Lines Drawn and ornamentally inscribed on a White Silk Riband with which [...] the Editor was decorated [...] by the Baron and Baroness Von Sass, at their seat of Tadaiken, in the Duchy of Courland, on 21st November, 1790, [...].

12mo: 8 pp. Leaf dimensions 18 x 11.5 cm. Unbound. Stitched as issued. Good, on lightly-aged paper with foxing to first page. Complete: paginated [1] to 8, and with 'Finis.' at the end. The full title reads 'Lines | Drawn and ornamentally inscribed on a White Silk Riband with which, and many other complimentary tributes of the same description, the Editor was decorated at an entertainment given to him, and a large party of noble friends, by the Baron and Baroness Von Sass, at their seat of Tadaiken, in the Duchy of Courland, on 21st November, 1790, on his entering into the 14th year of his age.' (The Oxford DNB, taking its lead from Tooke's obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine, gives his birth date as 22 November 1777.) The four lines of French verse referred to in the title are ascribed to 'Louise Sass, 19 Nov., 1790.' Five pages describe the origin of the association of 'the Editor' (i.e. Tooke) with the 'noble family' of Sass, beginning in St. Petersburg, where Took's father, William Tooke the elder, 'the then Chaplain to the British Factory', 'was the delight and the ornament [...] of every social circle'. The account ends with a list of the 'guests and their families attending or invited on the occasion'. Followed by a short article (pp. 5-6) on the Bloomsbury Inns of Court Association, described as a 'Rifle-movement'. Tooke reproduces a letter to him by George Bramwell. The last two pages (7-8) reproduce a poem entitled 'M. M. M. | Lines by an Ancestor of the Editor in explanation of the above initials. | A key to the Hedgehog combatant and my motto Militia Mea Multiplex. M. M. M. | By George Tooke, Esq., of Popes, Herts'. Long footnote by William Tooke on the subject. An excessively scarce piece of 'Tookiana' (a phrase employed in Tooke's Gentleman's Magazine obituary): no copy listed in the British Library catalogue, on COPAC or on WorldCat.