the difference lying almost wholly in the subjects and in
the methods and circumstances of treatment. Gray belongs to
this last division. There is not, of course, in his letters
the same severity of discipline and restriction of
utterance, that we find in his poems. But that, in letters,
was impossible--at least in letters that should supply
tolerable reading. Yet the same general principle, which was
somewhat exaggerated in the phrase about his "never speaking
out," appears in them. There is always a certain restraint
(at least in all that have been published) and it would
probably have extended in proportion to others, however
little their subject might seem compatible with it. In what
we have it gives a curious _seasoning_--something which
preserves as well as flavours like salt or vinegar. Of those
which follow the first is an early one. Mason's apologetic
note is to the effect that it "may appear whimsical" but it
gives him an opportunity of remarking that Mr. Gray was
"extremely skilled in the customs of the ancient Romans,"
both utterances being characteristic, to some extent of the
time but to a greater of the writer. The second letter, to
Gray's most intimate friend Dr. Wharton, and more than a
quarter of a century later, is a good example of the
_variety_ of these epistles--scenery, literature, politics,
science, gossip and what not, being all dealt with.

20. TO RICHARD WEST [EXTRACT]

ROME, May, 1740.

I am to-day just returned from Alba, a good deal fatigued; for you know
the Appian is somewhat tiresome. We dined at Pompey's; he indeed was
gone for a few days to his Tusculan, but, by the care of his Villicus,
we made an admirable meal. We had the dugs of a pregnant sow, a peacock,
a dish of thrushes, a noble scarus just fresh from the Tyrrhene, and
some conchylia of the Lake with garum sauce: For my part I never eat
better at Lucullus's table. We drank half-a-dozen cyathi a-piece of
ancient Alban to Pholoe's health; and after bathing, and playing an hour
at ball, we mounted our essedum again, and proceeded up the mount to the
temple. The priests there entertained us with an account of a wonderful
shower of bird's eggs that had fallen two days before, which had no
sooner touched the ground, but they were converted into gudgeons; as
also that, the night past, a dreadful voice had been hea