[Baron , Robert.]

8vo, first edition, engraved frontispiece portrait by Marshall, three inserted leaves of laudatory verse present between A1 and A2 as called for, later full dark blue morocco gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, inner dentelles, preserved in collector's three-quarter blue morocco box, minor browning, front endpaper detached, headlines occasionally cut close

John Camp Williams, Henry William Poor (book-labels), Walker Thomas Wallace, Robert B. Lawrence (bookplates)

Wing B893; Grolier Wither to Prior  29; Hayward 100 (but no copy in Bradley Martin)

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

rare.

The poet and dramatist Robert Baron (c.1630-1650) is a seventeenth-century literary curiosity in that he was, at best, an inveterate imitator, at worst, a professional plagiarist. Although the exact canon of his publications is unclear, at least some by him are directly derived from, or modelled on, ideas or passages in Milton, Denham, Jonson and, perhaps, Waller. Baron's reputation was permanently tarnished by Warton's discovery, in the late eighteenth century, that entire passages of his first book, The Cyprian Academy, were lifted, without almost any alterations, from Milton's Poems of 1645 (a book then not widely known). Pocula Castalia is, however, an original work. The title is taken from a line in Ovid about the drinking cups of a fountain in Parnassus. Shakespeare used the same line in his motto for the dedication to the Earl of Southampton in Venus and Adonis. The longest poem here, "Fortune's Tennis Ball", 235 stanzas long and set in ancient Sicily, is one of the first references to tennis in English

The frontispiece portrait of the author is that as used in The Cyprian Academy. Here, however, the author's age is noted as 17. Laudatory verses are by James Howell, Thomas Moore and, in Latin, C.B.