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INTBODUCTORY ESSA.Y. 9

clandestinely opened a letter, and resealed it, which.
Mr Gray with great propriety, resented."

I confess that I doubt whether Walpole ever
opened Gray's letter and sealed it up again, although
Mr Roberts of the Pell-ofEce was 'likely to be well-
informed', as Mr Isaac Keed assures us. I do ngt
know how old Mr Boberts of the Pell-office was in
1799, but he told this story 58 years after the thing,
whatever it was, happened, and before the original
account reached his ears it must of necessity have
been transmitted through a great number of persons,
possibly at considerable intervals of time, and, it may
be suspected, with the usual improvements and
additions. What is certain is, that Ashton had
something to do with the quarrel¹, and from the
reference above ' I found he was to be angry about
the letter I had wrote him', we may guess that some-
thing Gray wrote to Ashton about Walpole, either
caused or increased the rupture. Gray's feeling about
Ashton remained practically unabated, and he con-
tinues in every notice of him subsequently (except in
writing to Walpole) to speak of him with irony or
contempt. There was indeed one moment of rap-
prochement, caused by the death of West (see infr. Sect.
II let. 42), and I do not find that Gray ever took the

¹ As Mitford I find remarks in his second life of Grayj
drawing the same inference from the Wharton correspondence.



	INTBODUCTORY ESSA.Y. 9 clandestinely opened a letter, and resealed it, which. Mr Gray with great propriety, resented." I confess that I doubt whether Walpole ever opened Gray's letter and sealed it up again, although Mr Roberts of the Pell-ofEce was 'likely to be well- informed', as Mr Isaac Keed assures us. I do ngt know how old Mr Boberts of the Pell-office was in 1799, but he told this story 58 years after the thing, whatever it was, happened, and before the original account reached his ears it must of necessity have been transmitted through a great number of persons, possibly at considerable intervals of time, and, it may be suspected, with the usual improvements and additions. What is certain is, that Ashton had something to do with the quarrel¹, and from the reference above ' I found he was to be angry about the letter I had wrote him', we may guess that some- thing Gray wrote to Ashton about Walpole, either caused or increased the rupture. Gray's feeling about Ashton remained practically unabated, and he con- tinues in every notice of him subsequently (except in writing to Walpole) to speak of him with irony or contempt. There was indeed one moment of rap- prochement, caused by the death of West (see infr. Sect. II let. 42), and I do not find that Gray ever took the

	¹ As Mitford I find remarks in his second life of Grayj drawing the same inference from the Wharton correspondence.