Poetry in Latin makes up only a quarter of Anstey's published output, but his poetical career both began and ended with it. His first major work was a translation undertaken in collaboration with his friend William Hayward Roberts, also a Fellow at King's College at the time, and published anonymously in 1762. This was "Eligia Scripta in Coemeterio Rustico Latine reddita", a version of Thomas Gray's already celebrated "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" of 1751, on which they worked in consultation with the author himself.