Author: SHERSTON (Peter):
Title: The Months, commencing with Early Spring; A Poem, Descriptive of Rural Scenes and Village Characters.
Description: Bath: Printed for the Benefit of the General Hospital, by W. Meyler and Son; And sold by G. Robinson..., 1809. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 4to, 242 x 190, pp. [iv] [5] - 84, including list of subscribers, engraved frontispiece and 2 other engraved plates, with tissues, all engraved by Corbould after Barker, contemporary boards (soiled), recent cloth spine; tiny ink stain on title-page, but a clean and clear copy. The author is perhaps Peter Davis Sherston, of Wells, as the volume is dedicated to the Bishop of Bath and Wells; and he matriculated Queens' College, Oxford, in 1n 1802, aged 19. The cost of the volume was 10s. 6d. (half a guinea), the same price as the second edition of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, published in 1805. One hopes that Sherston's verse raised funds for the General Hospital, as the opening quatrain doesn't raise our hopes for the quality of the verse: "Bleak March delays impatient Spring;/ The earliest Butterfly/ Scarce dares, with desultory wing,/ To trust the faithless sky." Yup, I can confirm that for Sping 2018.

Keywords: poetry engraving literature


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