Contents: Transcript in an unidentified hand, entitled "Stanza written in a Country Church-Yard", together with a letter from Paget Toynbee suggesting it was a pre-publication transcript that had circulated (lot 46 from an unidentified sale; unknown relationship to Sotheby's sale [15 December 1930], lot 453, sold to Dobell: 2-page transcript with same title).
Related Material: Houghton MS Eng 116.1-8 contain Gray autographs and copies of manuscripts written by or concerning Thomas Gray. Houghton b MS Eng 116.6 (Papers on Thomas Gray) contains photostatic copies of commonplace books, journals, notes, travel notebooks, poems, and other materials chiefly from Pembroke College (Cambridge) and the Pierpont Morgan Library.
Contents: Transcript of the poem, partial, beginning "Approach and read, for thou canst read, the lay", in the hand of "Richard Harris Barham" (also known as Thomas Ingoldsby), in his Commonplace Book (1803-1808), containing poems, paraphrases, epigrams, and conundrums in English, Latin, Greek, and French (62 leaves, 21 cm.), f. 46v.
Contents: Transcript of the poem, in an unidentified hand, from the Egerton MS 2400.
Related Material: In the same file there is another transcript of the poem, from the Fraser MS, in the hand of the donor of the two items James Freeman Clarke.
Alternate Form:
Photocopy in RP2338, Manuscripts Collection, The British Library, London, UK
References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 85, 87; Sutton (ed.), Location Register (1995), 414; Munby (ed.), Sale Catalogues (1971), Evans sale (27-29 November 1845), lot 603(?), 9; Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 19 March 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=36724>
Contents: Autograph fair copy (unsigned), here entitled "Ode, for musick", lot 125 in an unidentified sale.
Summary: Written at Stoke Pogesc. August 1742 during one of Gray's most productive periods. First published, anonymously, as a folio pamphlet by Dodsley, 30 May 1747.
Contents: Transcript of the poem, partial, beginning "Say [i.e. Gay] hope is theirs by fancy led", in the hand of William Pitter Woodhouse, in his Commonplace book of verse and prose by various authors, July-August 1827, vol. i (82 leaves), f. 17.
Contents: Transcript of the poem in the hand of Melesinda Munbee in her autograph Commonplace book (1749-1750), signed, containing poetry in the form of odes, epitaphs, and riddles.
Summary: Written probably in 1754 or 1755. First printed privately in 1774. First published, in two versions, among the notes to the poems, entitled "Ode, On the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude", and as "Ode" in Mason'sMemoirs (1775), 78-81 (with Mason's additions) and 236-237 (ll. 1-48 only) respectively.
Contents: Transcript of the poem, partial, beginning "The common sun, the air, the skies", in the Amy LowellCollection of Manuscripts of literary and musical figures, collected by American poet Amy Lowell.
"On L[or]d H[olland']s Seat near M[argat]e, K[en]t"
Summary: Written while on a visit to William Robinson in Denton, Kent, in June 1768. First published, anonymously without Gray's consent, as "Inscription for the Villa of a decay'd Satesman [sic] on the Sea-Coast", in The New Foundling Hospital for Wit (London, 1769) iii. 34-35.
References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), 89; Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 19 March 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=55640> (no author attribution)
Contents: Transcript of the poem in Charlotte Anne Hester Burney's (who became Mrs. Francis, and afterwards married Ralph Broome) verse Commonplace book (1771-1806), 116-118.
References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 179-185 (with English prose translation); Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 337-342 (with English prose translation)
Summary: Begun not earlier than 1759, the year Gray bought his copy of Linnaeus, but possibly only in the last years of his life. The additional lines were presumably abandoned due to his last illness in 1771. First published, as Generick Characters of the Orders of Insects, and of the Genera of the first six Orders, named Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Lepidoptera, Neuroptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera; expressed in Technical Verses, in Mathias (ed.), Works (1814), vol. II, 570-573. Additional lines ("Palpos ore duos, triplexque Lepisma flagellum") first published in Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 185.
References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 110, 90, in an interleaved copy of Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, 10th rev. ed. (Holmiae, 1758-59), item GrT 334, 113
Contents: Autograph fair copy, untitled, in an interleaved copy of Linnaeus, Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum charateribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis ..., 10th rev. ed. (Holmiae, 1758-59).
Summary: Begun not earlier than September 1751 and completed by December 1754 when Gray sent the poem in a letter to Thomas Wharton, dated 26 December 1754. First published, as "Ode." in Odes by Mr. Gray (1757), 5.
Contents: Transcript of the poem, partial, beginning "Thoughts that breathe and words that burn", in the hand of William Pitter Woodhouse, in his Commonplace book of verse and prose by various authors, July-August 1827, vol. i (82 leaves), f. 80v.
Contents: Transcript of the poem, partial, beginning "Enough for me, if to some feeling breast", in the hand of William Pitter Woodhouse, in his Commonplace book of verse and prose by various authors, July-August 1827, vol. i (82 leaves), f. 67.