AN INDEPENDENT TRIBUTE to the memory of the Right Hon. William Pitt. [colophon:]

Large broadside (442 x 275mm), with plain black mourning border round edge of sheet, two woodcut ornaments (an angel and trumpet, and an anchor) and an oval etched portrait of Pitt (approx. 105 x 82mm); small defect at centre, affecting only two letters; slightly rough edge at right hand side, where apparently previously bound into a volume, else in fine condition. An elegy for Pitt the younger by W.T. Fitzgerald (1759-1829), the loyal poet who was in some ways a predecessor of the great Wiliiam McGonagall. Fitzgerald, of Irish extraction, was educated in London and Paris, and worked in the navy pay office for many years as a clerk. His true vocation, though, in his own estimation, was as a poet in support of government and constitution: he wrote both eulogies and elegies on Nelson, in rousing support of the union of Britain with Ireland, and many other matters. Nevertheless, he is best remembered by the parody of his style in Rejected Addresses (1812), and by a reference in Byron's English Bards to his 'creaking couplets'. The derivative nature of his verse is much in evidence here: Long had he stood The Atlas of the The State, By Men who lov'd him not --- acknowledge'd Great! Contending Parties charm'd! attentive hung, On Tully's Periods flowing from his Tongue! Rare: Copac locates three copies, at the BL, Bodleian and Leeds; WorldCat adds copies at Harvard and the Morgan.…