permitted to pronounce her name, that ineffable Octogrammaton) the power of Laziness. You must know she had been pleased to appoint me (in preference to so many old servants of hers who had spent their whole lives in qualifying themselves for the office) grand picker of straws and push-pin player to her supinity, (for that is her title). The first is much in the nature of lord president of the council; and the other like the groom-porter, only without the profit; but as they are both things of very great honour in this country, I consider with myself the load of envy attending such great charges; and besides (between you and me) I found myself unable to support the fatigue of keeping up the appearance that persons of such dignity must do; so I thought proper to decline it, and excused myself as well as I could. However, as you see such an affair must take up a good deal of time, and it has always been the policy of this court to proceed slowly, like the Imperial and that of Spain, in the dispatch of business, you will on this account the easier forgive me, if I have not answered you letter before.

You desire to know, it seems, what character the poem of your young friend bears here.* I wonder that you ask the opinion of a nation, where those, who pretend to judge, do not judge at all; and the rest (the wiser part) wait to catch the judgment of the world immediately above them; that is, Dick's and the rainbow Coffee-houses. Your readier way would be to ask the ladies that keep the bars in those two theatres of criticism. However, to show you that I am a judge, as well as my countrymen, I will tell you, though I have rather turned it over than read it (but no matter; no more have they), that it seems to me above the middling; and now and then, for a little while, rises even to the best, particularly in description. It is often obscure, and even unintelligible; and too much infected with the Hutchinson jargon. In short, its great fault is, that it was published at least nine years too early. And so methinks in a few words, "à la mode du Temple," I have very pert

Pleasures of the Imagination:-From the posthumous publication of Dr. Akenside's Poems, it should seem that the author had very much the same opinion afterwards of his own work, which Mr. Gray here expresses: since he undertook a reform of it, which must have given him, had he concluded it, as much trouble as if he had written it entirely new.