Poems on Several Occasions

1722

De Beer Eb 1722 P

Printed for B. Lintot

This book contains the writing of Anglo-Irish poet, Thomas Parnell (1679-1718). An ordained priest, Parnell counted Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift amongst his friends. The book was once owned by a Mrs Hanbury: ‘Mrs Hanbury her book god give her therin to so look for she is a very good woman’. Who was Mrs Hanbury? In the eighteenth century, the term ‘Mrs’ did not necessarily mean a woman who was married. It was in fact a shortened version of ‘mistress’, and ‘applied to all adult women of higher social status, whether married or not’ (Erickson, 2014). Whoever she was, Mrs Hanbury believed in God, and she was ‘very good’.