JEFFREYS

Richard Colley Wellesley (1760-1842), 1st Marquess Wellesley [as Earl of Mornington]; John Jeffreys Pratt (1759-1840), 1st Marquess Camden [as Viscount Bayham]; John Thomas Townshend (1764-1831), 2nd Viscount Sydney of St Leonards. See their entries in the Oxford DNB. On 5.5 x 15.5 cm strip extracted from a document, and laid down on 8 x 21.5 cm part of gilt-edged leaf from an album. In good condition, lightly aged on aged and creased mount. The signatures are written above one another: 'Mornington / Bayham / J. Th. Townshend'.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The present item is not in the best of condition: it is aged and creased (including dog-eared corner on which the signature ‘Camden’ is written), with contemporary repair to two long tears by the laying down on the blank reverse of strips from a contemporary manuscript. Docketed on the otherwise blank second leaf: ‘25th July 1824 / Marquis Camden’.

7pp, folio. On four leaves. In good condition, lightly aged. In worn modern half-binding of brown leather spine and corners and cloth covers, split at hinge. The poem is of 124 lines, arranged in five irregular stanzas. A nauseating exercise in brazen sycophancy, written in the aftermath of the Bloody Assizes. Not mentioned in Barnes's entry in the Oxford DNB, which does state that his 'adulation for the Stuarts [...] probably continued undiminished' with the accession of William and Mary.

ESTC R21335, which states: 'Attributed to George Jeffreys. Cf. BM.' 1p, folio. Aged and worn, with fraying to edges, but with text clear and entire. At top right, in pencil, in an eighteenth-century hand, 'Dupl' (i.e. duplicate). The heading reads: 'THE | Lord Chancellor's | PETITION | To His Highness the | Prince of Orange, | On His Entrance into LONDON.' Beneath rule at foot: 'LONDON, Printed for S. M. 1688.' For the context, see Jeffreys' entry in the Oxford DNB.