Gray, Thomas.

playfully accusing him of forgetting King's College Cambridge ("...the poor little tenement in which you have so long lodged...") in favour of career ambitions ("...some fine Castle in the Air...") and life in Mayfair, demanding news and gossip from London, and informing him of the movements of mutual friends ("...[Horace] Walpole is gone to Stamford..."), 2 pages, 4to, integral address leaf ("To M^{r Ashton at the Honble Mrs Lewis's in Hanover-Square London") with a fine black wax seal impression, Cambridge, 30 June [1738],  address leaf torn, slight splits along fold marks}

Miss Avril Wood, sold in these rooms, 21 July 1981, lot 500; Albin Schram, the sale of his collection, Christie's, London, 3 July 2007, lot 72

The Correspondence of Thomas Gray, ed. P. Toynbee and L. Whibley, 2 vols (Oxford, 1971), no. 53

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

"...to be sure you must meet daily with little particulars enough to fill a letter & I should be pleased with the most minute. Has Mrs L[ewis] a pimple upon her nose? does her woman love Citron water? &c:..."

A teasing letter - the quotation above paraphrases The Rape of the Lock - to an intimate friend. Gray writes during his final year at Peterhouse when Ashton was working as a tutor to an aristocratic family and living at a fashionable address in London. Gray's comments on Cambridge life are familiar to all who know the town ("...all is at present mightily well, that is, just as you remember it..."), and when Ashton had presumed to give Gray advice in an earlier letter, he here gains the lively response that it was counsel that "you did not think proper to make use of in like circumstances yourself". When he comes to his friend's life in London Gray wonders - with more than a whiff of sarcasm - whether his friend has seen the King's mistress, was at the recent christening of the future George III, or knows if the Princess of Wales is pregnant. His questions about Ashton's tutorial duties ("...have you wrote e'er a Critique on the Accidence? is Despauterius or Linacer most in your favour?...") are similarly ironic, referring to basic text-books far beneath the dignity of men who could write fluent Latin verse. This is the jocular familiarity of close friendship: the two men, together with Horace Walpole and Richard West, had been friends since Eton, where they formed the self-styled "quadruple alliance". This is the earliest recorded letter from Gray to Ashton.