[Orders of Insects]

• Archive Work ID: poems.lt21
• Uniform Title: [Orders of Insects] [e-text]
• First Line: Alas lorica tectas Coleoptera jactant.
• Language: Latin
• First Published: 1814 and 1966
• 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.

2 Manuscripts:

• • Archive MS ID: mss.0132 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: [untitled]
  • Date: [after 1759]
  • Physical Description: [?] pages; autograph fair copy
  • Language: Latin
  • Location: Houghton Nor 2103.2, The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA <http://library.harvard.edu/>
  • 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).
  
  
• • Archive MS ID: mss.0133 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: [untitled]
  • Date: [after 1759]
  • Physical Description: 1 page; autograph fragment, revised, additional lines
  • Language: Latin
  • Location: Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, USA <http://www.themorgan.org/collection>
  • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 4, 79, together with a list of books, item GrT 178, 97, cf. item GrT 233, 102; Jones, Thomas Gray, Scholar (1937), "Register of Gray Autograph Manuscripts", VI. 20(d), 181
  • Contents: Autograph fragment, revised, here untitled, five additional lines on one page, together with a list of books, later tipped(?) into Herbert Paul, Queen Anne (Asnières, 1906).