LONDON.

£2,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Hell upon Earth: or the Town in an Uproar. First and only edition of this Juvenalian satire on London, "this great, wicked, unwieldy, over-grown Town, one continued hurry of Vice and Pleasure". This disbound copy in notably good condition.The first ten pages set forth a mocking hour-by-hour account of Londoners' activities on the Sabbath, from "lawyers in the Inns of Court lacing their Mistresses Stays, paying them their Fees, and removing them by Habeas Corpus to their own Lodgings" at eight o'clock in the morning to "Drunkel Quarrels at all Corners of the Streets" at nine o'clock at night (p. 10). The author then goes on to condemn, among others, the excessive lifestyle of the fop, the evils of effeminate sodomites, and the practice of cursing too frequently. His diatribe against gluttonous eating is illustrated with a diagram of a three-course menu including Soupe au Bourgoise, Beef à la Tremblade, and Fricasee of Salamanders, which he ridicules as having nothing to recommend it "but the Expence and hard Names" (p. 31).

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