['The most perfect ode in the English language': Charles Wolfe, Irish poet.] Photographic facsimile of Autograph Letter Signed to John Taylor, containing the text of his celebrated poem ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna’.

The present item gives the text of the poem described by Byron as 'the most perfect ode in the English language' before its first publication in the Newry Telegraph in April 1817. See Wolfe’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The source of the present item is unclear. It is a photographic facsimile, many decades old, on both sides of a 4to leaf. In fair condition, slightly creased on browned paper, with negligible loss to margin at head. With five creases from folding. Addressed to ‘John Taylor Esqe / at the Revd Mr. Armstrong’s / Clonoully / Cashel’. A good photographic facsimile of an autograph letter, with nothing in Wolfe’s actual hand. The photograph indicates some damage to the original letter from the opening of the seal, resulting in loss of a few words. The letter begins, without salutation: ‘I have completed the Burial of Sir John Moore, & will here inflict it upon you; you have no one but yourself to blame, for praising the two stanzas that I told you so much -’. Wolfe now gives a fair copy of his celebrated poem, numbering the eight stanzas. Apart from accidentals the only variations from the version published a few months later are ‘lanthorn’ for ‘lantern’ and ‘struck the note’ for ‘struck the hour’. The first seven stanzas fill up the first side of the letter after the opening paragraph, with the eighth on the reverse, which carries the address and postmark, and the following: ‘Pray write soon - you may direct as usaly to Colley, & it will follow me to the Country. Give my love to Armstrong, & Believe me / My Dear John / Ever Yours / Charles Wolfe / I again say Remember [Constantine?] Elizabeth is to be drawn among them [?] - You will pardon me for being particular about any message from that quarter.’