A substantial collection of the work of John Williams (1754–1818), who published under the pseudonym ‘Anthony Pasquin’, including a charming autograph verse letter of 1790 about his portrait (item i), the early rarity The Lamentations of Edmund the Martyr. A Poem (1786) (one copy only in ESTC, at Duke, item v), a rare complete set of the verse biographies of actors that brought him to fame, The Children of Thespis (1786–8, items ii-iv, plus the collected edition, item xiii, and a sequel, The Pin Basket to the Children of Thespis, item xxi), his biography of the Earl of Barrymore (items xiv and xv), and many others; along with several rare poems by other authors.

Educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, where he wrote his first verses, Williams trained as engraver under the caricaturist Matthew Darly, and followed an itinerant career as a painter and journalist in Ireland and England until around 1786, when he ‘adopted the pen-name Anthony Pasquin and published his first extended satires on actors, in The Children of Thespis, a collection of verse portraits … [It] was profitable. Two more parts appeared in 1787 and 1788, and the thirteenth edition of the complete work was published in 1792’ (ODNB). It was published in parts, each by a different publisher and in two editions (a Dublin edition suggests that they were suppressed by the unhappy biographised), with the result that complete sets, in any edition, are very uncommon: only Harvard and Texas have complete copies of all three parts in their first edition; mixed sets are at the BL, Cornell, and Trinity Connecticut only.

Williams likely used The Children of Thespis, which featured poetical sketches of Sarah Siddons, Elizabeth Farren, John Philip Kemble, Dorothea Jordan (later mistress of Prince William), William Brereton, Frances Abington, ‘Mrs. Crawford’ (Ann Street), Elizabeth Billington, Elizabeth Inchbald, and many others, to coerce financial contributions in return for a favourable notice, but he was nevertheless popular in society ‘and was fellow rioter and salaried poet laureate of the wild, profligate, and short-lived Richard Barry, earl of Barrymore’, who also appears in Thespis. It was followed quickly by his very rare Lamentation of Edmund the Martyr (item v), a political satire that was issued with ‘The Creed of St Edmund Loyola, a Farce, as it was performed at Brookes’s’, and ‘The Cave of Despair’; and then by a two-volume collection of Poems (1789, item xi). ‘His Postscript (1790) [item xii] to Christopher Anstey’s New Bath Guide was well received, perhaps because it was less politically contentious than, for instance, Williams’s anti-clerical and anti-aristocratic Shrove Tuesday [item xviii] and Ode to Thomas Paine (1791) or his New Brighton Guide (1796) [items xxii and xxiii], written ostensibly to justify the Prince of Wales’s ill conduct towards his wife, but highly critical of the Prince’s entourage’ (ibid.).

In 1793 Williams published several editions [items xiv and xv] of a biography of the rake and actor Richard Barry, seventh Earl of Barrymore (1769–1793); into horses and cards, amusing but fickle, and a crony of the Prince of Wales, Barry was known for pranks that were at some times merely mischievous but at others destructive. For his private theatricals at Wargrave he built a sumptuous theatre, which after extensions in 1790 could seat 400, but it was seized to pay his debts in 1792 and the theatre demolished; he died in a firearm accident in March 1793. ‘Williams also wrote separately published anti-government prose pamphlets from the standpoint of a Foxite whig: these included Authentic Memoirs of Warren Hastings (1793), Legislative Biography (1795) [item xx], and A Looking-Glass for the Royal Family (1797) [item xxiv] … His writings on politics and art alike appeared under the name of Anthony Pasquin. Several of his books were illustrated with frontispieces and vignettes drawn and/or engraved by him’ (ibid.), many of which are featured here.

After a failed libel case against forty booksellers, Williams fled to America in 1798, working again as a journalist and travelling painter; he seems to have returned to England for a time in 1806, but is thought to have died in poverty in Brooklyn in 1818.

i. PASQUIN, Anthony. Autograph letter in verse, signed (as Pasquin), to [John?] Taylor. Dated at the head 30 October 1790.

1 page 4to, comprising fourteen lines of verse and a two-line postscript; creased where folded, old repairs to verso, but good.

Williams writes asking for Taylor’s opinion on his recent portrait (by Bartolozzi?), available for sale on the Strand. ‘I ask this of you / As a prop to the Muses – to Taste and Virtue; / Have they made me too handsome – too young or too old? / Are the features too soft – Is the contour too bold? … Am I blazon’d in toto, too rough or too sickly? Send your answer in rhyme, & I pray send it quickly’…

The likely recipient is John Taylor (1757–1832), a journalist and writer for the stage whose literary connections encompassed Boswell and Wordsworth, and who is mentioned in Pasquin’s autobiography and savaged in his Pin Basket (1796). He was then editor of the Morning Post and later of the True Briton and The Sun; in later life they fell out.

A list of printed titles in chronological order follows (volume by volume details are available on request):

ii. [PASQUIN, Anthony.] The Children of Thespis. A Poem. Part first. [London,] Denew and Grant for J. Bew, T. Hookham, and R. Jameson, 1786. 4to. pp. 67, [1], with a half-title; engraved vignette to title-page. ESTC T77872. First edition.

iii. PASQUIN, Anthony. The Children of Thespis. A Poem … Part the second. The third Edition. London, J. Ridgeway, 1788. 4to. pp. 65, [1], with a half-title; engraved vignette to title-page. ESTC N14712 (4 copies). ‘Third’ (but in fact second) edition.

iv. PASQUIN, Anthony. The Children of Thespis. A Poem … Part the third. The second Edition … London, J. Strahan, 1788. 4to, pp. 63, [1], with a half-title; space for engraved vignette to title-page left blank. ESTC T30587 (5 copies). Second edition.

v. [PASQUIN, Anthony.] The Lamentations of Edmund the Martyr. A Poem … to which is added, the Creed of Saint Edmund, and the Cave of Despair, a Fragment. [London,] Denew and Grant, for J. Bew and R. Jameson, 1786. 4to, pp. 31, [1]. ESTC N19414 (Duke only). First edition.

vi. COLLUTHUS. [William BELOE, trans.]. The Rape of Helen, from the Greek of Coluthus, with Miscellaneous Notes … London, T. and J. Egerton, 1786. 4to, pp. vii, [1], 59, [1]. ESTC T46286 (6 copies). First edition.

vii. [KEATE, satire on.] A Probationary Ode for the Laureatship, by George Keate, Esq: written in 1785. With Notes critical and explanatory, by the Editor … London, G. Kearsley, 1787. 4to, pp. 37, [3, advertisements], with a satirical etched frontispiece signed ‘SC’, and a half title; old repair to foot of frontispiece. ESTC T117870. First edition.

viii. [YOUNG LADY.] The Deserter. A Poem, in four Cantos: describing the premature Death of a Youth of eighteen who perished through ill-timed Severity in Dover-Castle on 15th of March, 1788 … By a young Lady … London, J. Denew for the Author, and sold by Faulder, Hookham, Davies, Debrett, Knight, Botyter, and Robinson, 1788. 4to, pp. 19, [1], with a half-title. ESTC T197 (6 copies). First edition.

ix. [ANSTEY, Christopher.] The New Bath Guide: or Memoirs of the B---n---r---d Family. In a series of poetical Epistles … a new Edition. London, Robert Dodsley, 1788. 8vo, pp. xi, [1], 156, with a half-title. Somewhat foxed, else a good copy in contemporary mottled calf, rebacked, edges worn. ESTC T90038.

x. PHEON, Timothy. The Contest of Divinity, Law, Physic, &c. for the Prize of Infamy. An original Poem … London, G. Kearsley, 1789. 4to, pp. iv, [2], 43, [1]; title bound in error after the title of Lamentations. ESTC T74526 (3 copies: BL, Bodleian, Newberry). First edition.

xi. PASQUIN, Anthony. Poems … Second Edition … London, J. Strahan, W. Creech (Edinburgh), J. Potts (Dublin), and the Author, [1789?]. Two vols, 12mo, pp. xxxi, [4], [5]–203, [1]; 268, with a half-title in each volume, engraved vignettes to title-pages printed in sepia; some slight foxing but good copies in nineteenth-century textured cloth, covers detached. ESTC T114258. Volume II is a reprint of The Children of Thespis. Second edition.

xii. PASQUIN, Anthony. Postscript to the New Bath Guide. A Poem … London, J. Strahan, 1790. 8vo, pp. [3], vi–xiv, [3], 152, wanting half-title; title-page mounted, one leaf of preliminaries loose, modern boards, stamp to title-page of Mercantile Library Philadelphia. ESTC T54283. First edition.

xiii. PASQUIN, Anthony. The Children of Thespis, a Poem … the thirteenth Edition, with additional Characters and emenda varia. London, Kirby and Co, 1792. 8vo, pp. 251, [1], with a half-title; a very good copy in late nineteenth-century half calf, textured cloth sides, spine gilt. ESTC T30588. Despite the title-page, this is the first collected edition, with some additional material.

xiv. PASQUIN, Anthony. The Life of the Earl of Barrymore. Including a History of the Wargrave Theatricals, and original Anecdotes of eminent Persons. London, H. D. Symonds, 1793. 8vo, pp. 79, [1], with a half-title and a frontispiece portrait etching, printed in sepia; a very good copy, disbound. ESTC T75475. First edition.

xv. PASQUIN, Anthony. The Life of the Earl of Barrymore. Including a History of the Wargrave Theatricals, and original Anecdotes of eminent Persons. Third edition, corrected and much enlarged. London, H. D. Symonds, 1793. 8vo, pp. 119, with a half-title and a frontispiece portrait etching, printed in sepia (foxed). ESTC T76166. Third edition, revised.

xvi. [BARRYMORE.] Truth opposed to Fiction. Or, an authentic and impartial Review of the Life of the late right honourable the Earl of Barrymore … By a personal Observer, (the Author of several popular Publications.) … London, C. and G. Kearsley, 1793. 8vo, pp. vii. [1], 121, [1], with a frontispiece portrait by Barlow; newspaper cutting on Barrymore pasted to final recto; a good copy, disbound. ESTC T73620. First edition.

xvii. [PASQUIN, Anthony.] A Calm Examination into the Causes of the present Alarm in the Empire … London, J. Bew, 1793. 8vo, pp. [iii]–vii, [2], 10–100, wanting half-title; final leaf foxed, else good; disbound. First edition.

xviii. [PASQUIN, Anthony.] Shrove Tuesday, a satiric Rhapsody. First printed in 1790. [London, 1794?] 8vo, pp. 36. ESTC T72230. Second edition, first 1791.

xix. PASQUIN, Anthony. A Crying Epistle from Britannia to Colonel Mack, including a naked Portrait of the King, Queen, and Prince … a new Edition. London, C. Lowndes for H. D. Symonds, and J. Ridgway, [1794?] 8vo, pp. 24, with a half-title. ESTC T72229. Second edition, first 1794 in pp. 88.

xx. PASQUIN, Anthony. Legislative Biography; or, an Attempt to ascertain the Merits and Principles of the most admired Orators of the British Senate … London, H. D. Symonds, 1795. 8vo, pp. 64, with a half-title. ESTC T37718. First edition.

xxi. PASQUIN, Anthony. The Pin Basket. To the Children of Thespis. A Satire … London, for the Author, and sold by J. S. Jordan, 1796. 4to, pp. 64, with a half-title (short tear to head); slightly dusty else good, disbound. ESTC T42297. First edition.

xxii. PASQUIN, Anthony. The New Brighton Guide …. The fourth Edition: with momentous Alterations and Additions … London, H. D. Symonds, and T. Bellamy, 1796. 8vo, pp. [3], 6–68, wanting half-title as apparently always, with an engraved vignette on the title-page, printed in sepia. ESTC T3290 (6 copies).

xxiii. PASQUIN, Anthony. The New Brighton Guide …. The sixth Edition: with momentous Alterations and Additions … London, H. D. Symonds, and T. Bellamy, 1796. 8vo, pp. 68, with a half-title (detached), and an engraved vignette on the title-page. ESTC T3291.

xxiv. PASQUIN, Anthony. A Looking-Glass for the Royal Family: with Documents for British Ladies, and all Foreigners residing in London, being a Postscript to the New Brighton Guide … London, H. D. Symonds, 1797. 8vo, pp. 36, with a half-title and a frontispiece etching by Pasquin. ESTC T41200. First edition.