MADDEN (Wyndham).
The Pine Tree. A Poem.
"THE HEALING POWERS THAT FROM THE PINE TREE FLOW..."
UNRECORDED. NOT IN ESTC, OCLC or COPAC.
A very rare poem in praise of tar water - made from the pine tree - which was thought to cure all manner of ailments.
This poem is dedicated to Lord George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, and imagines a world ravaged by illness and disease (“The wretch in epilepsy frothing lies, / Or here in apoplexy snorting dies!”) before George Berkeley the Bishop of Cloyne arrives with his tar water which he believed as well as being an antiseptic was also a panacea for many other diseases. Berkeley published his work on tar water in his popular work, Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions…Concerning the Virtues of Tar Water (1744).
The author, Wyndham Madden (1733-1799), was born in Dublin, fifth son of Dr John Madden, Dean of Kilmore. Madden was one of the clerks in the office of the Commissioners of the Revenue in Dublin but also an artists who produced portraits and landscapes, some of which were exhibited at the Irish Society of Artists. Around 1767 Madden moved to London. Various Dublin places are celebrated in this poem including St Stephen’s Green and the Royal Hospital.
