"Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes"
- Archive Work ID: poems.odfc
- Uniform Title: "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes" [e-text]
- First Line: 'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
- Language: English
- First Published: 1748
- References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 5-6; Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 78-85
- Summary: Written at Cambridge between 22 February and 1 March 1747 and sent in a letter of that date to Horace Walpole. Mason is the only source for this letter, the poem sent in it has not survived. First published in Dodsley's Collection of Poems by Several Hands, 3 vols, vol. II. (London, 1748), 267-269, reprinted in 6 vols, vol. II. (London, 1758 and later edns.), 328-330.
1 Manuscript:
- Archive MS ID: mss.0238 (Source: EAD/XML)
- Title: "On a favourite Cat called Selima that fell into a China Cistern that had Gold Fish in it, and was Drown'd"
- Date: [before 1758?]
- Physical Description: 2 pages; transcript in the hand of Mary Capell, "bound in contemporary calf, but with the spine broken, gatherings loose, worn, and with light spotting or dust-staining"
- Language: English
- Location: MS Lt 119, ff. 111-112 (rectos only), Brotherton Collection Manuscript Verse, Special Collections, Leeds University Library,
Leeds, UK <https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections>
- References: Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 19 March 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=5594>
- Contents: Transcript in the hand of Mary Capell, beginning "T'was on a lofty Vase's side", in an autograph manuscript volume "signed by 'Mary Capell' on the first folio. Comprises an anthology of over eighty manuscript poems, of which some are dated from 1740 to 1751, with a six-page index at the end."