Duck, Stephen — Poems on Several Occasions

G : in good condition. Cover rubbed and edge-worn. Eps browned. Internally very clean and bright. Some offsetting London Printed for the author First Edition 260mm x 210mm (10" x 8"). xl, 336pp. Woodcut head and tail pieces. Stephen Duck, 1705-1756, was born and lived at Charlton, Wiltshire. He wrote poems on several subjects, most well-known was 'The Threshers Labour' which was publicly read to the Queen by the Earl of Macclesfield. Also 'Truth and Falsehood' and 'A Fable'. The poems are representative of 18th-century working-class poetry, a genre that they essentially began. There are stylistic conventions and modifications in his poems, but also modest truths about laboring people. Duck was given a small house and various minor court appointments by the Queen; he became a yeoman of the guard, then a Keeper of the Queen's Library, and eventually took holy orders. Aquaintance, rival and fellow poet Mary Collier was also a labourer.