Summary: Written at Cambridgebetween 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'sCollection 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.
Contents: Transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand, entitled "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes" (p. 9) ("Ode. II." [p. 11]). The poem 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.