SWIFT, Jonathan (attr.).
The Life and genuine Character of Doctor Swift. Written by Himself.
London: Printed for J. Roberts … and sold at the Pamphlet Shops … 1733.
Folio, pp. 19, [1]; with a half-title; slightly foxed, but a good copy in modern boards.
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The Life and genuine Character of Doctor Swift. Written by Himself.
First edition. Authorship of this fine poem has long been debated. It was explicitly repudiated by Swift himself, though it has much in common with Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift and Faulkner printed it as genuine in 1746.
Say what you will about his reading,
You never can defend his Breeding!
Who, in his Satyrs running riot,
Cou’d never leave the World in quiet ---
Attacking, when he took the Whim,
Court, City, Camp, all one to him ---
Foxon suggests that if Faulkner was mistaken, then a good case could be made for Pope as author. There is a long dedication to Pope signed with the initials ‘L. M.’ – again not clearly identified.
Foxon S-884; Teerink-Scouten 727; Rothschild 2143.