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Details
FENTON, Elijah (1683-1730). Poems on Several Occasions. London: Bernard Lintot, 1717.
8°, engraved allegorical frontispiece by E. Kirkhall, woodcut title vignette, engraved coat-of-arms on dedication leaf, woodcut decorations, 4 advertisement leaves at end (offsetting to title, some marginal spotting, creasemark to N4-5), PRESENTATION BINDING OF CONTEMPORARY RED MOROCCO GILT, covers with roll tool and double fillet inner panel, joined at the angles to a treble fillet outer panel with fleurons at corners and sides, later crest placed centrally on upper cover, gilt spine in six compartments with black morocco lettering-piece in one, others with a repeat pattern of acorns and fleurons, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Provenance: John Leveson-Gower, first Earl Gower (1694-1754), with his armorial bookplate and signature "Gower" on title, and with a biographical note in an unidentified hand on his father, John Leveson-Gower, first Baron Gower (1675-1709), on verso of final leaf.
FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION with wide margins. The Poems include "An Ode to the Right Honourable John, Lord Gower, Written in the Spring, 1716" on p. 218. Johnson styled Fenton "an excellent versifier and a good poet," and his contributions to Pope's translation of the Odyssey are indistinguishable by the internal evidence from Pope's own. Pope himself pronounced the ode to Lord Gower "the next ode in the English language to Dryden's Cecilia," a fact noted in a 19th-century hand on the front endpaper of this copy, while the rear blank contains a manuscript transcription of Pope's "Epitaph on Mr. Elija Fenton." This copy also includes a 4pp. ms letter, dated Newcastle, Staffordshire, March 24 1797, 4to., from the Rev. John Fenton to "My Lord," [? the then Earl Gower]. Lowndes II, 789.
8°, engraved allegorical frontispiece by E. Kirkhall, woodcut title vignette, engraved coat-of-arms on dedication leaf, woodcut decorations, 4 advertisement leaves at end (offsetting to title, some marginal spotting, creasemark to N4-5), PRESENTATION BINDING OF CONTEMPORARY RED MOROCCO GILT, covers with roll tool and double fillet inner panel, joined at the angles to a treble fillet outer panel with fleurons at corners and sides, later crest placed centrally on upper cover, gilt spine in six compartments with black morocco lettering-piece in one, others with a repeat pattern of acorns and fleurons, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Provenance: John Leveson-Gower, first Earl Gower (1694-1754), with his armorial bookplate and signature "Gower" on title, and with a biographical note in an unidentified hand on his father, John Leveson-Gower, first Baron Gower (1675-1709), on verso of final leaf.
FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION with wide margins. The Poems include "An Ode to the Right Honourable John, Lord Gower, Written in the Spring, 1716" on p. 218. Johnson styled Fenton "an excellent versifier and a good poet," and his contributions to Pope's translation of the Odyssey are indistinguishable by the internal evidence from Pope's own. Pope himself pronounced the ode to Lord Gower "the next ode in the English language to Dryden's Cecilia," a fact noted in a 19th-century hand on the front endpaper of this copy, while the rear blank contains a manuscript transcription of Pope's "Epitaph on Mr. Elija Fenton." This copy also includes a 4pp. ms letter, dated Newcastle, Staffordshire, March 24 1797, 4to., from the Rev. John Fenton to "My Lord," [? the then Earl Gower]. Lowndes II, 789.
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