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xvi

LIFE OF GRAY.

his 'Ode to Spring,' which was written there, but which did not arrive in Hertfordshire till after the death of his beloved friend.^[1] West died only twenty days after he had written the Letter to Gray, which concludes with "Vale, et vive paulisper cum vivis." So little (says Mr. Mason) was the amiable youth then aware of the short time that he himself would be numbered amongst the living.

I shall here insert a very correct and judicious criticism, on a censure made by Johnson of an expression in Gray's Ode to Spring, by the late

↑ West was buried in the chancel of Hatfield church, beneath a stone, with the following epitaph: Here lieth the body of Richard West, esq. only son of the right honourable Richard West, esq. lord chancellor of Ireland, who died the 1st of June, 1742, in the 26th year of his age." West's poems have never been fully collected. There is one, 'An Ode to Mary Magdalene,' in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 419: another in Dalrymple's Songs, p. 142. In the European Magazine for January, 1798, p. 45, is a poem said to be written by him, called 'Damon to Philomel;' and a Copy of Verses on his Death, supposed to be written by his uncle, Judge Burnet. In Walpole's Works, vol. i. p. 204, is a well known epigram which was written by West, 'Time and Thomas Hearne,' which was printed by Mr. Walpole in a paper intended for the 'World,' but not sent, and which is commonly attributed to Swift. It appears also, that part of the tragedy of Pausanias is extant in MS. See the editor's note in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 458; also his translation of Tibullus. See Mason's Gray, vol. i. p 22. The collection of his poems by Dr. Anderson, in the edition of the British Poets, is very incomplete and Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in his subsequent edition, has omitted them entirely.

[1] West was buried in the chancel of Hatfield church, beneath a stone, with the following epitaph: Here lieth the body of Richard West, esq. only son of the right honourable Richard West, esq. lord chancellor of Ireland, who died the 1st of June, 1742, in the 26th year of his age." West's poems have never been fully collected. There is one, 'An Ode to Mary Magdalene,' in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 419: another in Dalrymple's Songs, p. 142. In the European Magazine for January, 1798, p. 45, is a poem said to be written by him, called 'Damon to Philomel;' and a Copy of Verses on his Death, supposed to be written by his uncle, Judge Burnet. In Walpole's Works, vol. i. p. 204, is a well known epigram which was written by West, 'Time and Thomas Hearne,' which was printed by Mr. Walpole in a paper intended for the 'World,' but not sent, and which is commonly attributed to Swift. It appears also, that part of the tragedy of Pausanias is extant in MS. See the editor's note in Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 458; also his translation of Tibullus. See Mason's Gray, vol. i. p 22. The collection of his poems by Dr. Anderson, in the edition of the British Poets, is very incomplete and Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in his subsequent edition, has omitted them entirely.

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