I am excessively shocked at reading in the papers that Mr. Gray is
dead! I wish to God you may be able to tell me it is not true! Yet
in this painful uncertainty I must rest some days! None of my
acquaintance are in London. I do not know to whom to apply but to you.
Alas! I fear in vain! Too many circumstances speak it true! the detail
is exact;--a second paper arrived by the same post, and does not
contradict it--and what is worse, I saw him but four or five
days before I came hither; he had been to Kensington for the air,
complained of gout flying about him, of sensations of it in his
stomach, and indeed, thought him changed, and that he looked
ill--still I had not the least idea of his being in danger.--I started
up from my chair, when I read the paragraph--a cannon-ball could
not have surprised me more! The shock but ceased, to give way to my
concern; and my hopes are too ill founded to mitigate it. If nobody
has the charity to write to me, my anxiety must continue till the end
of the month, for I shall set out on my return on the 26th; and unless
you receive this time enough for your answer to leave London on the
20th, in the evening, I cannot meet it, till I find it in Arlington
Street, whither I beg you to direct it.
If the event is but too true, pray add to this melancholy service,
that of telling me any circumstances you know of his death. Our long,
very long friendship, and his genius, must endear to me everything
that relates to him. 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.