Richard West to Thomas Gray, May 11, 1742:
Your fragment is in Aulus Gellius; and both it and your Greek delicious. But why are you thus melancholy? I am so sorry for it, that you see I cannot forbear writing again the very first opportunity; though I have little to say except to expostulate with you about it. I find you converse much with the dead, and I do not blame you for that; I converse with them too, though not indeed with the Greek. But I must condemn you for your longing to be with them. What, are there no joys among the living? I could almost cry out with Catullus, “Alphene immemor, atque unanimis false sodalibus!” But to turn an accusation thus upon another, is ungenerous; so I will take my leave of you for the present with a “Vale et vive paulisper cum vivis.”
