grayt.ead.0001-mss.0236Thomas Gray Manuscripts:An Inventory at the Thomas Gray Archive.Alexander HuberThomas Gray Archive2006Catalogued in EAD 2002 by Alexander Huber,
Editor, Thomas Gray Archive, 2005-Englishgrayt.ead.0001-mss.0236#did0001mss.poemsPoems[ca.
1725]-1771poems.lt23[Sophonisba Masinissae. Epistola]Egregium accipio promissi Munus amoris,1775LatinStarr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 153-156 (with English
prose translation)Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 318-321 (with English
prose translation)
Written before mid-May 1742.
First published in Mason's
Memoirs (1775), section III, letter X. Mason is the only source for this (probably
conflated)
letter,
dated [27 May 1742], in which Gray originally
sent the poem to Richard
West.
mss.0236poems.lt23Sophonisba Massinissae. Epistola1780[?]6transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand on
Whatman paper180 mm x 110 mmLatin
MS Add. 439, Latin Pieces section,
17-22
The ArchivesYMAR
MS catalogued by Alexander
Huber in The Archives, York Minster Library & Archives,
on 27/03/2007.
Transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand, entitled
Sophonisba Massinissae. Epistola (p.
17) (Epistola. [p. 19]). The poem,
which contains three variant readings ("fata" for "fama" [l. 15],
"Consideramque" for "Credideramque" [l. 44] and "resurgat" for
"recursat" [l. 51]), is part of a section called Latin Pieces, which is
separately paginated and has its own table of contents (p. 24), in a
volume entitled Gray's Poems. The book
carries the bookplate of Gray's friend and biographer William
Mason.