The Scribleriad: An Heroic Poem.

PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR

Richard Owen Cambridge. The Scribleriad: an Heroic Poem. In Six Books. Illustrated with 7 full page engravings by Louis Philippe Boitard. 4to. 18th century marbled boards, rebacked. London: Printed for R. Dodsley . . . and Sold by M. Cooper 1751. First Edition. Presentation copy inscribed by Cambridge on the title page, "The Gift of the Author, Richard Owen Cambridge Esq. of Twichenham." Each book has a separate title page and engraved frontispiece.


Bound With: Poems by Charles Jenner, A.M. Cambridge: Printed by J. Bentham; for T. & J. Merrill; and sold by Mr. Dodsley, . . . 1766.

The Scribleriad is a mock-heroic satire on science and discovery, a continuation of Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, by John Arbuthnot, Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, an imitation of The Dunciad and a parody of Pope's Homer. Cambridge profusely expounds his satiric epic with notes from the classics and modern science. Both airplane and submarine are described by quotations from the Mathematical Magick of Bishop John Wilkins. Wilkins was deeply impressed with the idea of aerial navigation, and even still more with that of submarine navigation and its manifold uses. Book IV is devoted to a description of an aerial combat (two bizarre flying machines) between an Englishman and a German, and is accompanied by a remarkable illustration of the fight. The work also discusses a Submarine.

With 18th century bookplate of Rev. Thomas Coombe on the front paste-down. Coombe was born in Philadelphia and educated at the University of Pennsylvania. A staunch Tory, he immigrated to England in 1779, where he became a fashionable preacher and eventually one of the king's chaplains. Some light damp staining; last blank restored. Boards worn, but nevertheless quite scarce in early boards.