Beschreibung:

Commonplace book, including poems, anecdotes and a song 'by a Devonshire cyder maker', mostly taken from fashionable magazines, in English, manuscript on paper [England, second half of eighteenth century] To view a video of this lot, click here. 24 leaves, entries in a single column of approximately 25 lines in a series of roman and italic hands, contemporary pagination 47-94, spots and stains, some leaves cracking at gutter from text block, overall fair, 195 by 160mm.; in contemporary card binding repurposed from a contemporary English legal agreement (repaired with tape at edges) With inscription on inside of front board: 'Betty Lardner, her book, January 1st 1762'. The presence of 'a new song sung by Mr Gilson at Vauxhall' (pp. 90-92) may indicate an origin in or around London. The short texts here, mostly taken from popular gentleman's magazines and the Spectator, cover a variety of religious subjects, as well as others, such as the song of the cider maker noted above and verse on 'A Female Ghost' (pp. 86-7, 'a true story, transacted at Salsbury', from the Universal Magazine, February 1765), as well as 'On a lady proving unlawfully with child' (p. 88 here, from The Gentleman's Magazine, July 1749). It ends with an impromptu verse 'occasioned by the report of Mr Foote's having lost his leg': 'That leg may lose a foote - I can conceive / That foote can lose a leg -I'll ne'er belive'