Recent poems, on rural and other miscellaneous subjects

Huddersfield: Printed for the author, by J. Lancashire, 1824. 242pp. With an engraved frontispiece, an engraved vignette depicting a beehive to title page, and a list of subscribers. Uncut in original publisher's drab paper boards. Lightly rubbed and marked, corners bumped. Lightly dampstaining to head of title and initial two leaves of text, else internally clean and crisp. The sole edition, in original state, of the only published work of native of Saddleworth, Yorkshire, and apiarian Thomas Shaw (1756-1828). The compositions are predominantly pastoral and sentimental - with the exception of two inspired by the Battle of Waterloo - and include, appropriately 'A Poem on Bees', a lengthy impassioned paean in rhyming couplets extolling the virtues of the bumbling insects and the wonders of the hive, commencing with the Homeric lines: 'Ye Muses nine inspire my lays; Of Amazons be mine the praise: Sing of a Queen of beauteous form, And of her race that boundless swarm'. A single note accompanies the text of the poem: 'My manuscript Treatise on the culture of the Bee, may perhaps at some future period find its way to the press'. It would appear that the work was never published. The list of subscribers is unsurprisingly dominated by Yorkshire residents. Remarkably, four patrons applied for 50 copies each, whilst J. Prinee of Salford ordered a staggering 100 copies. Not in Jackson.. First edition. 12mo.