The Augustan Reprint Society
[JAMES BRAMSTON]
THE
ART of POLITICKS
(1729)
Introduction by
William Kinsley
PUBLICATION NUMBER 177
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Universiy of California, Los Angeles
GENERAL EDITORS
William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial LibraryGeorge Robert Guffey, University of California, Los AngelesMaximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los AngelesDavid S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles
ADVISORY EDITORS
James L. Clifford, Columbia UniversityRalph Cohen, University of VirginiaVinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los AngelesArthur Friedman, University of ChicagoLouis A. Landa, Princeton UniversityEarl Miner, Princeton UniversitySamuel H. Monk, University of MinnesotaEverett T. Moore, University of California, Los AngelesLawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial LibrJames Sutherland, University College, LondonH. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los AngelesRobert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Beverly J. Onley, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
[Transcriber's Note:
In the original, the text is arranged so that each stanza in "The Art of Politicks"corresponds to a section in Horace's "The Art of Poetry". The excerpts from "The Art of Poetry" aregiven as footnotes, in the original Latin.]
INTRODUCTION
The meagre information known about James Bramston'slife has been ably summarized by F. P. Lock in his introductionto The Man of Taste (ARS 171). For our present purposes, weneed only add that Bramston seems to have been acquaintedwith Pope, who saw The Art of Politicks before it was printedand thought it "pretty". [A]Bramston quite likely met Popethrough John Caryll, whose Sussex estate, Lady-Holt, was inthe neighborhood of Bramston's parishes.
The Art of Politicks, Bramston's first English poem, waspublished anonymously in 1729 and advertised in the MonthlyChronicle of 8 December. Several reimpressions followed, asdid another London edition, one from Edinburgh, and two fromDublin, all dated 1729, and a London edition of 1731.[B]It was reprintedin Robert Dodsley's Collection of Poems, by SeveralHands (1748), where it was attributed to Bramston, and in JohnBell's Classical Arrangement of Fugitive Poetry, Volume 5(1789), with a few notes.[C]Horace Walpole's copy of Dodsley'sCollection, with a few rather uninformative manuscript notes,is now in the British Library (C.117.aa.16).
It seems likely that the poem was completed in the summerof 1729. The most recent events that Bramston alludes toare Thomas Woolston's trial for blasphemy of 4 March (p. 27)and Sir Paul Methuen's resignation as Treasurer of the King'sHousehold, which was reported in May (p. 13).[D]
Horace's Ars Poetica was one of the most fertile sourcesfor eightee