POETICAL MISCELLANY

12mo. 160 x 100 mm., 6 ½ x 3 ¾ inches). xii, 251(1) pp. 12mo, contemporary tree calf, spine gilt, red morocco label (joints very slightly rubbed, upper cover a trifle marked. Early armorial bookplate of Sir Thomas Hesketh.

First edition. A lively Grub-Street poetical miscellany, edited by Matthew Concanen. Concanen was born in Ireland in 1701 began to publish poetry before the age of 20; his Match at Foot-Ball and Meliora's Tears for Thyrsis were both printed in Dublin in 1720, and then incorporated two years later into a small collection of Poems on Several Occasions (also printed in Dublin). Shortly afterwards he went to London with his friend John Sterling, and the two young men began careers as hack writers and journalists.

Concanen is perhaps now best remembered for his squabbles with Alexander Pope, who was once to refer to him as "a hired scribbler." In 1732 Concanen succeeded in persuading the government to give him a post as attorney-general for Jamaica, and he performed his duties with credit; he married a planter's daughter and returned to English a rich man in 1743. Concanen remained in London until his death in 1749.

This miscellany contains six poems by Concanen himself; among the other named contributors are Phanuel Bacon, Thomas Newcomb, Allan Ramsay, David Mallet, Ambrose Philips, Philip Frowde, and William Duncombe. From the anonymous poems we can identify verses by his Irish friend Patrick Delany, along with others by George Bubb Dodington and Edward Young (also attributed to Swift, cf. Foxon Y108). Some amusing titles are included here, such as "A Crambo on Ballyspellin, a Place in Ireland" "The Dangler," and "On Tearing out and Burning the Obscene Pieces in Lord Rochester's Works;" there are also a number of poems by unidentified women, and three animal fables.