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2 volumes. 12mo, 167 x 99 mms., pp. [ii], iv, 333 [334 blank]; [ii], 423 [424 blank], contemporary calf, remains of gllt on spine and covers; some slight worming of inner margine volume, front free end-paper removed from volume 2, binding a bit dried and worn, but a goodish set, with the contemporary autograph dated 1765 of [?JM] Fleming on the front end-papers of volume 1 and the first page of text volume 1. Smart's translation of Horace for Newbery was published in 1756, but he collected only £13 of the £100 he had been promised for the work, the remainder having gone to his wife. Rosalind Powell, in Christopher Smart's English Lyrics: Translation in the Eighteenth Century (2014), notes that "Smart's prose translation is generally faithful, although the words that he chooses are much less vulgar than the Latin." Smart was occasionally given to praying in public, an activity which Mrs. Thrale found worthy of comment: "While Kit Smart thought it his Duty to pray in Secret, no living Creature knew how mad he was.[and] this indecorous Conduct obliged his Friends to place him in a Confinement which many mad as he remain excluded.". Seller Inventory # 10063
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