Hamish Riley-Smith

HAMILTON,William of Bangour Poems on Several Occasions. Glasgow, Robert & Andrew Foulis, 1748

Foolscap octavo, contemporary calf a little scuffed and rubbed, spine of five raised bands with gilt leaf designs in the compartments, upper hinge skilfully restored, red morocco label, (3) + 148pp, with Adam Smith's Preface dated Glasgow, December 21 1748, tear to inner margin of title not touching any text skilfully repaired, some light thumb-stains to some leaves, bookplate of Fort Augustus Abbey Library, a good copy.

First edition containing Adam Smith's first published work - the Preface to these poems. William Hamilton of Bangour (1704-1754) was a Jacobite poet-laureate who, because of his Jacobite activities, was in exile from 1747 until his pardon in 1750. The publication of this edition was arranged in his absence by a group of his Scottish friends. Adam Smith was asked, possibly by Kames, to provide an unsigned preface for this octavo volume. "Hamilton's poetry reflected a broad range of literary culture, from an imitation ballad in Scots... to 'imitations' or free adaptations of Pindar, Anacreon, Sophocles, Virgil, Horace, Shakespeare, and Racine, and the first rendering into English blank verse of a passage from Homer". Ross.
Gaskell 110. Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith, p.96. Viner, Guide to John Rae's Life of Adam Smith, pp.47-49.

£1450

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