Love’s Revenge: A Dramatic Pastoral

[1737]

de Beer Eb 1737 H

Winchester: Printed and sold by W Greenville

This broken and dismembered volume, with spine labelled ‘POEMS SET TO MUSIC BY DR. GREENE’, led researchers to discover the remainder of John Hoadly’s personal cache of his largely unacknowledged writings. Dr Hoadly (1711-76), a high-ranking English churchman and son of the disputatious Bishop Benjamin, led a pleasant and more private life as the friend of actor Garrick, artist Hogarth, and collaborator with the English composer Dr Maurice Greene. Thanks to this handful of manuscript and printed pieces in Special Collections, Hoadly can now be appreciated as a considerable poet and dramatist. It was a bonus that I recognised two of the four printed pieces: The Force of Truth: An Oratorio and Phoebe: A Pastoral Opera as printed by Samuel Richardson. The provenance of this book, Esmond de Beer, is a reminder of Dunedin’s very generous son.
(Chosen by Dr Keith Maslen, retired lecturer, Department of English and Linguistics, Otago)