"Song I"

• Archive Work ID: poems.sng1
• Uniform Title: "Song I" [e-text]
• First Line: 'Midst beauty and pleasure's gay triumphs, to languish
• Language: English
• First Published: 1797
• References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 99; Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 240-241
• Summary: Written before October 1761 at the request of Gray's friend Henrietta Speed. Walpole transcribed and sent it in a letter to Caroline Campbell, Countess of Ailesbury, 28 November 1761. First published, beginning "With beauty, with pleasure surrounded, to languish", in Pope's Works (1797), ed. Joseph Warton, vol. II, 285n. Entitled "Amatory Lines" by Mitford and Northup, Bibliography (1917), 61.

1 Manuscript:

• • Archive MS ID: mss.0214 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: [?]
  • Date: [17??]
  • Physical Description: [1?] page, 250 mm x 200 mm; transcript in the hand of James Beattie
  • Language: English
  • Location: MS 30/44 ("Copies of the poems of Thomas Gray"), Historic Collections, Special Libraries and Archives, King's College, University of Aberdeen Library, Aberdeen, UK <https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/>
  • References: Ellner, June, "Re: MS 30/44, James Beattie papers". E-mail to the editor, 20 December 2006
  • Contents: Transcript in the hand of James Beattie, prefaced in his hand "The following Songs being found amongst the Author's papers, with marginal corrections by his own hand which serve to authenticate them, are here inserted chiefly of that account. The former, if not the latter, has undoubtedly a degree of Lyrical merit appropriated to that species of composition."