To HORACE WALPOLE

The fate of Selima

Cambridge, 1 March, 1747.

As one ought to be particularly careful to avoid blunders in a compliment of condolence, it would be a sensible satisfaction to me (before I testify my sorrow, and the sincere part I take in your misfortune) to know for certain, who it is that I lament.  I knew Zara and Selima (Selima, was it? or Fatima?) or rather I knew both of them together; for I cannot justly say which was which.  Then as to your handsome Cat, the name you distinguished her by, I am no less at a loss, as well knowing one’s handsome cat is always the cat one likes best; or if one be alive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is the handsomest.  Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you do not think me so ill-bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all my interest in the survivor; Oh no!  I would rather seem to mistake, and to be sure it must be the tabby one that had met with this sad accident.  Till this affair is a little better determined, you will excuse me if I do not begin to cry: 

  Tempus inane peto, requiem, spatiumque doloris.

Which interval is the more convenient, as it gives time to rejoice with you on your new honours.  This is only a beginning; I reckon next week we shall hear you are a free-Mason, or a Gormorgon at least.  Heigh ho!  I feel (as you to be sure have done long since) that I have very little to say, at least in prose.  Somebody will be the better for it; I do not mean you, but your Cat, feue Mademoiselle Selime, whom I am about to immortalize for one week or fortnight, as follows.

...  There’s a poem for you, it is rather too long for an Epitaph.

TO THE SAME

Publication of the Elegy

Cambridge, 11 Feb. 1751.

As you have brought me into a little sort of distress, you must assist me, I believe, to get out of it as well as I can.  Yesterday I had the misfortune of receiving a letter from certain gentlemen (as their bookseller expresses it), who have taken the Magazine of Magazines into their hands.  They tell me that an ingenious poem, called Reflections in a Country Churchyard, has been communicated to them, which they are printing forthwith; that they are informed that the excellent author of it is I by name, and that they beg not only his indulgence, but the honour of his correspondence, &c.  As I am not at all disposed to be either so indulgent, or so correspondent, as they desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me; and, therefore, am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week’s time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character; he must