BY 'THE BEST CRITICK OF OUR NATION'
[WALSH, William.]
A Funeral Elegy upon the Death of the Queen. Addrest to the Marquess of Normanby.
London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1695.
Folio, pp. 11, [1]; title-page within a mourning border; slightly dusty, signature B a little toned, but a very good copy, lower edge untrimmed; disbound.
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A Funeral Elegy upon the Death of the Queen. Addrest to the Marquess of Normanby.
First edition of Walsh’s elegy on the death of Queen Mary II, the very rare first issue without the author’s name on the title-page. The second issue replaces a thick rule on the title-page with Walsh’s name, and adds two thick rules to the final page – this latter setting is also used in the second edition.
Walsh (1662–1708) was one of Dryden’s circle of wits at Will’s Coffee House in Covent Garden, where Dryden praised him as ‘without flattery, the best Critick of our Nation’ (postscript to Virgil). His Letters and Poems, amorous and gallant (1692) mixed self-conscious foppery with black humour. His elegy on the death of Queen Mary was one of only a few separate poems published by him. He is now best known as an early mentor of Alexander Pope.
Not in Wing. ESTC records three copies only, at the Folger, National Library of Ireland, and National Library of Scotland.
ESTC R235744.
