Select odes of pindar and horace translated: together with Some original poems; Accompanied with notes, critical, historical, and explanatory

Exter: Printed for the author, 1790-93 In three volumes. v, [1], iv, viii, [2], 213, [1]; ix, [1], 167, [1]; [2], iii, [1], 188pp, [4]. With an engraved portrait frontispiece to Vol. I, list of subscriber's, and a final leaf of errata to Vol. III. Handsomely bound in contemporary gilt-tooled green morocco, contrasting red morocco lettering-pieces. Very minor shelf-wear. Bookplate of the Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore to front blank fly-leaf of Vol. I, with their occasional blind-stamps to all Vols., offsetting to Vol. I title, else internally clean and crisp. An exquisitely bound set of Exeter-based poet and antiquary William Tasker's (1740-1800) translations of selected odes of Pindar and Horace, together with choice examples of his own verse compositions and his letters of historical enquiry. The lengthy list of subscribers unsurprising includes numerous persons and companies of note based in Devonshire and surrounding counties, including Bristol Hot-Wells Circulating Library, and Bull's Circulating Library, Bath. Those residing further afield include Sir Joshua Reynolds and Samuel Johnson. Tasker had composed a poem 'To Dr. Johnson, on reading his Lives of the English Poets' which first appeared in the Morning Chronicle (3rd November 1781). The pair had later met on 16th March 1779 where Tasker asked for Johnson's opinion of his poems. Boswell records the meeting thusly: 'The bard was a lank, bony figure, with short black hair; he was writhing himself in agitation while Johnson read, and, showing his teeth in a grin of earnestness, exclaimed in broken sentences and in a keen, sharp tone, ‘Is that poetry, sir - is it Pindar?' Volume I only is a second edition (the first edition appeared in 1780); volumes II and III were published in 1792 and 1793 respectively, after the second edition of volume I appeared in 1790. ESTC records copies of this three volume set at four locations in the British Isles (BL, Exeter, Glasgow, and Windsor Castle), and a further three worldwide (Philadelphia, Princeton, and Sydney). ESTC T135985.. Second edition. 12mo.