AustLit

Dedication: To the Right Honourable Richard Pigott, (the VIIth) Lord Viscount Molesworth, Baron of Philipstown, Knight of Swords; etc; as a token of the constant respect and gratitude to him borne by his Lordship's most humble kinsman, Molesworth Jeffery.

Epigraph: "I puer, atque mio citus haec subscribe libello." Quintus Horatius Flaccus.

In his Prologue, the Editor (Molesworth Jeffery) explains that response to his first volume had been so great that he decided to produce a second volume. Various members of his family 'residing in the diverse Quarters of the Globe' offered assistance and contributions, to which Molesworth Jeffery has added more of his own work.

Many of the poems in this volume were written by Jeffery's relatives in England. The writers of these poems have been identified provisionally, but their identity should be confirmed by consulting Jeffery's 'system of Initials' that he employed to 'establish [their] proprietorship'. See Jeffery's note on page 72 of the Third Volume of Various Exercises and Fragments.

This publication contains a photograph of a portrait of the Right Honourable Viscount Molesworth, a Prologue (v-ix), a Peroration (151) in which Molesworth 'admits he has been ... continually diverging from the beaten path', but leaves it to 'a discriminating Publick' to judge 'whether his digressions have added either interest or utility to the main journey', and 'Notes: Critical, Explanatory, Corrective, Supplementary, etc' (157-180). These Notes correct and amplify some of the poems in both this volume and volume One.