00000018.htm



	[INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. rlesign in gathering these Papers has been In the first place they are the records of sable and interesting friendship. The four otxds Gray, Walpole, West and Ashton, known schoolfellows as the Quadruple Alliance, are iglrt together once more. It has not indeed ssifol© to reproduce their correspondence in something has now been added to the ma- hdeli are extant elsewhere in a printed form, e present volume is in some respects a supple- na/ve tried to give this part of it the interest itin coherence. Of Gray and Walpole I have fxxll nothing but what is new to the world, ©Ingle exception of a Latin letter from Gray which, published by Mitford with the wrong ^c 3VCr West to Mr Gray', has been omitted by £ altogether. With this and another excep- tcl later on¹, whatever of theirs has been seen