solution and unconcernedness in the midst of evils. I fill up my paper with a loose sort of version of that scene Sept. 1738. *This Latin version is extremely elegiac, but as it is only a version I do not insert it. Mr. Gray did not begin to learn Italian till about a year and a half before he translated this scene; and I find amongst his papers an English translation of part of the 4th Canto of Tasso's Gerusalemma Liberata, done previously to this, which has great merit. In a letter to Mr. West, dated March, 1737, he says, "I learn Italian like any dragon, and in two months am got through the 16th book of Tasso, whom I hold in great admiration: I want you to learn too, that I may know your opi"nion of him; nothing can be easier than that language to any ። one who knows Latin and French already, and there are few so copious and expressive." In the same letter he tells him," that "his College has set him a versifying on a public occasion," (viz. "those verses which are called Tripus) on the theme of Luna est "habitabilis." The Poem, I believe, is to be found in the Musæ Etonenses. I would further observe, on this occasion, that though Mr. Gray had lately read and translated Statius, yet when he attempted composition, his judgment immediately directed him to the best model of versification; accordingly his hexameters are, as far as modern ones can be, after the manner of Virgil: They move in the succession of his pauses, and close with his elisions. LETTER XVIII. MR. WEST TO MR. GRAY. I Thank you again and again for your two last most agreeable letters. They could not have come more a-propos; I was without any books to divert me, and they supplied the want of every thing: I made them my classics in the Country, they were my Horace and Tibullus---Non ita loquor assentandi causâ ut probè nosti si me noris, verum quia sic mea est sententia. I am but just come to Town, and, to shew you my esteem of your favours, I venture to send you by the penny post, to your Father's, what you will find on the next page; I hope it will reach you soon after your arrival, your boxes out of the waggon, yourself out of the coach, and tutors out of your memory. Adieu, we shall see one another, I hope, to-morrow. ELEGIA. Quod mihi tam gratæ misisti dona Camænæ, Sicubi lympha fugit liquido pede, sive virentem, Et, noto ut jacui gramine, nota cano. Duræ etiam in sylvis agitant connubia plantæ, Sincero siquis pectore amare vetat : Non illi in manibus sanctum deponere pignus, Nescit amicitias, teneros qui nescit amores: Ah! si nulla Venus, nil mihi rura placent. Me licet a patriâ longè in tellure juberent Si vultus modo amatus adesset, non ego contra Nil cuperem præter posse placere mcæ; Nec bona fortunæ aspiciens, neq; munera regum, Sept. 17, 1738. Mr. Gray, on his return to Town, continued at his father's house in Cornhill till the March following, in which interval Mr. Walpole being disinclined to enter so early into the business of Parliament, prevailed on Sir Robert Walpole to permit him to go abroad, and on Mr. Gray (as was said before) to be the companion of his travels. Mr. West spent the greatest part of the winter with his mother and sister at Epsom, during which time a letter or two more passed between the two friends. But these I think it unnecessary to insert, as I have already given sufficient specimens of the blossoms of their Genius. The Reader of taste and candour will, I trust, consider them only as such; yet will be led to think that, as the one produced afterwards "fruits worthy of paradise," the other would also have produced them, had he lived to a more mature age. END OF THE FIRST SECTION. |