Sarah, the Quaker, to Lothario, Lately Deceased, On Meeting Him in the Shades. [With] Lothario s Answer to Sarah the Quaker in the Shades.

[BECKENHAM, CHARLES].

Published by London: Printed for A. Moore, near St. Paul s, and Sold at most of the Pamphlet-Shops in London and Westminster, [second pamphlet s imprint ends: St. Paul s; and Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster], 1728-1729.

Together two works, each 8pp., folio. First work with a manuscript identification of the author on title as "Hildebrand Jacob, Esqr:", and a long manuscript note in a later eighteenth-century hand on title verso (see below), old waterstain in the lower gutter margin throughout, but perfectly sound; second work with neat old restorations to the outer margins, affecting only a single letter of the imprint on the title-leaf. Separately disbound. Second edition of the first work, first and only edition of the second. "Lothario" is Spencer Cowper, a prominent Whig attorney and judge. He died in December 1728, just before the publication of the first of these two pamphlets. It is not clear why the case of Cowper s possible seduction and murder in 1699 of a young Quaker, Sarah Stout, was revived here, nearly thirty years after the event. As the early manuscript note on the verso of the first title-page attests, Cowper was tried for murder in Hertford in July 1699, and acquitted. The case was circumstantial at best: Sarah Stout had apparently fallen in love with Cowper, although he was married, and became melancholy when he avoided her company. Cowper had been at the Stout household - the family were political allies - late on the evening before she was found drowned in the river, and the prosecution chiefly relied on the theory that, because the body had floated, it must have been put in the water after death. To rebut this argument Cowper called expert medical testimony, also alleging at the trial that the prosecutions were malicious, brought by an alliance of the local Tories and the Quakers, the latter of whom wanted to clear their society from the reproach of suicide. In the first work the ghost of Sarah finds herself still questioning why she must remain A wretched Martyr in the Cause of Love? Change where I will, for ever must I find The cruel, false Lothario haunt my Mind? At last she confronts his shade, "all trembling and aghast": Now more than twice ten Years, by Thee betray d. . . In all the Bloom of tempting Youth I fell, And knew no Crime, but that I lov d too well; I lov d a Traitor, who, with barb rous Art, First labour d to seduce, then broke my Heart. . . . "Lothario" rebuts the charges of the first pamphlet, point by point: . . . what Treatment dids t thou see, That taints Lothario, or was base to Thee? Bright as they glow d, did I surprise thy Charms, Or force the tempting Plunder to my Arms? . . . My former Nuptials did I e er deny, T ensnare thy Virtue to a second Tye? Cowper s daughter was the poet Judith Madan, who was outraged by Sarah, the Quaker. The manuscript note in the copy here offered transcribes a poem she wrote on its publication: And lives there one, by canker d malice led, T arraign the innocent defenceless dead? The lion, gentler savage, through the wood Wild tho he roars, adust and dry, for blood, Yet if he chance where Death with friendly care, Has just relieved some painful traveller, With rough compassion sternly stalks away, And scorns to tear the unresisting Prey. The first work is Foxon, English Verse 1701-1750, B148 (this copy, like those noted by Foxon, is on unwatermarked paper; ESTC apparently does not distinguish between Foxon B147 and B148). Foxon notes that Charles Beckenham s authorship of the first poem is attested by Thomas Whincop, in his "Compleat List of all the English Dramatic Poets" published in Scanderbeg, 1747. The second work is Foxon L273. Clearly the publisher of these poems saw them as potentially troublesome. Both have the pseudonymous imprint "for A. Moore, near St. Paul s" used by several different bookseller/publishers around this time, including Edmund Curll. Andrew Bricker, "Who Was "A. Moore"? The Attribution of Eighteenth-Century Publications with False and Misleading Imprints" (PBSA, Vol. 110:2, June 2016), lists these works at p. 203, attributing them to the publisher Thomas Read. Seller Inventory # 12433

Bibliographic Details

Title: Sarah, the Quaker, to Lothario, Lately ...
Publisher: London: Printed for A. Moore, near St. Paul s, and Sold at most of the Pamphlet-Shops in London and Westminster, [second pamphlet s imprint ends: St. Paul s; and Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster], 1728-1729.