Beautifully bound commonplace book and verse miscellany of ‘Stephen Bassett’. Medium quarto in straight-grained red morocco with gilt decoration to boards and spine, slight marking to boards, light rubbing to ends of spine; marbled end-papers; all edges gilt. 150 leaves (300pp) watermarked 1826 with 208pp blank and 92pp of handwritten entries including some ten entries in verse, dated 1829 - 1841 in a dozen different hands with occasional hand-drawn pencil or pen and ink illustrations and title decorations.
On the verso of the first marbled flyleaf is the calligraphic ownership inscription of ‘Stephen Bassett’ with a hand-coloured rainbow and the word ‘Souvenir’ opposite. The text which is written in several hands includes::
‘The magnanimity of the Roman Consul Regulus’ - J.M[artin]
‘On the advantages of a good education’ - T.C., Epping
‘On the understanding of languages’ - Rollin
‘On parental affection’ - S.G. Fry, Epping
‘The Honours of War’ - Louis Bonaparte’s reply to Walter Scott
‘Unpublished lines on Dr. Johnson’s Style, by the late Dr Walcot (P. Pindar)
‘Perforated rock, New Zealand’ with pencil drawing (8x7cm) of rock arch (Tolaga Bay)
‘The faded rose. Lines addressed to a beloved sister’- J Scoble (unpublished)
‘Thy will be done’ - F.M (unpublished)
2 pp dedication by Frederick Maitland Innes, Premier of Tasmania 1872-3
‘The orphan’s dying song to her sister’ - Anna Molines, poem 4pp
An attractive late Georgian commonplace book.
