The poet and the muse

[POETRY]

Published by Printed and Sold by R. Amy, London, 1737

About this Item

[2], 16pp, [2]. With a half-title ( bearing the imprint 'Dublin: printed, and re-printed in London, and sold by R. Amey.') and a final leaf of publishers advertisements. Uncut, later stab-stitched. A trifle browned and dusty. Later inked ownership inscription to half-title, contemporary manuscript inscription to recto of final leaf: 'Mr. Alex. Williamson / Merkle Mains Parish of Preston / near Haddington / I. The Fall of Bob: or the oracle of Gin. / John Williamson' - this last line a reference to the the first work in the list of publisher's advertisements, perhaps suggesting that John Williamson was the author of The Fall of Bob, printed by J. Purser in 1736 under the pseudonym of Timothy Scrubb? A rare survival of the sole edition of an anonymous verse dialogue doggerel between a frustrated, half-starved poet and his unaccommodating ethereal muse: 'This Spirit makes me too exert me, / Thy honest Muse will ne'er desert thee. / We will, together, Virtues sing, / Or deeply with our Satire sting: / With twisted Scourges Vice engage, / And either Mend or Shame the Age'. ESTC records copies at two locations in the British Isles (BL and Oxford, and a further seven in North America (Cincinnati, Harvard, Huntington, NYPL, Texas, Virginia, and Yale). ESTC T77120. Size: Folio. Seller Inventory # AQ25309

Bibliographic Details

Title: The poet and the muse

Publisher: Printed and Sold by R. Amy, London

Publication Date: 1737

Edition: First edition.