POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. By the Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton, Batchelor of Divinity, late vicar of Basingstoke in Hampshire, and sometime Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. WARTON, Thomas, the elder. Poetry

8vo, pp. iv, [xvi], 228; title page fairly heavily stained, extending onto second leaf as well; last five leaves also heavily stained; otherwise a good copy, in later 18th century plain sheep, spine with morocco label (joints cracked). First edition: one of the most notable collections of poetry published in the mid-eighteenth century. Warton's Poems on Several Occasions has become famous as a precursor of the great movement towards romanticism a love for nature, ruins and solitude, a fondness for Chaucer, Spenser and Milton, and for Greek and Scandinavian poetry, is evident throughout the volume. This is most unusual in poetry written between 1705 and 1745, the year Warton died. But recent investigation by David Fairer has suggested that in 'supervising' the publication, Joseph and to a lesser extent Thomas Warton, the poet's sons, effectively changed the character of their father's verse to suit the sensibility that they themselves favoured. Fairer proves that, of the poems for which the original manuscripts survive, only Philander is left intact: other poems, such as The Regal Dream (pp. 213-8) are substantially altered. As Fairer remarks of the changes made to this poem: 'Joseph's additions and alterations to The Regal Dream are obviously, as editing, inexcusable. Nevertheless, these changes have a consistent purpose: to reduce the cruder satirical element and add a new dimension of poetry to the barren allegory. Whatever Joseph's conscious aims, the effect was to produce a volume of the greatest interest in the development of eighteenth-century poetry. Joseph's editing of his father's verse and the contributions made by himself and his brother can be appreciated as an exemplar of how the young poets of the 1740s felt about the verse of the previous generation, and how eager they were to grasp the possibilities in style and subject offered them by the new 'romantic poetry'.'. The volume was published by subscription a copy of the Proposals came to light some years ago (it is now in the British Library) and among the subscribers in the list is one 'Mr Johnson'. This is almost certainly Samuel Johnson, who was closely acquainted with the two sons, Joseph and Thomas. On his card for this book, RHL has noted that another subscriber was 'Miss Goddard'. It is just possible that this is the 'Miss Bett Goddard' whom the younger Thomas Warton identified as the recipient of Collins's Ode, to a Lady on the Death of Colonel Ross in the Action of Fontenoy (1745). Collins was of course quite close to the Warton brothers at this time, but the headnote to this poem in Lonsdale's edition (1969, pp. 454-6) urges great caution in identifying her. Foxon p. 871; Eddy & Fleeman, Preliminary Handlist, 66. See David Fairer in Review of English Studies 36 (1975). Provenance. Signature on pastedown of Scrope Berdmore, dated 1778, with his bookplate; Berdmore was Warden of Merton College, Oxford, from 1790 to 1810. 19th century bookplate of Henry C. Compton, of Lyndhurst; and modern bookplate of Graham Pollard, sold in his sale at Sotheby's London, 4 July 1978, lot 517 (Pickering & Chatto, £25).