The Sentimental Sailor or St. Preux to Eloisa. An Elegy In two Parts, With Notes

Edinburgh. Printed For A. Kincaid and W. Creech and Sold by E & C Dilly, London. M,DCCLXXII. 1772. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 4to, 272 x 198 mms., pp. [iii] - xv [xvi blank],48, engraved title-page (3 mms. shorter than succeeding leaves), contemporary boards (very soiled), recently respined; lacks half-title. A good copy, with the inscription "E. Rich" on the top margin of the title-page The work is dedicated to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Scottish author Thomas Mercer (1709 - ?) versifies, fictionalizes, adapts a narrative of George Anson's circumnavigation of the world, reflecting on the acclaim Captain Cook met upon his return from his circumnavigation in 1771. It was reviewed in at least four publications after its appearance; and The Montly Review commented, first quoting frome Mercer's prefade that "His theme is St. Preux, passionate, vehement, tender, sentimental - making with Lord Anson the tour of the globe to recover his distracted mind by the view of the grandest sight the eye of man can behold...pursued by the image of his mistress whom he cannot renounce, - seeing nothing in the universe but Eloisa, his lost, lost Eloisa.... We were thus deluded into something passionate and pleasing! We can now say with the Author, What a subject for elegy! but how dangerous to retouch a picture drawn by a Raphael, or Corregio!" The Critical Review was a bit more sympathetic, asserting that the author has chosen a fit subject for an elegy, who reveals "a very respectable talent for that species of composition.... The scenes are often painted with a warmth and precision of fancy, which almost exceed our idea of the conception of a person whose mind is so violently with the enthusiasm of love and despair.... If ever this poem deviates from the strain of genuine elegy, it is where the force of the pathetic gives way to the grandeur of sentiment. An ardent, unremitting, and invincible violence of passion animates the whole of this poem, which is also embellished with the various graces of elegant and beautiful composition."