Thomas, William Pennsy-iana: A Price Guide to Pennsylvania Books ''A Tiger Cave Imprint'', Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1972, Wraps, , First Edition, Very Good
85 pp.+2 pp. map of the counties of Pennsylvania. Illustrations throughout. Light rubbing and aging to the corners and edges, else fine. ''Mr. William Thomas, complier of this price guide, has for some years been a dealer in books about Pennsylvania. His information on the market is the result of considerable practical experience. He has an exceptional knowledge of the variety of Pennsylvania books, of their individual peculiarities and reliability, of their relative scarcity and of their relative usefulness in scholarly research. The present guide is directed essentially toward pricing scholarly, historical, biographical and geographical works. The more than 1000 titles included here encompass those publications which are old, out of print and sometimes scarce. Excluded from this price guide are books whose rarity makes it unlikely that they will come into the average dealer's hands. Also excluded from this guide are the numerous books, both common and rare, which are classified together as 'early imprints.' ''
“Most people know the legend of Thomas Chatterton -- brilliant poet who failed to make a living, starved himself to send expensive presents to his family, and died by his own hand at seventeen -- much better than his poems. Like all legends, it is partial and exaggerated, but was a powerful influence on the Romantic movement and long after. The painting "The Death of Chatterton" by Henry Wallis epitomises this reputation. His fame rests, apart from this almost unbearably romantic life story, on his "Rowley Poems". These he wrote in a sham Middle English dialect, and passed off as the work of Thomas Rowley, a priest of Bristol in the fifteenth century, and some of his friends. The imposture was quickly detected (though some continued to believe in him for many years), but they were published in a collected edition after his death and were popular and much admired by the Romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, who dedicated "Endymion" to the memory of Thomas Chatterton.”
“Throughout his political career Hopkinson wrote poetry and satire on the politically derisive issues of the day. He penned a popular and humorous work on the 1787 Constitutional Convention. He was also an accomplished harpsichordist and composer. His work "My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free," set to the words of Thomas Parnell's "Love and Innocence," is the first extant secular song by a native American composer.”
THE BEECH TREE'S PETITION
O leave this barren spot to me!
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!
Though bush or floweret never grow
My dark unwarming shade below;
Nor summer bud perfume the dew
Of rosy blush, or yellow hue;
Nor fruits of autumn, blossom-born,
My green and glossy leaves adorn;
Nor murmuring tribes from me derive
Th' ambrosial amber of the hive;
Yet leave this barren spot to me:
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!
Thrice twenty summers I have seen
The sky grow bright, the forest green;
And many a wintry wind have stood
In bloomless, fruitless solitude,
Since childhood in my pleasant bower
First spent its sweet and sportive hour;
Since youthful lovers in my shade
Their vows of truth and rapture made,
And on my trunk's surviving frame
Carved many a long-forgotten name.
Oh! by the sighs of gentle sound,
First breathed upon this sacred ground;
By all that Love has whispered here,
Or Beauty heard with ravished ear;
As Love's own altar honor me:
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!