Author: [MORRIS (Corbyn)]:
Title: An Essay Towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule. To which is Added, an Analysis Of the Characters of An Humourist, Sir John Falstaff, Sir Roger De Coverly, and Don Quixote. Inscribed to the Right Honorable Robert Earl of Orford. By the Author of a Letter from a By-Stander.
Description: London: Printed for J. Roberts...and W. Bickerton..., 1744. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo (in 4s), 193 x 123 mms., pp. xxxiv [xxxv erratum, xxxvi advert], xxxii, 75 [76 blank], 19th century quarter grain plum morocco, publishers boards, gilt spine; title-page slightly soiled at fore-edge and starting to detach at inner margin, binding a little rubbed, but a good copy, with the ownership inscription on the verso of the leaf facing the title-page, "Balcarres/ Eton, March 1890." This is possibly Lindsay, David Alexander Edward, twenty-seventh earl of Crawford and tenth earl of Balcarres (1871–1940), the second book of the book collector, the ninth earl, and who was at Eton College from 1886 to 1890. The long dedication (32 pages) to Robert, Earl of Orford, would seem to validate the a comment that David Hume made abut the author. Writing in March, 1763, to Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, Hume remarked that "I am become much of my friend Corbyn Morrice's Mind, who says, that he writes all his Books for the sake of the Dedications." Horace Walpole included it in a packet of "the only new books at all worth reading" sent to Horace Mann, but the fulsome dedication to the elder Walpole undoubtedly had something to do with this recommendation. It attracted a favourable comment in The Daily Advertiser for 31 May 1744; the author described the distinction between wit and humour as "new and excellent."

Keywords: satire wit literature


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