"WHAT SCENES OF BLISS MY RAPTUR'D FANCY FRAM'D, / IN SOME LONE SPOT WITH PEACE AND THEE RETIR'D!"

HAMMOND, James. Love Elegies. Written in the Year 1732. London: Printed for W. Strahan and R. Baldwin, 1768. Small octavo, contemporary marbled paper boards, later half calf. $250.

Sixth edition of these poems first published in 1743 and extremely popular in their day; 18th-century printings are now uncommon, particularly in contemporary bindings.

This poem cycle is attributed to James Hammond and the preface to Lord Chesterfield. "The popular tradition is that Hammond fell in love with Catherine (commonly called Kitty) Dashwood, the toast of the Oxfordshire Jacobites, and the intimate friend of Lady Bute, who was afterwards bedchamber woman to Queen Charlotte, and that she at first accepted, then rejected, his suit for prudential reasons. He, so the story adds, died of love; she survived until 1779. Walpole asserts that the lady, though much in love with Hammond, broke off all connection with him on 'finding that he did not mean marriage'" (DNB). These ardent poems, which mostly rebuke the fair Delia for coldness and encourage her "to strain her yielding beauties to my breast," do not do much to disprove the accusation. Sixth edition. ESTC T68888. For first edition, see CBEL II, 550 and Foxon T296.

Minor foxing to first and last few pages; original boards worn. A nice copy of an interesting, uncommon item.