Page:Poetical works (IA poeticalworks00grayrich).pdf/22

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
x
LIFE OF GRAY.

ment and prudence. In the Walpoliana (vol. i. p. 95, art. cx.) is the following passage: "The quarrel between Gray and me arose from his being too serious a companion. I had just broke loose from the restraint of the University, with as much money as I could spend; and I was willing to indulge myself. Gray was for antiquities, &c.; whilst I was for perpetual balls and plays;—the fault was mine." Perhaps the freedom of friendship spoke too openly to please: for in a letter from Walpole to Mr. Bentley, some years afterwards, he says: "I was accustomed to flattery enough when my father was minister: at his fall I lost it all at once and since that I have lived with Mr. Chute, who is all vehemence; with Mr. Fox, who is all disputation; with Sir C. Williams, who has no time from flattery, himself; and with Gray, who does not hate to find fault with me."[1] Whatever was the cause of this quarrel, it must have been very serious, if the information is correct which is given in the manuscript of the Rev. W. Cole, a person who appears to have lived in terms of intimacy with

  1. ↑ See Walpole's Works, vol. v. p. 334. In a letter from Gray to Walpole in 1751, is a sentence which seems to point towards this quarrel: "It is a tenet with me, (he says)—a simple one, you will perhaps say,—that if ever two people who love one another come to breaking, it is for want of a timely eclaircissement, a full and precise one, without witnesses or mediators, and without reserving one disagreeable circumstance for the mind to brood upon in silence." See Walpole's Works, vol. v. p. 389.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.