What writings has he left? Who are his executors?
I should earnestly wish, if he has destined anything to the public,
to print it at my press--it would do me honour, and would give me an
opportunity of expressing what I feel for him. Methinks, as we grow
old, our only business here is to adorn the graves of our friends, or
to dig our own.
To THE REV. WILLIAM MASON
_The quarrel with Gray_
2 _March_, 1773.
What shall I say? How shall I thank you for the kind manner in which
you submit your papers to my correction? But if you are friendly, I
must be just. I am so far from being dissatisfied, that I must beg to
shorten your pen, and in that respect only would I wish, with regard
to myself, to alter your text. I am conscious that in the beginning of
the differences between Gray and me, the fault was mine. I was
young, too fond of my own diversions; nay, I do not doubt, too much
intoxicated by indulgence, vanity, and the insolence of my situation,
as a prime minister's son, not to have been inattentive to the
feelings of one, I blush to say it, that I knew was obliged to me;
of one, whom presumption and folly made me deem not very superior
in parts, though I have since felt my infinite inferiority to him.
I treated him insolently. He loved me, and I did not think he did. I
reproached him with the difference between us, when he acted from the
conviction of knowing that he was my superior. I often disregarded
his wish of seeing places, which I would not quit my own amusements to
visit, though I offered to send him thither without me.
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