Howard, Sir Robert

Defending his poem 'The Duel of the Stags ("...I was told from A person who I ought to believe that my small Poem of the Duell of the Staggs, was found out to be Alligoricall, and reflecting upon the Kinge himself, if it were soe I owne it A guilt fit for punishment, if it be not soe I woud have those suffer that made that ill which I never intended..."), two pages, folio (290 x 180 mm), integral autograph address leaf, near-complete red wax seal impression, Vasterne, 26 July 1668; tears neatly repaired, some soiling. Brown morocco-backed folding-box.

Sotheby's, 23 July 1987, lot 250. acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

"...[The poem] was writ when I was retird into the Country, neither with any thoughts of acquaintance of what others did, but meerly beinge told the storie by one that livd in windser forrest ... the love of description in Poetry, and Idlenesse the nurse of Fance, were the only Causes that invited mee to endeavor the description..."

A rare letter by a seventeenth-century poet discussing his own work. Robert Howard (1626–1698) was John Dryden's brother-in-law and a well-known Restoration playwright, poet and politician.