"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"

• Archive Work ID: poems.odec
• Uniform Title: "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" [e-text]
• First Line: Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
• Language: English
• First Published: 1747
• References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 7-10; Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 54-63
• Summary: Written at Stoke Poges c. August 1742 during one of Gray's most productive periods. First published, anonymously, as a folio pamphlet by Dodsley, 30 May 1747.

11 Manuscripts:

• • Archive MS ID: mss.0103 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "Ode, on a Prospect of Windsor, & the adjacent Country"
  • Date: 1743
  • Physical Description: 3 pages; autograph fair copy
  • Language: English
  • Location: MS 281B, College Library, Eton College, Windsor, UK <http://www.etoncollege.com/collegelibrary.aspx>
  • Alternate Form: Facsimile in Illustrated London News 132 (20 June 1908), 896
  • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 88, 87; Sutton (ed.), Location Register (1995), 414
  • Contents: Autograph fair copy, here entitled "Ode, on a Prospect of Windsor, & the adjacent Country, in 1743".
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0104 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "Ode. on a distant Prospect of Windsor, & the adjacent Country"
  • Date: August 1742
  • Physical Description: 3 pages; autograph fair copy, revised
  • Language: English
  • Location: Commonplace Book, Vol. I, 278-279, 284, College Library, Pembroke College, Cambridge, Cambridge, UK <http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/>
  • Alternate Form: Microfilm copy available in Poetic Commonplace Books and Manuscripts of Thomas Gray, 1716-1771, from Pembroke College, Cambridge (1999), reel one
  • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 89, 87; Poetic C. B., Pembroke College (1999), 24-25; Sutton (ed.), Location Register (1995), 414
  • Contents: Autograph fair copy, revised, here entitled "Ode. on a distant Prospect of Windsor, & the adjacent Country" and dated "at Stoke Aug: 1742", in Gray's Commonplace Book, vol I, 278-279 and continued on p. 284.
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0105 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: [untitled]
  • Date: [1?] February 1768
  • Physical Description: 1 page, 324 mm x 200 mm; autograph, partial [motto and notes only]
  • Language: English
  • Location: Add. MS 38511, f. 3r, Manuscripts Collection, British Library, London, UK <http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/bldept/manuscr/>
  • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 90, 88; Sutton (ed.), Location Register (1995), 414
  • Contents: Autograph of the motto and notes to the poem, untitled but numbered 3. and identified on f. 3r as "3. Ode, on a distant prospect of Eton-College", in MS instructions to Dodsley for the 1768 London edition, sent in a letter, [1?] February 1768. The notes were first published in the poem's version in Poems (1768).
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0106 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: [untitled]
  • Date: 1 February 1768
  • Physical Description: [1?] page, 324 mm x 200 mm; autograph, partial [motto and notes only]
  • Language: English
  • Location: Modern (Bound) Manuscripts, Vol. 52, Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature, Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ, USA <http://rbsc.princeton.edu/>
  • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 91, 88; Heist, Michael, "RE: Modern (Bound) Manuscripts, vol.52, Robert H. Taylor Collection". E-mail to the editor, 11 January 2007
  • Contents: Autograph of the motto and notes to the poem in MS instructions to Beattie for the 1768 Glasgow edition, originally sent in a letter, 1 February 1768.
  • Separated Material: The letter in which these instructions were originally sent is now at Historic Collections, King's College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0102 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "Reflections on Human Life, An Ode"
  • Date: [17??]
  • Physical Description: 6 pages, 230 mm x 160 mm; transcript in an unidentified hand, two leaves bound with blue publisher's binding paper
  • Language: English
  • Location: Special Collections, Hunt Library, Carnegie Mellon University Library, Pittsburgh, PA, USA <http://www.library.cmu.edu/>
  • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), 87; Johnsen, Mary Catharine, "Gray's Distant prospect". E-mails to the editor, 8 and 19 January 2007
  • Contents: Transcript, possibly contemporary, entitled "Reflections on Human Life, An Ode, Occasion'd by a distant Prospect of Eton: College, where the author was educated". According to a dealer-catalogue ticket on the front paste-down of the little portfolio holding the MS, the MS was initially purchased by William H. Robinson Ltd. Pall Mall by private treaty from the Bibliotheca Phillippica and, according to a pencilled note on the rear paste-down, acquired by Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt in 1953.
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0218 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eaton College"
  • Date: 1780[?]
  • Physical Description: 10 pages, 180 mm x 110 mm; transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand on Whatman paper
  • Language: English
  • Location: MS Add. 439, "Poems" section, 15-24, The Archives, York Minster Library & Archives, York, UK <https://yorkminster.org/treasures-and-collections.html>
  • Contents: Transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand, entitled "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eaton College" (p. 15) ("Ode. III." [p. 17]). The poem, which includes the motto (attributed in a different hand to "Menander") on the title page and Gray's note to l. 4, is part of a section called "Poems", which is separately paginated and has its own table of contents (p. 129), in a volume entitled Gray's Poems. The book carries the bookplate of Gray's friend and biographer William Mason.
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0255 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "On a distant Prospect of Eton & the adjacent Country"
  • Date: [?]
  • Physical Description: 4 pages, c. 220 mm x 184 mm; transcript
  • Language: English
  • Location: Add. MS 51948, ff. 102-103, Manuscripts Collection, British Library, London, UK <http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/bldept/manuscr/>
  • References: Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 9 April 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=141906>
  • Contents: Transcript of the poem in Vol. DCXXXI (a volume of unbound MSS of "Misc. prose and verse") of the Holland House Papers, the papers of the Fox and Fox-Strangways families, Barons Holland and Earls of Ilchester, of Holland House, Kensington.
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0258 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: [untitled]
  • Date: July/August 1827
  • Physical Description: [?] pages, 191 mm x 125 mm (volume); transcript, partial, in the hand of William Pitter Woodhouse
  • Language: English
  • Location: Houghton MS Keats 3.13, vol. i, f. 17, John Keats Collection (MS Keats 1-6), The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA <http://library.harvard.edu/>
  • References: Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 9 April 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=36730>
  • 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.
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0263 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "An Ode On a distant prospect of Eton College"
  • Date: [between 1749 and 1750]
  • Physical Description: 9 pages; transcript in the hand of Melesinda Munbee
  • Language: English
  • Location: MS Eng 768, vol. 2, The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA <http://library.harvard.edu/>
  • References: Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 9 April 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=36723>
  • 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.
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0287 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College"
  • Date: [before 1805]
  • Physical Description: [?] pages, 290mm x 230mm (volume); transcript
  • Language: English
  • Location: fc.51, 202, Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT (Beinecke)/Farmington, CT (Lewis Walpole), USA <http://www.library.yale.edu/>
  • References: Parks, Stephen et al. (ed.), Osborn Collection First-Line Index. New Haven: Beinecke Library, Yale University, 2005, 1075, item Y0034; Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 23 April 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=10639>
  • Contents: Transcript, entitled "Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College", in the Frances Boscawen and Julia Evelyn Commonplace Book, a collection of verse by various authors and some original verse, contains about 100 poems copied by the authors, beginning in 1746.
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0288 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College"
  • Date: [between 1766 and 1800]
  • Physical Description: [?] pages; transcript in the hand of James Forbes
  • Language: English
  • Location: fc.132, vol. I, 148, Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT (Beinecke)/Farmington, CT (Lewis Walpole), USA <http://www.library.yale.edu/>
  • References: Parks, Stephen et al. (ed.), Osborn Collection First-Line Index. New Haven: Beinecke Library, Yale University, 2005, 1075, item Y0034; Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 23 April 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=10638>
  • Contents: Transcript, entitled "Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College", in James Forbes' Commonplace book, 1766-1800, vol. I "Poems on Several Occasions Collected from Different Authors", a manuscript of a collection of approximately 150 poems and excerpts, primarily epitaphs and elegies, poems in praise of virtues, odes dedicated to women, and poems on nature and weather.