LONG TOM'S PILGRIMAGE.
[New Haven? 1829?]. Broadside, 9" x 11". Satirical poem printed within an ornamental border, two columns, untrimmed. Light edgewear, some dustsoiling at the extremities, else Very Good. The poem begins, "Let others prate about their bear and fiddle, And break their short still tales off in the middle..."
A satirical poem on a Yale faculty member. Its background is as follows: "The late Charles Harvey Townshend, Esq., of New Haven about the year 1880 met Mr. Robert Livingston of New York while crossing the Atlantic. One day while Mr. Livingston was telling him of his experiences while a Yale student, he asked him, if he ever had the chance, to look in the front middle room, fourth story, north entry of old South Middle College, between the ceiling over the wood closet door. He said that in 1829 he placed there a bundle of printed sheets of 'doggerel verse,' a grind on a tutor of those days. These verses were recited by the composer, Pena, a Mexican (who was afterwards expelled) in the college chapel, on a Wednesday afternoon. Most of the class was expelled afterwards, for various reasons, and Mr. Livingston, who was one of them, said that his father always told him that he did perfectly right in not telling who wrote the verses.
"A fir [sic] broke out in Old South Middle in December 1890, and Mr. Townshend, with the permission of the then occupants of the room, searched the ceiling of the front middle room in accordance with Mr. Livingstons [sic] directions. He found there the bundle of verse, just as Mr. Livingston described. The annexed copy is one of them." See, Digital Images Database, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives, in the form of a clipping from the New Haven Journal Courier. [Image No. 6786. Digital Images Database, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library.]
AI 39988. OCLC records eleven locations under several accession numbers as of June 2022. Item #28550
Price: $250.00