OCLC records copies of the London edition at BL, Bodley and V and A (presentation copy to David Garrick); Harvard (“Imperfect: t.-p., p. [iii]-iv slightly mutilated”), McMaster (without the half-title), Library of Congress (imperfect, lacking title-page), University of Chicago, Rice University and University of Washington. Cambridge have a seemingly unique copy of the first Dublin edition dated No copies recorded on Rare Book Hub of either edition.
A laudatory poem on Kew Gardens which celebrates the wide array of exotic and unusual plants from around the world.
Henry Jones (1721-1770) was born in Ireland and came to England under the patronage of Lord Chesterfield. Jones wrote a number of poems and plays which were met with largely positive reviews but his career was marred by drinking and idleness and he is said to have died in St. Martin’s Lane after he was run over by a waggon after two days of drinking.
In this poem, one of a number of what the ODNB calls “loco-descriptive pieces”, Jones describes the various plants found at Kew Gardens which had been established by Princess Augusta, the mother of King George III in 1759. The year after this poem was published Joseph Banks send seeds to Kew from his voyage with Captain Cook in the South Seas.
The poem descries:
“The mirto there from hot Jamaica comes,
Pimento call’d with spicy fragrance bles’d,
A foe to flatulence and vapours crude,
Whose essence warm dispels th’ imprison’d pest,
And opens wide the gate to health and joy,
By Europe honour’d, and be learning lov’d.
Banana next, sustaining plant, behold,
In rich Arabia born, with all its virtues fraught,
That vital manna of the Western Ind,
The bread of millions shed from Nature’s hand,
And worship’d daily by the numerous isles
That skirt America’s immense domain“ (p.16)
A mixed review in the Critical Review notes: “All this author’s publications prove (and this among the rest) that he has a vein for poetry. If, like the veins of metals and minerals, it is sometimes incrustated or impregnated with more ignoble contents, he may boldly say to his brother bards, Who dares throw the first stone at me? […] We entertain so great a respect for Mr. Jones, that we shall not quote the incomparably best part of his poem; we mean the scene, the scene of ruins in these delightful gardens, which we earnestly recommend to all moral as well as poetical readers. To conclude, many poems much inferior to this, have gained their author’s both money and reputation” (p.316)
