Ceylan

Privately printed item. Oxford. A Satire.

réf. 15846 — Edinburgh: Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited. 1907. 15 1pp. 8vo. In grey printed card wraps. In fair condition lightly aged with rusted staples. The author describes his work in an introductory note as 'an elegant and ingenious poem in heroic verse; suggested by the third Satire of Juvenal; wherein the foolishness of the institutions of this University and the dullness and dishonesty of its inhabitants are for the first time properly exposed'. The influence of Samuel Johnson another adapter of Juvenal and also an Oxford man is strong as the opening indicates: 'Though on my brow there rose an angry frown When B - ll - l's i.e. 'Balliol's' Dons sent poor Patroclus down Yet envy stirred me as he caught his train No more to hear the Oxford bells again But far removed from godlesness and Greek To earn in town an honest pound a week.' Caldecott's entry in the Oxford DNB notes his 'happy talent for light verse'. Scarce: only three copies on COPAC the first at the British Library erroneously dated to 1910 and attributed to Geoffrey Howard the second the National Library of Wales the third Oxford. Edinburgh: Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited. [1907.] paperback