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JOHN PRICE ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS 8 CLOUDESLEY SQUARE LONDON N1 0HT ENGLAND TEL. 020-7837-8008 [email protected]

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POETRY IN ENGLISH, 1717 TO 1855: 30 ITEMS PRICES IN POUNDS STERLING; POSTAGE EXTRA 28 MAY 2021

SUBSCRIBER'S COPY

1 ASHBY (Samuel): Miscellaneous Poems. The Illustrious Friends; Address to Music and Poesy, &c. &c. London: Printed for W. Miller..., 1794. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 4to, 245 x 190 mms., pp. xiv [xv Contents, xvi blank], 158, including list of subscribers, recently rebound in quarter calf, raised bands between gilt rules, morocco label, marbled boards; text washed but remains of large stain (approximately one quarter of each leaf, lower left-hand corner) persist to about page 66. With the contemporary autograph of the M. P., Edward Monckton, one of the subscribers, on the title-page. Monckton also subscribed to Leigh Hunt's Juvenilia (1803). £750 Ashby is unknown to ODNB, but he was a native of Bungay, and many of the subscribers are from East Anglia. The poems include "Reply to the Goitre," "The Captive Fly," "The Anniversary of Belinda's Birth-Day," and concludes with "Address to Music and Poesy." One poem, "Event in Scotland," seems curiously mis-named, as it is a rape narrative, in which a Youth, who "glows with wild desire" pursues the daughter of Acasto, a Scottish laird (apparently), who, in repelling him, throws herself off a precipice to her death. Whether this alludes to an actual "event" (hence the title) or is intended to be an allegory in the manner of the next poems, "Bride-Cake; An Allegorical Vision" is unclear. In these isles, ESTC T39429 locates copies at BL and Oxbridge, then only the Suffolk Record Office. The ESTC locates four copies in the United States (American Philosophical Society, Princeton, University of Minnesota, Yale) and one copy in Australia (National Library). OCLC adds only Indiana

2 BAKER (Henry): The Universe. A Poem. Intended To restrain the Pride of Man. By Mr. Baker. London: Printed for T. Worrall..., [no date] [1734]. 8vo, 187 x 117 mms., pp. 8, 40 [41 - 48 adverts], engraved frontispiece (detaching at upper margin); disbound; corners creased. £250 Baker (1698 - 1774) will be remembered by collectors and scholars as the author of two books on the microscope, The Microscope Made Easy (1742) and Employment for the Microscope (1753). Later editions of this work put the word “Philosophical” before “Poem.” The work was reprinted several times in the 18th century and in 1808, with notes by A. Crocker, with the reviewer in The Annual Review and History of Literature for 1809 commenting that “The versification of Mr. Baker is of the good old school, that of Dryden 1 and Prior. Though somewhat negligent, it has in parts a force and freedom which followers of Pope have vainly endeavoured to unite with their more regular harmony.” ODNB in its article on Baker refers an edition of 1727 as the first publication of the poem. ESTC does not list this edition. OCLC refers to a digital version “ Printed for T. Morral [sic]” published in 1727 and 19840508 locates three copies, Colorado at Denver, Michigan, and Princeton. These copies are also undated and lack the adverts. However, 1727 as a conjectural date is probably wrong. See G. R. Potter’s note on the dating of the work in Modern Philology (1932), 29, 3; 301 - 321.

VERY RARE POETRY FROM THE ROMANTIC ERA PRINTED IN THE LAKE DISTRICT: THREE COPIES FOUND (ALL IN U.K.)

3 BRIGGS (John): Poems. On Various Subjects. Ulverston: Printed for the Author by J. Soulby..., 1818. FIRST EDITION. 8vo (in 4s), 185 x 166 mms., pp. viii, 142 [143 "Address," 144 blank], including half-title and list of subscribers, contemporary half calf, gilt spine, red morocco label, marbled boards; bookplate on front paste-down end- paper with name scored out and "Braithwaite" in pencil beneath, but a very good to fine copy. £500 Briggs (1788 - 1824), who was editor of The Lonsdale Magazine, managed to garner about 350 subscribers for this volume. It is of some bibliographic interest, having been printed at Soulby's press a year after his death, probably by Stephen Tyson, who is one of the subscribers, on behalf of the trustees; it is only one of two books issued by this press. Michael Twyman: John Soulby, Printer, Ulverston (1966), pp. 27 - 28. Copies located at BL, Bodleian, Durham.

WORLDCAT LOCATES NO COPIES IN NORTH AMERICA

4 BROWN (Robert), of Newhall: Comic Poems of the Years 1685, and 1793; Or Rustic Scenes in Scotland, at the times to which they refer: with Explanatory and Illustrative Notes. Edinburgh: Printed for the Booksellers, 1817. FIRST EDITION. 12mo, 195 x 113 mms., pp. [iv], xiii [xiv bank] [5] 6 - 178, original boards, uncut and mostly unopened, binding and edges a little soiled, spine slighty defective but a good to very good copy, with a small circular stamp on the title-page, the letter “K” with a double triangle, and an illegible ms. name at the top margin. £750 The poems are “Lintoun Green, or the Third Market Day of June,” by Alexander Pennecuik, M.D.; “A Panegyrick upon the Royal Army in Scotland,” also by Pennecuik; and “Carlop Green, or, Equality realized” with each item having its own title-page. Copac locates copies in the NLS, Bodleian, Aberdeen, and Newcastle. Neither WorldCat nor OCLC list any copy in North America, but there is one at the University of South Carolina. I did not locate a copy in the British Library. Uncommon.

FROM BAGULEY HALL, CHESHIRE, SEAT OF THE POET’S NIECE, WHO OWNED SEVERAL OF THE POET’S MANUSCRIPTS

5 BYROM (John): Miscellaneous Poems. Manchester: Printed by J. Harrop, 1773. FIRST EDITION. 2 volumes. 8vo, 193 x 109 mms., pp. [ii], vi, 352; [ii], vi, 351 [352 blank], 2 engraved vignette head- pieces, contemporary sheepskin, neatly rebacked with old red morocco labels preserved. A very good set with the armorial bookplate of Sir William Browne Ffolkes (probably the second baronet, 1786 - 1860, and MP 1830 - 1837) on the front paste-down end-paper of each volume; and two earlier inscriptions in each volume, viz., “Jane Houghton 1786/ Saml Curteis 1790” and “The present of Mrs. Jane Houghton of Baguley [Hall] in Cheshire/ 1790.” £350 Byrom’s subjects are nothing if not eclectic, e. g., inoculation, John Brown’s Estimate, a quarrel between Conyers Middleton and Warburton, the fall of man, a future state, though a larger number of the poems are either hymns or on religious themes. The well-known hymn, “Christians Awake, Salute the Happy Morn” also appears here (II, 58), as well as the six-line epigram, composed in 1725, on the feuds between Handel and Bononcini, ending, “Strange all this Difference should be, /’Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!” Byrom (1692 - 1763) perhaps had less musical acumen than he had skill for a system of shorthand, which was used by John and Charles Wesley, David Hartley, Horace Walpole, and prominent members of the aristocracy. Baguley Hall is “a 14th-century timber-framed building in Baguley, Greater Manchester”; a “former country house, historically in Cheshire, it is now Grade I-listed and a Scheduled Ancient Monument” (Wikipedia). The oldest parts of the building date back to the fourteenth century. “The current hall was built by Sir William de Baguley”, and is “probably the oldest timber great hall surviving in England” (Wikipedia).

Byrom refers to Baguley Hall more than once in the poems in the present book (e.g., vol. 1, pp. 261, 300), and his “Four Epistles” were written on the premises: at “Baguley" on "August 12, 1756” (vol. 1, p. 261).

The presenter of this copy was the philanthropist and abolitionist Jane Houghton (1737-1813) of Baguley Hall. She was the niece of John Byrom, and the owner of several of his important manuscripts (see The Palatine Note- book [1883], vol. 3, pp. 262-3).

FIRST APPEARANCE OF “A TRUE TALE”

6 CHANDLER (Mary): The Description of Bath. A Poem. Humbly Inscribed To Her Royal Highness the Princes Amelia. With several other Poems. The Eighth Edition. To which is added, A True Tale, by the same Author. London: Printed for James Leake..., 1744 8vo, 195 x 113 mms., pp. [xii], 85 [86 adverts], including half-title, recently rebound in quarter calf, marbled boards, gilt spine, morocco label; lacking the 11 leaves of adverts. £450 ESTC T63116 describes this as “A reissue of the fifth edition, with a half-title, a different title-page and sig. F7 a cancel,” but does not mention that this is the first appearance of the poem, “A True Tale,” addressed to Mr. Leake, i. e., James Leake, the brother-in-law of the printer Samuel Richardson who printed editions two to seven. “A True Tale” appears here as a result of a proposal of marriage that Mrs. Chandler received in 1741 when she was 54. She refused him and turned the episode into a poem, noting “Fourscore long Miles, to buy a crooked Wife!/ Old too! I thought the oddest thing in Life....” ESTC locates copies in BL, Bodleian, Wales, TCD; Folger, Rice, Yale; National Library of Australia. Foxon, C112.

7 D'ISRAELI (Isaac): Narrative Poems. London: Printed for John Murray..., 1803. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 4to, 245 x 190 mms., pp. [vi], 55 [56 colophon], uncut, original boards with title printed on front cover, contained in a linen box; covers soiled, edges a bit soiled, front cover holding by one cord, extremities worn, bookplate of Oliver Brett on front paste-down end-paper. £250 The volume consists of three narrative poems, which constitute, as James Ogden says in his ODNB article, “his most ambitious work...; [but] his neo-classical manner was by then hopelessly outmoded, but being a poet of sorts himself he had a sympathetic understanding of the poetical temperament.” Contemporary notices were not enthusiastic, and even the most favourably-disposed reviewers struggled to compliment D’Israeli, e. g., the notice in James Cobb’s The Monthly Mirror for 1803: “As it would be difficult for a labour of considerable magnitude to add to Mr. D’I.’s reputation as an author of taste and ingenuity, we cannot promise him much increase, from this little work, to that which he has so deservedly acquired; but if it cannot be said to enter into and augment the great bulk of his merit, we may safely venture to foretell, that it will hang on the more solid body of his fame, like one of those jewels, those eximia, which Nature so powerfully recommends by their excessive rarity.”

8 DOUGLAS (Alexander): Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Cupar-Fife, Printed by R. Tullis, for the Author, 1806. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 12mo (in 6s), 12 x 109 mms., pp. [iii] iv - xx, 203 [204 Errata], including list of subscribers, uncut, with some leaves unopened, contemporary marbled boards, rebacked with later pink spine, with original label preserved, corners worn, a little general wear to binding and extremities, but a good copy. £650 Douglas (1772 - 1821) came from Strathmiglo, near Cupar, where this volume was one of the many imprints of the Tullis Press. Douglas is, of course, using the same title that Burns used in 1789, but James Nicol also published two volumes with the same title in the same year, as did David Anderson, among others. Douglas was probably the least well-educated of the versifiers who used the title. The Preface tells us a little about his life, but in general terms, noting, for example, and that “parents indulged his taste for reading...” He was employed as a cow-herd as a very young boy, became an apprentice to a linen-weaver at fourteen, etc. The verses saw the light of publication thanks to a doctor who was attending Douglas and who thought them worthy of publication. The nine-page list of subscribers suggest that his admirers did a lot of leg- work to ensure that the volume was a success, which it was, earning for its author the sum of £100. Doughty 13, one of the earliest Tullis Press imprints.

RARE AND WITH TREBLE-RELEVANT PROVENANCE

9 DUCK (Stephen): Poems on Several Occasions. Viz. To a Gentleman who requested a Copy of Verse from the Author. On Poverty.... And on Several Other Subjects. To which is prefixed, An Account of the Author. By J. Spence, Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxon. The Second Edition. London: Printed for W. Bickerton, at Lord Bacon’s Head, without Temple- 4

Bar, and at his Shop at Eton College. M.DCC.XXXVII [1737]. 8vo, 197 x 118 mms., pp. [iii] iv - xxxix [xl blank], 312, engraved portrait of Duck as frontispiece, contemporary calf; rear cover a bit soiled, some other general wear to binding but a good to very good copy, with inscriptions on the front paste-down endpaper, “Thos: Packwood / E. Libris / 1748”, and below that, “1811 / Sophia Wellner Her / Book Southam Febry 19”, and the autograph “Clemantiney / Goode / Southam” on the rear paste-down endpaper. £500

Born in Charlton, a small village in Wiltshire, Stephen Duck (1705-1756) started life as a farm worker, taught himself to read and write, and began versifying in, probably, his late teens. Joseph Spence, the Earl of Macclesfield, and Dr Francis Lockier were early sponsors of Duck, and Spence wrote to Pope on 12 September 1730 endorsing Duck’s excellences, adding: “The Man is so out of the world, that he never saw your Essay on Criticism till his coming to Winton this week: & reads it with so much taste, that I was surprizd to find he could repeat the best part of it by heart this morning.” The first edition of Duck’s poems was published in 1736 as a sumptuous quarto, with eleven pages of subscribers (including Pope and Swift). It was printed by Samuel Richardson. This “Second Edition” was published the following year, 1737.

The inscriptions in this copy are rich with interest, giving a sense of Duck’s early readership. At mid- century, possibly the earliest of the recorded owners, Thomas Packwood, signed in an elegant hand, in 1748, with the added Latinate phrase “E. Libris”, all of which is redolent of education and class. Likely he is the Thomas Packwood whom Alumni Oxonienses records as matriculating at Pembroke College in Oxford on the 19th of March 1713/14, aged 18, gaining his B.A. in 1717, and his M.A. in 1722, later becoming Rector of Thornby in Northamptonshire, his home county.

The next two owners are also provincial, both from Southam, a place-name found in both Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. If they hailed from Gloucestershire, this is notably a county next to Duck’s own county of birth, Wiltshire. Warwickshire is of course just north of Gloucestershire. The first Southam resident signed “Clemantiney / Goode / Southam” in a hand that is juvenile or unschooled, or both, and perhaps was drawn to Duck as an inspiring example of self-education. The second Southam resident inscribed the volume probably much later, “1811 / Sophia Wellner Her / Book Southam Febry 19”, in a considerably neater, but possibly just as youthful, hand. The man, Packwood, among these three provincial owners, was traceable, but the women or girls, Goode and Wellner, seem not to be.

Foxon ascertained that this “Second Edition” brought out by Bickerton to be a “reissue of the first octavo edition, 1736” (English Verse, 1701-1750: A Catalogue of Separately Printed Poems [1975], p. 201). ESTC T90513 finds it now to be among the rarer lifetime editions by the famous provincial labouring-class poet Stephen Duck: in these isles, after BL and Oxford, the ESTC locates only three libraries (Saffron Walden, Sheffield Central, and Winchester College); outside of these isles, the ESTC locates copies only in America, nine libraries holding it there, with one, Yale, having two copies (Boston Public Library, Folger, Newberry, Northwestern University, University of Colorado, University of Florida, University of Kentucky, University of Texas at Austin, and the aforementioned Yale). The ESTC finds Yale to be the only Ivy League library that holds the edition. Additionally, the ESTC finds at least two, possibly three, of the American copies to be imperfect.

THREE COPIES LOCATED

10 EDWARDS (John): All-Saints' Church, Derby: A Poem. Derby: Printed and Sold by John Drewry, for the Author. Also by Messrs. Rivington’s, St. Paul’s Church Yard, London. 1805. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo (in 2s), 213 x 124 mms., pp. viii, 44, including list of subscribers, engraved frontispiece (”Drawn & Engraved by H. Moore”), last leaf appears to have been remounted, recent half calf, title in gilt on spine, marbled boards; lacks the second plate between pages 38 and 39, with a visible stub. £250 Edwards dedicates his poem to the minister of All Saints Church, Derby, Charles Stead Hope, who subscribed for six copies. Uncommon: OCLC locates copies in BL and University of California, Davis only. Copac adds Nottingham.

11 FREE (John): Poems on Several Occasions, Formerly Written.... The Second Edition, With Additions of later Pieces; and an historical and critieal [sic] Account of the Origin and peculiar Nature of English Poetry, in a Letter to a Member of Parliament. London: Printed by E. Owen... And Sold by T. Osborne..., R. and J. Dodsley..., J. Rivington..., 1757. 12mo, 165 x 100 mms., pp. x, 165 [166 adverts], including list of subscribers, recently rebound in boards, with paper label on spine and front cover. A very good copy. £850 Free is described on the title-page as “Vicar of East Coker..., Lecturer of St. Mary-Hill, London, and Lecturer of Newington in Surrey.” The book was first published in 1751 as Poems, and Miscellaneous Pieces formerly Written by John Free. The reviewer in The Monthly Review for 1758 observed, “This work, of which we do not recollect any former entire edition...is a miscellany on very different subjects, and executed with different success. The verses to the fair sex, from the Greek of Naumachius, and a few others are not bad; many are entitled to the character of mediocrity; and others undoubtedly fall short of it.... [W]e may fairly assure our Readers there is as great a variety for the price, under almost every poetical denomination, as could well be contained in about 200 pages.... [T]hough we do not consider him among the humblest versifiers, we conceive he will be prudent in sitting down contented in a moderate station among the minor poets; and compensate himself for any deficiency that way, by the solid reputation he enjoys, of being a truly well principled Englishman, and a very good natured man.” ESTC N12098 locates copies in Bodleian, Oxford Christ Church, John Rylands in these islands; and Harvard, McMaster, Newberry, Northwestern, Stanford, Library of Congress, Chicago, and Illinois in North America. Copac adds BL and several other British locations.

12 HAYLEY (William): An Essay on History; In Three Epistles To Edward Gibbon, Esq. With Notes. London: Printed for J. Dodsley..., 1780. FIRST EDITION. 4to, 270 x 210 mms., pp. [ii], [1 - 3] - 159 [160 blank], rebound in quarter calf, with old boards and bookplate of Studely Priory preserved, the contemporary bookplate,“Scotstoun” on the front paste-down end-paper, and the autograph “Mr Oswald Scotstoun,” of whom there were several, but the volume possibly belonged to James Oswald (1703 - 1793), the Church of Scotland minister and philosophical writer. £500 It is not exactly clear when Hayley (1745 - 1820) met Gibbon, but they were sufficiently friendly in October 1781 for GibBon to write to him saying, “Accept, my dear Sir, my kindest Wishes for yourself, and your amiable Eliza!--The delightful Scenes of Eartham are still present to my Mind, and many Days will roll away, before I shall find, in the tumult of the World, those pleasures, which I enjoyed in the familiar Society of the best English Poet of the Age....” Reviewing the poem, The Monthly Review said, “We are happy to find this new star in the poetical hemisphere, whose appearance we noted with so much pleasure, continues to shine with, if possible, increasing splendour” (Monthly Review, 1980, p. 30). [One does wonder how a star can appear in a hemisphere.] When William Cowper read the poem more than a decade later, he wrote to the author, “I began your fine Poem on History this morning, and already perceive that I am reading for my humiliation.”

13 HILL (Brian), Rev.: Henry and Acasto: A Moral Tale. In Three Parts. Dedicated, by Permission, To the Right Honourable Lady Kenyon. London: Printed for John Stockdale..., 1798. 8vo, pp. viii, [3], 12 - 115 [116 - 120 adverts], engraved frontispiece (by S. Springsguth after P. J. Loutherbourg) and two other engraved plates (by Stallard and Sanders), contemporary half calf, gilt spine, red morocco label, marbled boards (very slightly soiled); two plates closely cropped at lower margin, probably removing "Published as the act directs" information, joints a little creased, but a very good copy. £300 Brian Hill (1755 or 1756 - 1831) published this first in, probably, 1786, though it was written in 1783. This edition is considerably expanded from editions published in 1786, which consisted of 44 pages of text and no illustrations.

14 JAMES THE FIRST. The Works of James the First. King of Scotland. To which is prefixed, A Historical and Critical Dissertation on his Life and Writings. Also, some brief remarks on the intimate connection of The Scots Language with the other northern dialects. And A Dissertation on Scottish Music; the whole accompanied with notes, historical critical and explanatory. Perth: Printed by Crerar and Son, 1827. 12mo (in 6s), 184 x 111 mms., pp. [v], vi - viii [ix Contents, x blank, xi drop title, xii blank, xiii], 14 - 295 [296 blank], including half-title, uncut, bound in waste-paper boards, paper label on spine; spine slightly defective at top and base, joints a little worn, some general wear to binding, but a rather nice survival of a practice of reusing discarded leaves for a temporary binding. £350

“James I (1394-1437) was known as the author of The Kingis Quair, a poem of 197 seven-line verses, dealing principally with the theme of philosophy and fortune after the manner of Boethius.” His works were edited by various scholars. The “Dissertation on the Scottish Music” is at the end of the volume (pages 245 - 293) and begins, “The genius of the Scots has, in every age, shone conspicuous in Poetry and Music.” So much, then, for Mozart and Handel. WorldCat locates copies at Harvard, Cincinnatti, Michigan, South Carolina; National Library of Australia; Leipzig; in the UK, Copac locates copies at BL, National Library of Wales, Manchester, and Newcastle. Copac also lists a copy at the National Library of Scotland, but gives the printer/publisher as G. Clark. The copy at Harvard has the imprint Perth: Printed by Crerar and Son, for G. Clark, Aberdeen, 1827.

15 JONES (WIlliam H.): Blanche de Bourbon, A Poem. Second edition. London: Hookham and Sons..., 1855. Small 8vo, 174 x 103 mms., pp. [v] vii - xi [xv names, xvi blank], 236, including half-title, original green cloth, stamped in blind, with gilt crest on front cover; no blank prelims, covers a bit soiled and worn; uncut with many leaves carelessly opened. £500 Blanche of Bourbon (1339–1361) was Queen of Castile as the wife of King Peter. She was one of the daughters of Peter I, Duke of Bourbon and Isabella of Valois. At the age of 14, she married King Peter of Castile, who abandoned her three days after the marriage. Imprisoned first in Spain, and later in France, she was murdered on the orders of her husband. In his preface, Jones notes, “In the history of the Middle Ages, instances but too frequently occur of cruelty and oppression: it would, however, be difficult, even in the age, to find one where the victim was so blameless and her fate so dark as that of the unfortunate, Queen of Castile.” The work is dedicated to [William] Hanbury Jones and Sir William Jones is mentioned in the last paragraph of the preface. Jones describes his verse meter as the “Romantic stanza” and cites Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel as his guideline. The lines rhyme abab, and the metre is dactylic. OCLC locates copies of this second edition in Cambridge, BL, Bodleian, NLS, Harvard The first edition was published in 1853, and OCLC locates copies in BL, NLS, South Carolina.

INSCRIBED BY THE POET’S WIDOW, AND FROM THE INSCRIPTION WE LEARN WHO THE POET IS

MARTYR STUDENT. The Portfolio of the Martyr=Student. London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster Row; and Poole & Boult, Chester, MDCCCXXX [1830]. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 12mo, 178 x 104 mms., pp. xxi [xxii blank], 191 [192 blank, 193 colophon leaf, 194 blank], uncut, original cloth spine, green boards, paper label (soiled); binding a bit soiled, spine and joints rather carelessly repaired, but a goodish copy, with the bookplate of Percival F. Hinton on the front paste-down endpaper; with a few spidery lines of manuscript on the top margin of the recto of the front free endpaper, possibly the title (“To a Tear”) and the opening (“Wept on my bosom …”) of a MS poem; and on the verso of that leaf, there is a presentation inscription: “Miss J. Parkinson / From her affectionate friend / Elizabeth Ann Bradford / 1st May 1843." £500

The papers of the journalist and local historian Percival Frank Hinton (1896- c1977) are held at the University of Birmingham.

The Monthly Review in 1830 noticed the Portfolio of the Martyr=Student (1830) along with several other books, remarking that the author of the Portfolio “tells a romantic tale of the manner in which he came by the poems he now publishes. The writer of them, he would have us believe, was a German youth of intense poetical feeling, who, upon his removal to university, was so ambitious of distinguishing himself in his pursuits that he fell a martyr to them. This, of course, is a fiction … , [but] it may not be denied that they merit a high rank in the scale of minor poetry.”

This book of poems, The Portfolio of the Martyr=Student (1830), was published anonymously. The bibliographer of Romantic Period poetry J.R. de J. Jackson presumably found no convincing evidence of authorship, as the online Jackson Bibliography of Romantic Poetry lists the Portfolio as “Anonymous and unattributed”. Today, most entries for the book on COPAC and WorldCat list it as anonymous, but a few entries on COPAC and WorldCat have “Thomas Bradford” as the author. Bradford is a common name. Which Thomas Bradford wrote this book?

The answer is found in the inscription on the verso of front free end paper in this copy, where we see that “Miss J. Parkinson” is presented the volume from “her affectionate friend / Elizabeth Ann Bradford / 1st May 1843”. Elizabeth Ann Bradford was the widow of the Rev. Thomas Bradford (d. 1832), who, until his death, was Perpetual Curate of Threapwood, near Chester in Cheshire. (The Portfolio was printed in Chester by J. Fletcher of the “Chronicle Office, Bridge- street Row,” according to a colophon on the verso of the title leaf.) Elizabeth Ann Bradford died in December 1877, at Great Saughall, a small village in Cheshire very close to the border with Flintshire, Wales. A local paper, The Wrexham and Denbighshire Advertiser and Cheshire Shropshire and North Wales Register, announced in their issue of January 5, 1878, that her death took place December 19 of the previous month, adding that she was the “relict of the late Rev. Thomas Bradford, perpetual curate of Threapwood, Chester”, and that she died “in her 78th year” (p. 4). Her husband Thomas Bradford was a Cambridge man. According to Alumni Cantabrigienses, he was the son of John Bradford, a merchant of Chester, and his mother was Anne, whose maiden name was Manning. Thomas started as a Sizar at Magdalene College in the University of Cambridge in 1824 at the age of twenty, graduating as a “Scholar” with his B.A. in 1828. He was later ordained by the Bishop of Chester, granted the Perpetual Curacy of Threapwood in Cheshire, and died young at Threapwood in 1832, still in his late twenties.

This, his widow’s copy, gifted to a dear friend, is probably the most important copy of the book, as from this copy we can ascertain which Thomas Bradford wrote the poems. In short, he was Thomas Bradford (c.1804-1832) of Threapwood, formerly scholar of Magdalene College, Cambridge, a poet whose verses, according to The Monthly Review, “merit a high rank”.

KILMARNOCK PRINTING

17 MILTON (John): Paradise Lost A Poem in Twelve Books. With a Biographical and Critical Account of the Author and his Writings. Kilmarnock: Printed by J. Wilson, Bookseller. 1785. 12mo (in 6s), 162 x 96 mms., pp. xviii, [19 - 21], 22 - 304, contemporary sheepskin, red morocco label; lacks blank leaf before title-page, which is a bit browned, binding slightly dried. A very good copy. £350 The life is by Elijah Fenton, followed by “In Paradisu Admissam Summi Poetae Johannis Miltoni,” a poem in Latin by Samuel Barrow, M. D. (?1625 - 1683). Barrow’s verses were first printed in the second edition of Paradise Lost (1674), while Fenton’s life was first published in 1725. The printer, John Wilson, would go on to publish the first edition of Burns’s poems in Kilmarnock in 1786, and he reprinted Paradise Lost in 1789.

18 MILTON (John): The Poetical Works of John Milton, With Notes of Various Authors. To which are added Illustrations. And some Account of The Life and Writings of Milton, by the Rev. Henry J. Todd.... The Second Edition, with Considerable Additions, and with a Verbal Index to the Whole of Milton’s Poetry. In Seven Volumes. London: Printed for J. Johnson... [and 23 others], 1809. 7 volumes. Large 8vo, 211 x 128 mms., pp. [vi] xv [xvi blank], 217 [218 - 615 indexes 616 blank]; [iv] v - xix [xx b lank], [3], 4 -462; [vi], [3], 4 - 473 [474 blank]; [vi], [3], 4 - 395 [396 blank];[vi]. [i] ii - xix [xx blank], [5] 6 - 503 [504 blank]; [vi], [3], 4 - 503 - 504 blank]; [vi], [3], 4 - 407 [408 blank, 409 - 342, notes, index, content, engraved portrait of Milton in volume 1, contemporary straight-grain tan morocco, gilt borders on covers, spines richly gilt, green morocco labels; intermittent foxing throughout and some slight wear to binding, but generally a very good and attractive set. £450 In ODNB, D. A. Brunton writes that the publication of Todd’s edition of Milton in 1801 was his chef d'oeuvre: “In addition to Todd's own copious annotations and judicious selection from previous commentaries, the work included for the first time extracts from Stillingfleet's projected edition, together with criticism solicited from the family of Thomas and Joseph Warton. Republished on four subsequent occasions, it remained the standard edition for fifty years. The first volume, a thorough biographical study of Milton, revised in 1809 and 1826, was published separately and enjoyed an equal measure of success. For his labours Todd was rewarded with the handsome sum of £200, and his new-found celebrity was acknowledged with his elevation as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1802.” The reviewer in The Monthly Mirror for 1801 lavished praise upon the edition: “In the prosecution of the present undertaking, Mr. T. has displayed an ardour, an assiduity, and a copiousness of resource, which we may confidently affirm that few, if any scholars since the death of Warton, could have combined with equal taste and candour. Hence it is, that our attention becomes so agreeably divided between the text and the commentary, and that our admiration of the poet is heightened by the skill of his illustrator.”

19 OGILVIE (John): Rona, A Poem. In Seven Books, Illustrated with a Correct Map of the Hebrides, and

Elegant Engravings. London: Printed for J. Murray..., 1777. FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. [ii], xv [xvi “The Argument”], 219 [220 adverts, 221 errata, 222 blank], including half-title, engraved frontispiece by James Caldwall after William Hamilton, large folding map of the Hebrides by Armstrong, 6 other engraved plates (again, by James Caldwall after William Hamilton) as called for, contemporary sheepskin, rebacked, red leather label; corners a bit worn and binding rubbed. With the notation on the recto of the leaf before the half-title: "Read at Norwich Oct 23rd 1807/ by desire of M. B./ Edward Hodge/ Capt. of L. D." £450 This attempt by John Ogilvie (1732 - 1813) to write an epic tragedy set on Rona in the Western Islands doesn’t quite achieve the soaring grandeur he aims for, but it appealed to contemporary readers avid for anything to do with the “Highlands and Islands” after the publication in the 1760s of the Ossianic verses. Zachs, The First John Murray, 161; 500 copies were printed.

20 OGILVIE (John): Poems on Several Subjects. To which is prefix’d, An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients; In Two Letters inscribed to The Right Honourable James Lord Deskfoord. London: Printed for G. Keith..., 1762. FIRST EDITION. 4to, 455 x 195. pp. [iv], [ii] iii- lxxxiv, [4], 156, title-page in red and black and with engraved vignette, 5 engraved head-pieces for the Odes, 2 full-page engraved plates, uncut, recently rebound in antique-style half calf, marbled boards, gilt rules across spine, green morocco label; edges soiled, title-page slightly soiled, but text clean with fresh impressions of the plates. £500 John Ogilvie (1732 - 1813) was one of Aberdeen’s most distinguished scholars, philosophers, and poets, but his versatility has often been criticized. However, the contemporary reaction to this volume was favourable, with The Monthly Review for October, 1762, claiming that “Our readers are no strangers to the name or merit of Mr. Ogilvie.... [T]herefore we, inform our readers that in this elegant and genteel edition of Mr. Ogilvie’s works, there are several original poems....” The reviewer devotes most of his attention to the essay on lyric poetry, concluding, “Be it sufficient to say, that our opinion of Mr. Ogilvie’s critical abilities, arose greatly on the perusal of the latter part of his Essay. It is with pleasure, therefore, we refer our Readers to the work itself, from which we can promise them much elegant entertainment.” The Critical Review for 1762 rightly praised “the beauty of the paper, the neatness of the type, and the elegance of the engravings....” Of the poetry itself, the reviewer concludes, “Several other poems in this collection have distinguished merit, and even those for which the author pleads in apology, that they were juvenile performances, would not discredit the first poet of the age.” Douglas Lane Patey, “’Aesthetics’ and the Rise of Lyric in the Eighteenth Century,” Studies in English Literature 1500 - 1900 (33; 3; 1993).

21 PEARCH (George), editor: A Collection of Poems. In Two [Four] Volumes. By Several Hands. London: Printed for G. Pearch..., 1768, 1770. FIRST EDITION. 4 volumes. 8vo, 178 x 113 mms., pp. [iv], 323 [324 adverts];[iv], 320; [iv], 324 [325 - 328 index]; [iv], 323 [324 blank, 325 - 328 index], including half-title in each volume, engraved vignette on each title-page, and engraved head-piece for first poem in each volume, attractively bound in full contemporary polished calf, spines gilt in compartments to a lyre and urn motif, red and olive morocco labels, armorial bookplate of Edward Parker, Browsholme, Yorkshire on the front paste-down end-paper of each volume. Edward Parker (1730-1794), Bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland, married Barbara Fleming in 1750, daughter and co-heiress of Sir William Fleming of Rydal Hall, Westmorland. £500 Pearch’s Collection is almost a piracy, at least in format and bookstyle, of Dodsley’s very successful A Collection of Poems. By Several Hands, first published in 1748. The Monthly Review commented that the volumes were a “continuation of Mr. Dodsley’s plan, but without his judgment. Many trifling and injudicious performances are recorded here, which ought to have rested in the oblivion which had overtaken them.” The Critical Review asserted that the collection and Pearch’s choice was “not aT all inferior in beauty, sentiment, genius, versification, or any other excellence, to those pieces contained in the collection which they are intended to continue.” Michael J. Suarez, “The Production and Consumption of the Eighteenth-Century Poetic Miscellany,” in Books and their Reader in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays, ed. Isabel Rivers (2001).

22 PERCY (Thomas): Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and other Pieces of our earlier Poets, (Chiefly of the Lyric kind.) Together with some few of later Date. The Second Edition. London: Printed for J. Dodsley..., 1767. 3 volumes. 8vo, 177 x 108 mms., pp. [iii], viii - lxxvi [lxxvii - lxxx Contents and epigraph], 370 [371 - 372 Errata for all three volumes]; [ii], iii [iv epigraph], 340 [i. e., 400, last page misnumbered], [401 music, 402 blank]; [ii], iii [iv epigraph], [i] - xxxii, [1] - 398 [399 - 400 adverts], engraved frontispiece in volume 1, engraved plate of music at end of volume 2, engraved head- and tail-pieces, TA3 and T4 in volume 2 in cancelled state, contemporary calf, spines ornately gilt in compartments to a musical motif, red and olive morocco labels; rear cover volume 2 scored with small pieces of calf missing, top of spines volumes 2 and 3 slightly chipped, but generally a very good and attractive set. £650 Dodsley printed 1500 copies of the first edition in 1765, and in six months he had sold 1100. In April 1765, Thomas Warton wrote to Percy to say, “I think you have opened a new field of Poetry, and supplied many new and curious Materials for the history and Illustration of antient English Literature.... At Oxford it is a favourite Work; and I doubt not, but it is equally popular in Town.” Describing Percy as “our curious and correct editor,” the reviewer in the Monthly Review for 1765 concluded that the worK was a “very elegant, instructive, and entertaining compilation.”

23 POPE (Alexander): The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope. [And]: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope. Vol. II. London: Printed by W. Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot [and] London: Printed by J. Wright, for Lawton Gilliver..., 1717, 1735. FIRST EDITIONS. 2 volumes. 4to, 282 x 180 mms., and folio, 297 x 188 mms., pp. [xxxii], 408; [xvi], 72, [4], 36, 12, [37 - 39], 40 - 91 [92 blank], 14, [1], 16 - 17, 81 [sic], 201 [202 Errata], including half-title in each volume, title-page in volume 2 in red and black, folding engraved portrait of Pope in volume 1 (mended at folds), contemporary calf volume 1, neatly rebacked with old spine and original morocco label preserved, contemporary mottled calf volume 2, skilfully rebacked in calf to match volume 1, morocco label; some gatherings very browned, slight worming in volume 2 (1735), but generally a very good set of this first collected edition of Pope’s works, with the armorial bookplate of Edward Wood in volume 2, as well as the autograph “Phillipa Parsons” on the top margin of the title-page of volume 2, along with a couple of minor wormholes. £1950 Volume 1 is the first issue; in the second issue, Tonson’s name was added to the imprint. The erratic pagination in volume 2 is caused in part by the insertion of the epitaphs between pp. 36 and 37 of the satires. Writing to his publisher, John Murray, in 1817, Byron observed, “I took Moore’s poems and my own and some others and went over them side by side with Pope’s, and I was really astonished (I ought not to have been so) and mortified at the ineffable distance in point of sense, harmony, effect, and even imagination, passion, and invention, between the little Queen Anne’s man, and us of the Lower Empire.” Griffith 82 and 370. Rothschild 1584 and 1626.

24 POPE (Alexander). URIE (Robert): An Essay on Man. Carefully Corrected. Glasgow: Printed by R. Urie, 1754. 8vo (in 4s), 183 x 102 mms., pp. [ii], 220, including hafl-title.

BOUND WITH:

POPE (Alxander): Moral Essays, in Four Epistles. Glasgow: Printed by R. Urie, 1754. 8vo (in 4s), pp. [ii], 89 [90 adverts], including half-title;

AND:

POPE (Alexander): An Essay on Criticism. Written in the Year 1709. Glasgow: Printed by R. Urie, 1754. 8vo (in 4s), pp. [ii], iii - v [vi blank], 7 - 6o [61 adverts, 62 blank]. 3 volumes in 1, bound in contemporary sheepskin, very worn, joints cracked, some leather missing from covers, corner cut from front free end-paper. £450 The adverts indicate that the volumes were printed in the same format, to be uniform with each other. ESTC lists several copies of all three items in universities in these islands, but the only copies in North America are at Harvard.

PROBABLY THE FIRST POEM IN ENGLISH TO CELEBRATE HOT-AIR BALLOONING

25 PYE (Henry James): Poems on Various Subjects. Ornamented with Frontispieces. London: Printed for John Stockdale..., 1787. FIRST COLLECTED EDITION. 2 volumes in 1. 8vo, 206 X 123 mms., pp. vi, 294; [iv], 335n [336 blank], engraved frontispiece of poetic muse in volume 1, engraved frontispiece of Faringdon Hill in volume 2, contemporary quarter calf, gilt spine, black morocco label, marbled boards, A very good copy. £350

Pye (1745 - 1813) is conventionally described as England’s worst poet laureate, a post he held from 1790 until his death. However, he exhibited a range of abilities, as translator, literary theorist, and textual critic, that later laureates would not have been able to emulate. One of his more interesting poems is Aerophorion, first published in 1784, probably the first poem in English to celebrate hot-air ballooning. It is reprinted in volume 1 and commemorates “Mr. Sadler, the first English Aeronaut, [and his ascent] in his Balloon from the Physic Garden in Oxford, in November 1784.” James Sadler (1753 - 1828) ascended on 4 October 1784 in a hot-air balloon to 3600 feet and landed some six miles away, having designed, built, and flown the balloon entirely by himself. There is also a poem on shooting, which was not a sport that attracted many poetic encomiums in the 18th century. The reviewer in The Critical Review for 1787, concluded, “our judgment is, that he possesses an eminent share of classical taste, that his diction is correct and elegant, and his numbers harmonious. His invention is not equal to his judgment; whatever he adopts he embellishes, and almost makes his own, by the propriety of its application, and felicity of his expression.”

26 RAMSAY (Allan): Poems on Several Occasions. Berwick: Printed by W. Phorson..., 1793. 2 volumes. 12mo (in 6s), 173 x 95 mms., pp. xii, 245 [246 blank, 247 - 248 Contents]; 198 [199 - 200 Contents], contemporary sheepskin, spines richly gilt (but faded and rubbed), red morocco labels; joints slightly cracked, more severely on volume 2, tops and base of spines chipped. £250 Although Ramsay (1684 - 1758) was appointed a Constable in Edinburgh in 1716, he was chiefly interested in literature and operated a bookshop where he was able to publish, very successfully, his own works. He made 400 guineas from the sale in 1721 of his Poems and enjoyed a further success with his Tea Table Miscellany. He described himself as "A black-a-vic'd, snod, dapper fellow … With phiz of a Morocco cut’, whose ‘tripping gait … earned for him the sobriquet of Denty Allan." Burns Martin 227. This was the only edition of Ramsay's poems to be published in Berwick in the 18th century.

27 RATTRAY (Robert Haldane): The Exile: A Poem. The Third Edition. London: Printed from the Calcutta Second Edition, for Kingsbury, Parbury, & Allen..., 1826. FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. Tall 8vo, 200 xz 119 mms., pp. vii [viii blank], 159 [160 blank], original boards, uncut, paper label on spine; corners worn, spine chipped, but a very good copy. £250 Haldane’s poem is based on the loss of a ship, The Athol, a few years before the publication the poem, with the commander of the ship escorting his two daughters to the East Indies to be married to two of their fellow passengers. It was favourably received, with, for example, The Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature for 1827 remarking that, “it is a work of much merit, containing a tale of pathos, narrated in sounding versification, generally chaste, and distinguished for abrupt 14 vigour, mingling occasionally with peculiar smoothness. No impure thoughts, no prurient allusions, no Janus-faced expression moulded to convey voluptuous images, while escaping censure.... The love depicted...is that of that gentle species which usually springs in young and amiable bosoms, and flow uninterruptedly in an honourable channel.” The Monthly Review apologized for not noticing the poem sooner, and ridiculed its poetic merit in the conclusion: “If the reader be not satisfied with the taste of its quality, we recommend him to the perusal of the whole poem, notes and all, in which he will find much elaborate geographical information, about the length and breadth, &c. &c. of that hitherto unknown country, the Isle of Wight, with nautical and other information equally curious and original.”

28 TOMKINS (E. [sic, for Thomas]): Poems on Various Subjects; Selected to enforce the Practice of Virtue, and to comprise in one Volume the Beauties of English Poetry. A New Edition, with Vignettes. London: Printed for B. Crosby and Co....By J. Swan..., 1804. 12mo, 153 x 92 mms., pp. [vi], 256, engraved vignette on title- page and three other engraved vignettes, contemporary calf, gilt border on covers, gilt spine, red leather label; one front free end-paper removed, binding a little worn, but a good to very good copy. £250 Tomkins (1743 - 1816) was noted for his calligraphy and produced a number of decorative works for various publishers, though little of his original work seems to have survived. ODNB gives the first date for the publication of Poems on Various Subjects as 1806. In the introduction, Tomkins is agreeably laconic: “The Editor of this Collection has not much to say on the present occasion.” Having said something similar, many editors would then proceed to say a lot. Tomkins published a prelude to this work in 1777, entitled The Beauties of Writing; the first edition of the above work was published in 1780.

29 [VINCENT (John)]: Fowling, A Poem (In Five Books) Descriptive of Grouse, Partridge, Pheasant, Woodcock, Duck, and Snipe Shooting. London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies..., 1808. FIRST EDITION. Small 8vo, 170 x 95 mms., pp. [viii], 150 [151 - 152 adverts], contemporary calf, red leather label; spine dried and rubbed, front joint slightly cracked, but a good copy with the bookplate of Oliver Collett on the front paste-down end-paper. £200 Vincent makes the usual disclaimer about not having written the poem with a view to publication, in his spare time removed “from the tiresome tumults of polite society,” etc. The first book is devoted to grouse shooting, but the author seems to revel more in the pleasures that nature has to offer than in the actual shooting.

INSCRIBED PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR, WITH THE AUTHOR’S MANUSCRIPT CORRECTIONS, PLUS ADDITIONAL VERSES IN HIS HAND

30 WILKES (Thomas): The Golden Farmer A Poem. Humbly Inscrib’d to the Right Honourable Wlliam [sic] Lord Craven. London: Printed for T. Payne..., 1723. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Folio, 353 x 235 mms., pp. [iv], 8, including half-title, engraved head- and tail-piece, recent wrappers; half-title and page 8 slightly soiled. With an inscription on the half-title crossed out and another added, “To The Right Honble Lord Noel Somerset, the Gift of the Author.” Wilkes has also made two authorial corrections and added a couplet on page 6. £750 Thomas Wilkes (1677/8 - 1745) was a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and rector of Hempsteed, near Gloucester. The poem describes a rich farmer of Sparsholt in the White-Horse Vale, “The Galen of the Neighbourhood” famous for the medicinal qualities of his herbs and flowers. One wonders if Wilkes had heard of the thief John Bennet [Bennett], alias William Freeman or Hill, also called the Golden Farmer (d. 1690), for whom the subject of his poem would probably not have had much sympathy. Foxon W 460 ESTC T75076 locates copies in BL (2, one being the author's presentation copy with MS. corrections, including the “i” in William on the title page, and ms. additions), Leeds; Harvard, Huntington, Newbery, Princeton, Clark, Chicago, Texas, and Yale. There is also a copy in the Bodleian.