The Prophecy, or An Imitation of the 15th. Ode of the First Book of Horace. Address d to Mr. Steele.

19, [5]pp., 8vo. With the half-title, an advertisement leaf at the end and a final blank; small tear in the half-title neatly mended; some slight spotting. Neatly bound in modern drab boards with a morocco spine label. First edition of an uncommon poem by Welsted, dedicated to the staunch Whig Richard Steele. This was Welsted s first work to draw the attention of the Scriblerians. It fiercely attacks Robert Harley at the time the Tory dominance of British politics collapsed in the aftermath of the death of Queen Anne, and it accurately prophesizes the failure of a Jacobite invasion and the end of Harley s political career. And strong Delusions, nursed with Care Retard a while the Vengeance just; But when th enchanted Scene is o re And Reason reassumes her Power, Fall, Traytor, fall you must. Harley is said to have written a reply, and his friends in the newly-formed Scriblerus Club - Arbuthnot, Gay, Parnell, Pope, and Swift, never forgot Welsted s affront. Welsted was memorably enrolled as one of Pope s dunces with the lines Flow, Welsted , flow, like thine inspirer Beer; Though stale, not ripe; though thin, yet never clear; So sweetly mawkish , and so smoothly dull. . . . Foxon W311, locating the Princeton and Texas copies outside Britain; ESTC adds Illinois and Penn.…