Author: [PROCTOR (Brian Waller)]:
Title: English Songs, and other Small Poems. By Barry Cornwall.
Description: London: Edward Moxon..., 1832 FIRST EDITION. 12mo, 151 x 96 mms., pp. [iii] -xxii, 228, engraved vignette on title-page, and on recto of introduction, e other engraved vignettes, attractively bound in full contemporary polished calf, spine ornately gilt in compartments, olive morocco label; some wear to extremities, but a very good copy, inscribed the author at the top of the title-page, "To Allan Cunningham/ with the best Regards of his friend/ The Author." The Scottish poet Allan Cunningham (1784 - 1842) was famous for his collections of songs as well as his own compositions, of which Songs, Chiefly in the Rural Language of Scotland published in 1813 is the best example. Proctor (1787 - 1874) qualified as a solicitor, worked as a conveyancer, and became one of the Commisioners in Lunacy in 1832. The Monthly Review for 1832 reviewed the work at length, find much to admire and much to lament, and concluding, "if we have exposed some of the fault which pervade this collection of songs, we have done so for the purposes of hinting to Mr. Proctor, that he has not yet, at least, succeeded in supplying that great desideratum, a body of lyrics truly English. We do not remember more than one or two of his compositions which do not apply, nationally speaking, just as much to America as to this country. The great majority of them are conversant with feelings and sentiments which are common to all mankind, and do not even pretend to afford us the slightest idea of the English character. As if to crown the absurdity of the plan, most of those which have been set to music, have received that honour from the talents of a foreigner!" The allusion is probably to Haydn who must have thought rather favourably of Proctor's lyrics and songs. So did the book-buying public, as the volume was reprinted in 1844, 1846, and 1851.

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