AN ADDRESS TO THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF BARBERS IN OXFORD, occasioned by a late infamous libel, intitled, The Barber and Fireworks, a Fable, highly reflecting on one of the honourable members. By a barber … The second edition.

[OXFORD.]

Edité par Oxford printed in the year, 1749

A propos de cet article

4to, pp. 12; disbound. Second edition (of three); first printed earlier the same year, and this is clearly a reissue from standing type. The poem is a mock-defence of Oxford's 'tonsors', written in reply to a poem that had just been published making fun of a local barber, Lawry (or Laury) Horner, who had planned a display of pyrotechnics in Oxford for the annual celebration of St. Cecilia's Day; the fireworks, however, had to be aborted. This response has little to do with the actual incident, but is more an attempt to weave into mock-heroic couplets the names of Oxford's barbers, along with details of their hair-dressing specialities, their advertisements and signboards, and their sidelines in lancing boils and pulling teeth. The author also suggests that his fellow-poet direct his satire elsewhere: But tell me, scribbler, if thou'rt able, Why is thy Libel call'd a Fable? A Fable! shall I tell thee why? Because we know 'tis all a LIE. Better in Pulpit take Occasion To rail at Mayor and Corporation; Better with vile Abuse to fall On little JOE, Vice-Principal; Better at B***** waste your Time, And there in amorous Sonnets rhyme; Or, lodg'd in solitary Garret, Better write paultry Odes for B-rr-t (pp. 5-6). This copy has been helpfully annotated by a contemporary reader with a good knowledge of life in Oxford. 'B*****' is parsed as 'Botley', and the last line of the passage is described as alluding to 'the Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, printed for Barrett' that is, John Barrett the Oxford bookseller whose shop was on the High St. This is no doubt the parody that had just appeared under the name 'Fustian Sackbut', but in fact by Bonnell Thornton, then a 23-year-old undergraduate at Christ Church and a close friend of Christopher Smart (who had published a genuine ode of this genre a year before, in the manner of Pope); Boswell mentions Thornton's poem, and notes that Johnson 'praised its humour, and seemed much diverted by it. Thornton has, in fact, been suggested as the likely author of the present poem; if not by him, it must surely have emanated from his young literary circle. A rare and amusing title. Foxon A58. ESTC lists five copies (Oriel Oxford only in the UK, plus Huntington, Cincinnati and two at Yale in the US); and six of the first edition (BL, Queen's Oxford, Wellcome, Yale, Harvard and Wisconsin-Madison). Of the third edition, three are recorded: BL, Guildhall and Bodleian.

N° de réf. du vendeur 23239

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: AN ADDRESS TO THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF BARBERS IN OXFORD, occasioned by a late infamous libel, intitled, The Barber and Fireworks, a Fable, highly reflecting on one of the honourable members. By a barber … The second edition.
• Éditeur: Oxford printed in the year
• Date de parution: 1749
• Édition: Edition originale
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Poetry