GRENVILLE, William Wyndham, Baron.

£1,250 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Nugae Metricae. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, "The Honble. N. Fellowes from the Author". The recipient, Newton Fellowes (1772-1854), was MP for Andover from 1802 to 1820, sitting with Grenville's Whigs. He became 4th Earl of Portsmouth in 1853; the front pastedown is inscribed, "The Earl of Portsmouth, Eggesford".Grenville served as Prime Minister from 1806 to 1807 and is best remembered for the abolition of the slave trade. He printed this collection of his "poetic trifles" for circulation among his friends. They comprise translations from and into English, Latin, and Greek, and his own compositions, "written at very different periods of the Author's life" (preface). It includes poems on his dogs, Tippo and Zephyr. "Copies of this work are of rare occurrence, having been bought up by the family. It has been said that these poems [and those of the Marquis of Wellesley] are the most classical Latin compositions of the present century" (Allibone, p. 738)

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