William Mason to James Beattie from Aston Received packet of letters safe and will return them when he has used them. Does not find either the 'Ode on Lord Hay's Birthday' or the other stanzas ['The Hermit'] in the edition of Beattie's poems printed by Johnson in 1766 [Poems on Several Subjects]. Mason might refer to them, though he does not intend to print any of Gray's particular criticism. The stanzas are excellent as far as they go but do not go far enough, and should introduce doctrine of the soul's immortality. There are not comments by Gray in the printed copy of the first book [of The Minstrel] which did not appear in his letter 15 November 1773