Author: FITZPATRICK (P. V.):
Title: Demosthenes, Contemplating the Ruins of Athens; Theme Proposed for the Annual Prize Poem in the University of Dublin, 1812.
Description: Dublin: H. Fitzpatrick. 1818. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8 (in 4s), 183 x 103 mms., pp. [ii], 2 [2], [3] - 29 [30 - 34 blank], engraved frontispiece, additional engrave plates on the verso of blank leaves between page 14 and 15, 16 and 17, bound in contemporary diced calf, gilt border on covers, gilt rules across spine, with title in one panel and ornaments in five other panel; some loss of gilt to borders, spine very slightly faded, but a very good copy Sir Walter Scott had a copy in his library at Abbotsford. Writing to Matthew Weld Hartstone in 1818, Scott asked him to "Pray return my besst thanks to Mr. Fitzpatrick for his polite and flattering attention in sending me his prize poem with which I was much amused, but who should come in whilst I was busy with it but Lord Elgin [Thomas Bruce, seventh AEar of Elgin and eleveth Earl of Kincardine (1766 - 1841 the acquirer of the Elgin Marbles)] about some business about the Bruces tomb which has been discovered at Dunfermline for we are very little acquainted - I could not help laught at the circumstance when he was gone, I do not all grudge the humereous [sic] chastisement he has received, for though I am glad that the marbles are brought here yet I could have cut my own hand off rather than have displaced one of them." Presumably it was Fiztpatrick's rather elusive but critical comment on Elgin's treatment of the Marbles that amused Scott. OCLC locates copies in Maynooth, National Library of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin; Queens University of Belfast; BL; Yale

Keywords: poetry classics literature


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