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Poems, &c. On Several Occasions: With Valentinian, A Tragedy. Written by the Right Honourable John Late Earl of Rochester

by Wilmot, John. Earl of Rochester

Price: $6,500.00
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London: Printed for Jacob Tonson at the JudgeÕs-Head in Chancery-Lane near Fleet-Street, 1691. Octavo, 6.75 x 4.5 inches. f First authorized edition. A4, *8, B-L8; Aa4, Bb-Gg8. This copy is lacking the last two leaves of the preface: A5 and A6. This copy is bound in nineteenth century dark blue half-morocco, with rich gilt spine decoration, narrow raised bands, the title gilt on the spine, and with the date at the base of the spine, it is a fine looking book. . ÒIt is considered to be the best collection of RochesterÕs authentic lyricsÓ Prinz, John Wilmot earl of Rochester his life and writings, 1927. This edition contains many first (extant) printings of RochesterÕs writings, including ÒRochesterÕs Mountebank-Handbill.ÓÒDuring RochesterÕs lifetime only a few of his writings were printed as broadsides or in miscellanies, but many of his works were known widely from manuscript copies, a considerable number of which seem to have existed. [É] In February of 1690/91, Jacob Tonson, the most reputable publisher of the day, produced a volume entitled ÔPoems On Several Occasions.Õ The appearance of the authorÕs name and title on the title-page is significant. It may indicate that this edition was produced with the approval of the EarlÕs family and friends, and it is possible that they may have intervened to prevent the publication of SaundersÕs projected edition [license obtained from the StationerÕs Company by Saunders in November of 1690, no edition was ever produced]. TonsonÕs edition is introduced by a laudatory preface written by Thomas Rymer which states that the book contains Ôsuch Pieces only, as may be receivÕd in a vertuous CourtÕ and is therefore to be regarded only as a selection of RochesterÕs writings. Nevertheless it contains, in addition to twenty-three genuine poems which had appeared in the [pirated] Antwerp editions of 1680, sixteen others, including some of RochesterÕs best lyrics. No spurious material seems to have been admitted to this collection, but there is a possibility that salacious passages may have been toned down to suit the taste of a Ôvirtuous Court.ÕÓÒ[Wilmot] is one of these English poets who deserve to be called ÔgreatÕ as daring and original explorers of reality; his place is with such memorable spiritual adventurers as Marlowe, Blake, Byron, Wilfred Owen and D. H. Lawrence. Like Byron and Lawrence, he was denounced as licentious, because he was a devastating critic of conventional morality. Alone among the English poets of his day, he perceived the full significance of the intellectual and spiritual crisis of that age. His poetry expresses individual experience in a way that no other poetry does till the time of Blake. It makes us feel what it was like to live in a world which had been suddenly transformed by the scientists into a vast machine governed by mathematical laws, where God has become a remote first cause and man an insignificant ÔreasÕning Engine.Õ [See ÔA Satyr Against Mankind] In his time there was beginning the great Augustan attempt to found a new orthodoxy on the Cartesian-Newtonian world-picture, a civilized city of good taste, common sense and reason. RochesterÕs achievement was to reject this new orthodoxy at the very outset. He made three attempts to solve the problem of manÕs position in the new mathematical universe. The first was the adoption of the ideal of the purely aesthetic hero, the ÔStrephonÕ of his lyrics and the brilliant and fascinating Dorimant of EtheregeÕs comedy. It was a purely selfish ideal of the ethical hero, the disillusioned and penetrating observer of the satires. This ideal was related to truth, but its relationship was purely negative. The third was the ideal of the religious hero, who bore a positive relation to truth. This was the hero who rejected the ÔFools-CoatÕ of the world and lived by an absolute passion for reality. In his short life Rochester may be said to have anticipated the Augustan Age and the Romantic Movement and passed beyond both. In the history of English thought his poetry is an event of the highest significance. Much of it remains alive in its own right in the twentieth century, because it is what D.H. Lawrence called Ôpoetry of this immediate present, instant poetry É the soul and the mind and body surging at once, nothing left out.Ó (Quoted from Vivian de Sola PintoÕs edition of WilmotÕs Poems.) 

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