A letter from Thomas Gray to William Mason, Dec.19 1757, Gray having
rejected the offer of the laureateship (probably 4 days earlier) made by
the Duke of Devonshire (then Lord Chamberlain) through his brother, Lord
John Cavendish:
Dear Mason
Tho' I very well know the bland emollient saponaceous qualities both of
Sack and Silver, yet if any great Man would say to me, 'I make you
Rat-Catcher to his Majesty with a salary of 300£ a-year & two Butts of the
best Malaga; and tho' it has been useful to catch a mouse or two (for
form's sake) in publick once a year, yet to You, Sr, we shall not stand
upon these things'. I can not say, I should jump at it. nay, if they
would drop the very name of the Office, & call me Sinecure to the Kg's
majesty I should still feel a little awkward, & think every body, I saw,
smelt a Rat about me: but I do not pretend to blame any one else, that has
not the same sensations. for my part I would rather be
Serjeant-Trumpeter, or Pin-Maker to the Palace. nevertheless I interest
myself a little in the History of it, & rather wish somebody may accept
it, that will retrieve the credit of the thing, if it be retrievable, or
ever had any credit [William Whitehead was appointed on this day, 19th
Dec.]. Rowe was, I think, the last Man of character that had it. as to
Settle, whom you mention, he belong'd to my Ld Mayor, not to the King.
Eusden was a Person of great hopes in his youth, tho' at last he turned
out a drunken Parson. Dryden was as disgraceful to the Office from his
character, as the poorest Scribler could have been from his verses. In
short the office itself has always humbled the Possessor hitherto (even in
an age, when Kings were somebody) if he were a poor Writer by making him
more conspicuous, and if he were a good one, by setting him at war with
the little fry of his own profession, for there are poets little enough to
envy even a Poet-Laureat.
[...]
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