The Works of Thomas Gray Author:Thomas Gray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: made four-and-twenty steps more, I shall be just where I was; I may, better than most people, say my life is but a span, were I not afraid lest you should n... more »ot believe that a person so short-lived could write even so long a letter as this; in short, I believe I must not send you the history of my own time, till I can-send you that also of the reformation. However, as the most undeserving people in the world must sure have the vanity to wish somebody had a regard for them, so I need not wonder at my own, in being pleased that you care about me. You need not doubt, therefore, of having a first row in the front box of my little heart, and I believe you are not in danger of being crowded there; it is asking you to an old play, indeed, but you will be candid enough to excuse the whole piece for the sake of a few tolerable lines. Cambridge, May 8, 1736. III.—TO THE REV. GEORGE BIRKETT. October 8 [1736 ?]. Sir—As I shall stay only a fortnight longer in town, I'll beg you to give yourself the trouble of writing out my Bills, and sending 'em, that I may put myself out of your Debt, as soon as I come down: if Piazza1 should come to you, you'll be so good as to satisfie him: I protest, I forget what I owe him, but 1 Hieronimo Bartolomeo Piazza, a renegade Dominican friar, Gray's Italian master at Cambridge.—[Ed.] chapter{Section 4he is honest enough to tell you right. My father and mother desires me to send their compliments, and I beg you'd believe me,—Sr-, your most obedt. humble servt., T. Gray. IV.—TO RICHARD WEST. You must know that I do not take degrees, and, after this term, shall have nothing more of college impertinences to undergo,1 which I trust will be some pleasure to you, as it is a great one to me. I have endured lectures daily and hourly since I ca...« less