Verses on the Death of Lord Nelson.

£1,250 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Rare. OCLC records BL and Huntington [presentation copy to Revd. Mr Dutens] only. Included in the second expanded edition of Howard’s Poems (London, 1807). No copies recorded on Rare Book Hub except for the present. “Nelson is no more”: An elegy on the death of England’s most famous naval leader by Frederick Howard, guardian of Lord Byron and object of Byron’s wrath in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers . Lord Nelson was killed on 21st October 1805 and this poem was most likely published (anonymously) some time around the beginning of February 1806 (the Morgan library has a letter from George Canning to Lord Richard Wellesley dated 12th Feb 1806 in which Canning encloses a copy of the poem (MA 854.11). One of a slew of poems on the death of Nelson, neatly summarised by the The Monthly Mirror: “All we can say of this publication, is to repeat the title; as thus - Here are ‘Verses on the Death of Lord Nelson,’ in nine pages, and you may buy them of Mr. Clarke for one shilling”. The next poem reviewed is another elegy on Nelson treated as such: “Another shilling’s worth! the title page is worth the money. Six more pages than in the last.” ( The Monthly Mirror (1806) p.176) The poetry is not exactly ground-breaking, but as the ODNB notes, Howard, “achieved lasting literary fame only through the works of his ward, Lord Byron”. Howard was made guardian of the eleven year old Byron in 1799. Byron praised Howard in the preface to Hours of Idleness and dedicated the second edition of

• Year: 1806

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