The Shade of Alexander Pope on the Banks of the Thames. A Satirical Poem. With Notes. Occasioned chiefly, but not wholly, by the residence of Henry Grattan, Ex-Representative in Parliament for the City of Dublin, at Twickenham, in November, 1798. By the Author of The Pursuits of Literature

Book Description

London: Printed for T. Becket, 1799. [iv], 86, [2]pp., 8vo. With the half-title and a terminal leaf of advertisements for other works by the same author. A nice large copy in recent marbled boards. First edition, ostensibly a satire on Grattan who was in residence near Pope’s former house at Twickenham, but in fact a wide-ranging and often vitriolic invective, with the prose notes far outweighing the poetry. Especially notable are the near ten full pages devoted to “William and Mary [Godwin], on one common coin. . ./ Fierce passion’s slave, she veer’d with every gust,/ Love, Rights and Wrongs, Philosophy, and Lust.” No more than one line of these verses get onto each page, the rest being taken up with notes, e.g. . . . these memoirs and posthumous works of Mary Woolstoncraft Godwin should be earnestly recommended to every. . . mistress of a boarding school. . . as “A convenient Manual of speculative debauchery, with the most select arguments for reducing it into practice;” for the amusement, initiation, and instruction of young ladies from sixteen to twenty-five years of age, who wish to figure. . . in the notorious receptacles of patrician prostitution.Well-represented in ESTC, but in my experience uncommon in commerce.

Not sure what some of these terms mean? Look it up in our glossary.