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8vo, pp. [viii], 54; complete with half title, but not the final advertisement leaf (a very little soiled at beginning and end); sewn as issued; in a green cloth folding case. First edition. The circumstances of this poem, and the author's source of inspiration, are clearly described in the opening lines of the preface: 'The following was occasioned by the loss of a lady's handkerchief, and is true only in that particular, and in the description of the ladies. As to the machinery, I cou'd not imagine any more suitable to the subject than that which is used by Mr. Pope, in his Rape of the Lock. In this, and in the conduct of the whole poem, the reader will easily see how much I am obliged to that ingenious gentleman'. The poem was, appropriately enough, also published by Bernard Lintot, who had also published the first edition of Pope's poem twelve years earlier, and the design of this book is not at all dissimilar to that of Lintot's sixth edition, published in 1723. Richmond Bond describes Barford's poem at some length: 'This is as close an imitation of Pope's masterpiece as it could well be without becoming servile. There are five cantos and a striking similarity in length; the machinery is even more prominent than in the Rape but not different; the very names are reminiscent, 'Belinda' becoming 'Melinda' and 'Umbriel' 'Umbretto'; the trip to the region of Pride recalls that to the Cave of Spleen; the battle scene is happily imitative; the rape of the handkerchief is not emphasized, but it is the central incident … Some social satire is present here, but the bold strokes of Pope, particularly his anticlimaxes and antitheses, are lacking. Barford has caught not a few of Pope's stylistic tricks and has captured some of the charming atmosphere so necessary to a production of this type, but in every particular The Assembly, though not bad in itself, can be only a feeble rival to its famous progenitor'. Richard Barford is very probably the man of that name who went up to Exeter College Oxford in 1723, at the age of 16: his father (also Richard) was a country clergyman in Wiltshire, near where the poem is set, and the slavish imitation of Pope the previous year he had published Abelard to Eloisa (also verse) is indicative of youth. He went on to write a tragedy The Virgin Queen (1729), a verse epistle to Lord Chesterfield (1730), and a topographical poem on Knolls-Hill, in Essex (1745). His tragedy is dedicated to Mary, Countess of Pembroke, chatelaine of Wilton House, where his father was the local rector. Foxon B82; Bond, English Burlesque Poetry, 1700-1750, 91.
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