The thought of having the head engraved was entirely Dodsley’s own, and against my opinion, as I concluded it would be against yours; which made me determine to acquaint you with it before its appearance.

When you reflect on what I have said now, you will see very clearly, that I had and could have no other possible meaning in what I wrote last.  You might justly have accused me of neglect, if I had deferred giving you all the satisfaction in my powers, as soon as ever I knew your uneasiness.

The head I give up.(367) The title I think will be wrong, and not answer your purpose; for, as the drawings are evidently calculated for the poems, how will the improper disposition of the word designs before poems make the edition less yours?  I am as little convinced that there is any affectation in leaving out the Mr. before your names:  it is a barbarous addition:  the other is simple and classic; a rank I cannot help thinking due to both the poet and painter.  Without ranging myself among classics, I assure you, were I to print any thing with my name, it should be plain Horace Walpole:  Mr. is one of the Gothicisms I abominate.  The explanation(368) was certainly added for people who have not eyes:—­such are-almost all who have seen Mr. Bentley’s drawings, and think to compliment him by mistaking them for prints.  Alas! the generality want as much to have the words “a man,” “a cock,” written under his drawings, as under the most execrable hieroglyphics of Egypt, or of signpost painters.

I will say no more now, but that you must not wonder if I am partial to you and yours, when you can write as you do and yet feel so little vanity.  I have used freedom enough with your writings to convince you I speak truth:  I praise and scold Mr. Bentley immoderately, as I think he draws well or ill:  I never think it worth my while to do either, especially to blame, where there are not generally vast excellencies.  Good night!  Don’t suspect me when I have no fault but impatience to make you easy.

(366) This was a print of Mr. Gray, after the portrait of him by Eckardt.  It was intended to have been prefixed to Dodsley’s quarto edition of the Odes with Mr. Bentley’s designs but Mr. Gray’s extreme repugnance to the proposal obliged his friends to drop it.

(367) In a letter to Walpole, written from Stoke, in January, on receiving a proof of the head, Gray had said, “Sure you are not out of your wits!  This I know, if you suffer my head to be printed, you will put me out of mine.  I conjure you immediately to put a stop to any such design.  Who is at the expense of engraving it, I know not; but if it be Dodsley, I will make up the loss to him.  The thing as it was, I know, will make me ridiculous enough:  but to appear in proper person, at the head of my works, consisting Of half a dozen ballads in thirty pages, would be worse than the pillory.  I do assure you, if I had received such a book, with such a frontispiece, without any warning, I do believe it would have given me the palsy.”  Works, vol. iii. p. 106.-E.