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The Impertinent: or a Visit to the Court. A Satyr … The third Edition.

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‘Third Edition’, very rare, not the same as the folio ‘Third Edition’ of the same year which omits the commendatory poem ‘To the author of the following satire’ (first added to the second edition, also 1737). Foxon says ‘Possibly a piracy’, and indeed the type suggests Thomas Ruddiman in Edinburgh might be responsible.

The first edition of The Impertinent (1733) is one of the rarest of the major Pope titles. An imitation of John Donne’s Satire IV (itself inspired by Horace) in which the poet is waylaid by a chatterbox at court (‘He spies me out. I whisper, gracious God! / What Sin of mine cou’d merit such a Rod?'), it was first published anonymously, but included, in an enlarged version, in his Works vol II (1735). All the 1737 printings revert to the readings of 1733.

ESTC records a single copy, at UCLA.

ESTC R5680; Foxon P 901; not in Griffith; see Ximenes Occasional List 110 (Alexander Pope) items 146–7 for copies of the first edition (£9000) and the other ‘third edition’ (£750).