Farrago.

[iv], 188pp., 8vo. Printed on excellent paper but with a few spots and slight marginal staining. Contemporary calf; rebacked. Early ownership inscription "Eliz. Knight" on title, with "Alexr. Knight 1788" below, both lined through and a further ownership inscription added at the head "L. Barton Feby 1816." At the foot of the title is the blindstamp of the Wigan Public Library with its ink shelf-mark stamp on verso. First edition. An eccentric miscellany, largely in verse, written by a minor British official living in France who signs his preface "Pilgrim Plowden." The poetry includes some fine praise of Isaac Newton: Yet when the suns he lighted up shall fade; And all the worlds he found are first decay d, Then void, and wast eternity shall ly, And time, and Newton s name together dye. There is also praise for Pope s edition of Shakespeare, for which "Time lent his scythe" Not for its usual work of doom, But to pare off from Shakespear s tomb (That mighty genius of his age) The dirt which ignorance, or rage Of malice had begrim d thereon. . . . Interspersed are some insults for women, including "Privy-love for my landlady," and a number of comic prose passages, most of which are addressed "to the Commissary." There are some typographical oddities: the first person pronoun is regularly uncapitalized and the title-page is mostly devoted to the one-word title in large type. The author's name is revealed by an entry in the Stationers' Register; nothing else is known of him. Foxon, English Verse 1701-1750, p. 267.