Parkman’s Proposed Book of Poetry

Parkman had a life-long interest in poetry and proposed to publish a volume of “celebrated POEMS by the most eminent hands.” The announcement appeared in the Boston Gazette (July 2, 1751, p. [2]), and it lists the poems that Parkman proposed.  There’s another, slightly different copy of the list in his Commonplace Book at the Massachusetts Historical Society. –Prof. Ross W. Beales, Jr.

Note: The following is a transcription of Parkman’s proposal for a book of poetry that was advertised in the Boston Gazette on July 2, 1751, p. [2].  Parkman never got the chance to publish his book, so I have posthumously “published” it by including links to online editions of the poems that appear on his list. I have tried whenever possible to link to poems published by the Text Creation Partnership in Early English Books Online or Eighteenth-Century Collections Online. I was unable to determine which version he would have used for “Psalm 19,” so I used a version from Early English Books Online that best fit his description. –Anthony T. Vaver

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It is proposed to print in a neat Pocket Volumn, with a new and beautiful Letter, on a fair Paper, and to be neatly bound, a Collection of celebrated POEMS by most eminent Hands.—-The Price, it is conjectur’d, will be about 25 s./O.T. If any Person shall appear to promote this Design; as it may be reasonably expected that the Book will stand ’em something less than they will be sold for to others, the Undertaker will conform to the Custom in that Respect. Subscriptions are taken in by S. Kneeland in Queenstreet.

The CONTENTS are,

• An Essay on Poetry; by the Rt Hon. the Marquess of Normanby.
• An Essay on translated Verse, by the Earl of Roscommon.
• The Art of Criticism; by Mr. Pope.
• The Temple of Fame; by the same Author.
• The Temple of Death; by the Marquess Normanby
• Cooper’s Hill; by Sir John Denham.
• Windsor Forest; by Mr. Pope.
• The Choice; by the Reverrend Mr. Pomfret.
• The Girdle; by Mr. Waller.
• Mr. Waller to Lord Lansdown,  &my LdsAnswer.
• The Splendid Shilling; by Mr. Phillips.
• Blenheim; by the same.
• The Campaign; by Mr. Addison.
• The Dispensary; by Sir Samuel Garth.
• The Duel of the Staggs; by Sir Robert Howard
• The Hermit; by Mr. Parnell.
• On Contentment; by the same.
• Psalm 19 beginning, wro’t into a sacred Ode.
• Psalm 148, paraphras’d, by Earl of Roscommon.
• Proverbs Chapter 7, See Spectator, No 410.
• Messiah; by Mr. Pope.
• A Prospect of Death; by Rev. Mr. Pomfret.
• Dr. Young’s Poem on the Last Day.