Christopher Anstey (31 October 1724 – 3 August 1805) was an English poet who also wrote in
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
. After a period managing his family's estates, he moved permanently to
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
and died after a long public life there. His poem, ''The New Bath Guide'', brought him to fame and began an easy satirical fashion that was influential throughout the second half of the 18th century. Later he wrote ''An Electoral Ball'', another burlesque of Bath society that allowed him to develop and update certain themes in his earlier work. Among his Latin writing were translations and summaries based on both these poems; he was also joint author of one of the earliest Latin translations of Gray's ''
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
''Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'' is a poem by Thomas Gray, completed in 1750 and first published in 1751. The poem's origins are unknown, but it was partly inspired by Gray's thoughts following the death of the poet Richard West in 1742 ...
'', which went through several editions both in England and abroad.
Life
Anstey was the third child and only son of the Rev. Dr. Christopher Anstey, the rector of
Brinkley in Cambridgeshire, and his wife Mary Thompson, born on 31 October 1724 in
Trumpington
Trumpington is a village in Cambridgeshire, England, mostly located in Cambridge, with a small southern area of the village extending into the South Cambridgeshire district. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 UK census, the village had ...
.
He was educated at
Eton College
Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...
and
King's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself for his Latin verses. He became a fellow of his college in 1745 but the degree of M.A. was withheld from him in 1749 owing to his defiance of the university authorities and the offence caused by an address that is said to have begun "Doctors without doctrine, artless masters of arts, and bachelors more worthy of the rod than the laurel..." He joined the
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...
in 1746, but was not
called to the bar
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
.
In 1754, having succeeded to the prosperous family estates (including Anstey Hall in
Trumpington
Trumpington is a village in Cambridgeshire, England, mostly located in Cambridge, with a small southern area of the village extending into the South Cambridgeshire district. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 UK census, the village had ...
), Anstey withdrew from the university. Two years later, he married Ann Calvert (1732–1812), daughter of Felix Calvert and the sister of his friend John Calvert of
Albury Hall, Hertfordshire.
For a considerable time Anstey lived the life of a country squire, cultivating letters as well as his estates, but publishing little of any note for many years. His family grew to include thirteen children, eight of whom survived him.
Following a period of depression aggravated by ill health after the death of a beloved sister in 1760, Anstey was advised to
take the waters at the fashionable spa of
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
. Impressed by the place, he returned annually and decided to settle there permanently in 1770, his home being at No. 4
Royal Crescent for the next thirty-five years. In 1766, he achieved fame following the publication of ''The New Bath Guide: or Memoirs of the B__n__r__d Family in a series of Poetical Epistles'', which went through some twenty editions before 1800. The work was enthusiastically praised for its gently satirical humour by such literary figures as
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (; 24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English Whig politician, writer, historian and antiquarian.
He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London ...
and
Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, and classics, classical scholar at Cambridge University, being a fellow first of Peterhouse then of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Pembroke College. He is widely ...
.
Later Anstey composed a work in the same vein, ''An Election Ball, in Poetical Letters from Mr Inkle at Bath to his Wife at Gloucester'', published in 1776. The theme had been suggested to him at the literary gatherings of the Batheaston Literary Circle which he had been attending and to the last of whose regular anthologies he contributed. Other suggested themes occasioned published works of some length, but the connection did his reputation more damage than otherwise and was ended with the death of the coterie's patroness,
Anna, Lady Miller, in 1781. In the years that followed, he thought of collecting his poems for general publication but the project was only finally completed by his son
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
in 1808.
Although Anstey declared himself uninterested in public office, he had served as
High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire for 1770–71, on the eve of his move to Bath. Once there, he busied himself in various philanthropic ventures, such as supporting the scheme for the support of the poor on behalf of which the Batheaston Circle's ''Poetical Amusements'' were sold. In addition he served between 1781 and 1795 on the board of governors of
Bath Hospital, for whom he wrote effective fund-raising poems. Later he supported the work of
Hannah More
Hannah More (2 February 1745 – 7 September 1833) was an English religious writer, philanthropist, poet, and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, who wrote on moral and religious subjects. Born in Bristol, she taught at ...
, in whose series of
Cheap Repository Tracts appeared his long ballad, "The Farmer's Daughter, a poetical tale" (1795). His final Latin poem, the
Alcaic stanza
The Alcaic stanza is a Greek lyrical meter, an Aeolic verse form traditionally believed to have been invented by Alcaeus, a lyric poet from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, about 600 BC. The Alcaic stanza and the Sapphic stanza named for Alca ...
s addressed to
Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms ''vaccine'' and ''vaccination'' are derived f ...
on his work on inoculation (1803), demonstrated the persistence of his humanitarian interests.
Anstey's normally strong constitution gave way early in 1805. He died on 3 August, and was buried at St. Swithin's Church in
Walcot, Bath. Later a white marble memorial tablet was placed in the
Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Poetry
In Latin
Poetry in Latin makes up only a quarter of Anstey's published output, but his poetical career both began and ended with it. His first major work was a translation undertaken in collaboration with his friend
William Hayward Roberts, also a Fellow at King's College at the time, and published anonymously in 1762. This was ''Eligia Scripta in Coemeterio Rustico Latine reddita'', a version of
Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, and classics, classical scholar at Cambridge University, being a fellow first of Peterhouse then of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Pembroke College. He is widely ...
's already celebrated "
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
''Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'' is a poem by Thomas Gray, completed in 1750 and first published in 1751. The poem's origins are unknown, but it was partly inspired by Gray's thoughts following the death of the poet Richard West in 1742 ...
" of 1751, on which they worked in consultation with the author himself.
Commenting on the draft sent him, Gray remarked that "Every language has its idiom, not only of words and phrases, but of customs and manners, which cannot be represented in the tongue of another nation, especially of a nation so distant in time and place, without constraint and difficulty; of this sort, in the present instance, are the curfew bell, the Gothic Church, with its monuments, organs and anthems, the texts of Scripture, &c. There are certain images, which, though drawn from common nature, and every where obvious, yet strike us as foreign to the turn and genius of Latin verse; the beetle that flies in the evening, to a Roman, I guess, would have appeared too mean an object for poetry." And further on he enquires, "Might not the English characters here be romanized? Virgil is just as good as Milton, and Cæsar as Cromwell."
Gray's stance was traditionalist and did not take account of the way
Vincent Bourne's poems had already demonstrated how Latin could be adapted to express contemporary reality. Preferring the latter's approach, for the most part, Anstey's version tries to remain faithful to Gray's text and certainly retains the historical English names rather than making Roman substitutes. It was published anonymously in 1762 and was later to appear in the 1768 and 1775 Irish editions of Gray's poems, along with an Italian and two other Latin versions of the Elegy. In 1778 there appeared an emended translation in which the introductory lines were signed C. A. et W. H. R. This was subsequently reprinted in
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
in 1794 and from there made its way into Alessandro Torri's multilingual anthology of translations of the Elegy, published in
Verona
Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...
in 1817.
In later years Anstey went on to translate himself. First there was his version of "Letter XIV" from ''The New Bath Guide'', that was only included in the posthumous collected edition of his work. This was a 'humorous and whimsical' tour de force with both internal and end-rhymes, exactly fitting the spirit of the original. Secondly, there was the résumé of the themes in his later ''The Election Ball'' in a 1777 Latin epistle to its would-be illustrator
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, of which an English adaptation, 'translated and addressed to the ladies', appeared separately in the same year.
Anstey's other translation during that time was of the fables of
John Gay
John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peach ...
, undertaken originally for the guidance of his sons, whom he was preparing for entrance into Eton. This was published anonymously in a badly edited state, then subsequently revised for a new edition in 1798. However, reviewers complained of its rigid metres and 'diffusion extended into weakness' as being badly fitted to the sprightly octosyllabics of Gay's original. It had too much of the schoolroom about it.
In English
Anstey was principally known for his long
epistolary poem, ''The New Bath Guide''. He never quite recaptured the success of that work, which was continuously in print throughout his lifetime, although he returned to humorous depiction of the same Bath types in such works as ''An Election Ball'' and "The Decayed Macaroni". Finding little to admire in such sequels, Horace Walpole judged that Anstey "ought to have shot himself the moment he had finished the Bath Guide", but others since have seen more to respect.

Gray described the Guide as having "a new and original kind of humour", although in terms of the Classical models of his time it could be described as satire on the good-natured
Horatian model. The alternative sharp
Juvenilian style of the recently deceased satirist
Charles Churchill was not for him. Indeed, in an unfinished poem preserved by his son, he had declared himself
Instead he made his subject matter the familiar follies of the landed
squirearchy in a poem that, "while it includes a number of particular and topical Bath references to give the flavour of the place and time, has sufficient scope and is written from enough of a detached viewpoint to make its critique of manners and morals of enduring application." The work's eventual frontispiece clarifies Anstey’s good-natured aim. Pictured there is a procession of the fashionable headed by a monkey and a
Momus clown with, in leash, the fashionable crowd they lead by the nose.
Commenting on the appearance of the Guide, published far away in Cambridge on the other side of the country by an unknown author, his son later marvelled that "It was hardly possible that a work of this description...could have made its appearance under circumstances of greater disadvantage." The title was an added hindrance at first, since the third edition of the official city guide, now titled ''The New Bath Guide or useful pocket companion'', had been published in 1765, the year before Anstey's work. Though it provided a useful point of reference to readers, repeated editions of the pocket companion, 'corrected and much enlarged', continued to sow confusion for as long as the two books continued to appear.
The Guide relates the misadventures of the three naïve children of a Northern squire, as reported by them over the course of fifteen letters to friends and parents, and incidentally give a comic picture of life in the spa. In a far departure from the
Augustan manner common until then, the style is colloquial and written in loose
anapaestic tetrameters, later to be characterised as the "Anstey measure" or "Bath-guide verse".
The inventiveness of the rhymes and the puns on the ridiculous names given to the characters adds further humour here.
Such naming, an aspect of the work which was widely admired, derives from theatrical practice at the time and gives a clue to the person's character, but in the case of the main protagonists there is added irony too. Their Blunderhead surname not only sums up the various meanings of the word 'blunder' in their behaviour but has the overtones of stupidity contained in the colloquial 'dunderhead' as well. This is further emphasised in the son's first name, Simkin, which is a dialect expression denoting a simpleton. The behaviour of his sister Prudence, on the other hand, is at variance with her name. She most imprudently allows herself to be seduced by a Methodist imposter with the expressive name of
Roger
Roger is a masculine given name, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic languages">Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") ...
, the slang meaning of which is sexual intercourse, while in dialect it refers to a tricky person.

The broad 18th century humour of the Guide inevitably met with criticism in some quarters. While the parodies and allusions to Milton, Dryden and the Classical authors were well received, the perversion of Methodist terminology in Prudence's account of her seduction at least caused controversy. To dispel some of this, the second edition contained an epilogue which added considerably to the book's length but light-heartedly tried to meet some of the objections. Nevertheless, a comment at the start of the more prudish 19th century concerning "those violations of decency which disgust us in the New Bath Guide" indicates that they were not forgotten.
When Anstey returned to a burlesque of Bath society a decade later in ''An Electoral Ball'', it allowed him to embroider on some of his earlier themes. Thus Simkin's shocked account of female hairdressing in "Letter XII" of the Guide was expanded to outright farce in ''An Election Ball'' and had an immediate effect. In Samuel Hoare's
conversation piece portrait of him (see above), his daughter is shown trying to draw his attention to the extravagant doll in her hand, in reality the kind of lay figure sent from Paris to guide dressmakers in the latest styles. Though she seems to distract him from composition, she is also serving as muse, for the doll's fantastic hairstyle is just such as, judging from the pattern of lines on his manuscript, Anstey went on to describe in the poem: "To a cap like a bat / (Which was once my cravat) / Part gracefully patted and pinn'd is, / Part stuck upon gauze/ Resembles mackaws/ And all the fine birds of the Indies."
It was this episode too, featuring Madge Inkle as she confects a hair ornament from the purloined tail feathers of the rooster, that Anstey's friend
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde chose as the first scene to illustrate in ''An Election Ball''. Arriving too late for inclusion in the revised edition of 1776, they were first used instead in the Latin epistle that Anstey addressed to Bampfylde, including mention of all the scenes the artist had chosen to picture.
Literary influence
18th century
Anstey was an innovator in more ways than one. He was the first to make tourism a poetic subject since the pilgrimage depicted by
Thomas Chaucer in his
Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' () is a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The book presents the tales, which are mostly written in verse (poetry), verse, as part of a fictional storytellin ...
. The epistolary mode which Anstey chose for his characters allowed their different voices to be distinguished in the same way as Chaucer's were through their narratives. But at the same time, the relaxed anapaestic measure united within it the work's impressionistic diversity.
Added evidence of the way that Anstey's social comedy had captured the general imagination is given by the large number of imitations that followed its publication. They were of several kinds, however, and at first were directly dependent on ''The New Bath Guide'' for their context, the earliest being the complimentary ''Poetical Epistles to the author of the New Bath Guide'' (London, 1767). It was followed by a youthful imitation of Anstey's manner by
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 17517 July 1816) was an Anglo-Irish playwright, writer and Whig politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1780 to 1812, representing the constituencies of Stafford, Westminster and I ...
, first published in ''
The Bath Chronicle'' as a satirical account of the opening ball at the New Assembly Rooms in 1771. The convoluted title of this occasional piece was "The Ridotto of Bath, a Panegyrick written by a Gentleman, resident in that City: Being an Epistle from Timothy Screw, Under Server to Messrs Kuhf and Fitzwater, to his brother Henry, Waiter at Almack's" and was dependent on Anstey's work in several particulars. Another close imitation was ''The Register of Folly, or characters and incidents at Bath'', containing twelve poetical epistles 'by an invalid' (London 1773).
Anstey's ''An Election Ball'' (1776) and its reporting in three letters is not only an imitation of his own manner in the New Bath Guide but takes further Sheridan's later ballroom satire. Created initially for the amusement of the Batheaston set, it also flattered the town in general by its use of local references. Much later there came another derivative reference to the Guide itself in
John Williams
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (November 15, 2022)Classic Connection review, ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...
' ''A Postscript to the New Bath Guide by Anthony Pasquin'' (1790).
But other health resorts than Bath were coming into vogue, and to these Anstey's manner began to be applied by other authors, one of the earliest being the ''Tunbridge Epistles from Lady Margaret to the Countess of B'', mentioned in ''The Monthly Review'' for May 1767. Although the majority of such works lacked the charm of novelty, and often attracted scornful reviews,
George Dallas at least made his name with an exotic adaptation. This was ''The India Guide, or Journal of a Voyage to the East Indies in the Year 1780: In a Poetical Epistle to Her Mother by Emily Brittle'' (Calcutta 1785), which he dedicated to Anstey.
As the new fad of
sea-bathing replaced the hot springs at Bath, the pseudonymous Anthony Pasquin now found the success that eluded him with his ''Postscript to the New Bath Guide'' by bringing Anstey’s title up to date with ''The new Brighton guide, or companion for young ladies and gentlemen to all the watering-places in Great Britain: with notes, historical, moral, and personal'' (1796). It immediately became a best-seller, but in succeeding editions the main emphasis was redirected to satire of the
Prince Regent
A prince regent or princess regent is a prince or princess who, due to their position in the line of succession, rules a monarchy as regent in the stead of a monarch, e.g., as a result of the sovereign's incapacity (minority or illness) or ab ...
, who had favoured
Brighton
Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...
as a resort. With that came an alteration of the poem's title to ''The New Brighton Guide; Involving a Complete, Authentic, and Honourable Solution of the Recent Mysteries of Carlton House'' that promised "Momentous Alterations and Additions". The work consisted of a series of epistles – moral, sentimental, serious and didactic – between the
Royal Pavilion and the Regent’s associated London residences.
In the following year an anonymous work featured the alternative health resort of
Ramsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside resort, seaside town and civil parish in the district of Thanet District, Thanet in eastern Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2021 it had a population of 42,027. Ramsgate' ...
in ''The Sea-Side, a Poem, in Familiar Epistles from Mr Simkin Slenderwit Summerising at Ramsgate, to His Dear Mother in Town'' (1797). Richard Scrafton Sharpe (c. 1780 -1852) chose a nearby town for his imitation, ''The Margate new guide; or memoirs of five families out of six Who, in Town discontent with a good Situation, Make Margate the Place of their Summer Migration'' (1799). It too deployed Anstey's almost obligatory jogtrot rhythm in what a contemporary review summed up as "ten letters, humorously describing in lively verse the usual diversions of that place and the company who resort to it." Another reviewer, however, found it poorer by comparison with ''The New Bath Guide''.
Several more authors had rushed in where Anstey had feared to tread and adapted his style, and even his characters, to political themes. They include
Ralph Broome's ''The Letters of Simkin the Second, poetic recorder of all the proceedings upon the trial of Warren Hastings'' (London 1789); followed by ''The New Parliamentary Register in a series of poetical epistles'' (1791), which was dedicated to Anstey and featured Simkin as a newly elected
Member of Parliament.
19th century
The trend of adaptations of Anstey’s manner to other themes extended into the nineteenth century. In the political sphere there was
George Watson-Taylor's ''The Cross-Bath Guide, being the Correspondence of a Respectable Family upon the subject of a late unexpected Dispensation of Honours'' (1815), although a reviewer found that "the imitation is not quite the equal, in point of wit, to the original" model by Anstey. There were also surveys of newly developing resort towns: by
Barbara Hofland in ''A Season in Harrogate, in a series of poetical epistles by Benjamin Blunderhead Esquire to his mother in Derbyshire'' (1812) and by William Henry Halpin in ''The Cheltenham Mailbag: or letters from Gloucestershire, edited by Peter Quince the Younger'' (1820).
Meanwhile Bath was again becoming fashionable as a spa town, a development underlined by the arrival of
Queen Charlotte in 1817, leading a royal party. The place had been newly celebrated already in
John Cam Hobhouse's ''The Wonders of a Week in Bath in a doggerel address'' in 1811. That poem was followed a few years later by two linked works: ''Rough Sketches of Bath by Q in the Corner'' (Bath 1817), described by a later critic as "little else than clever imitations of Anstey", and by ''Epistles from Bath, or Q’s letters to his Yorkshire relations'' (1817). Though these were published anonymously at the time,
Thomas Haynes Bayly eventually identified himself as "Q" (and his target as Anstey) in a "Pastoral Duet between Robert Montgomery and Thomas Haynes Bayly", published in
Fraser's Magazine
''Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country'' was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. It was founded by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn in 1830 and loosely direc ...
:
:I sang about Bath till I bothered them really,
:And eclipsed was Kit Anstey by Thomas Haynes Bayly.
Imitative works were now being extended into series as their authors sought to outdo their predecessors. A further anonymous collection of letters in Anstey measure appeared as ''A Summer in Bath'' in 1822, but quoting Bayly at the start by way of "Advertisement". However,
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852), was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist who was widely regarded as Ireland's "National poet, national bard" during the late Georgian era. The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his ''I ...
's ''
The Fudge Family in Paris'' (1818) marked an original departure and provided a more successful model for satirical imitation. Moore's work brought Anstey's manner up to date and widened its scope. Four family members visit the completely different setting of Paris after the
Bourbon restoration. Their various characters and points of view are reflected in more varied verse measures, in which the anapaestics of the family’s younger generation contrast with the iambics of their elders, and the politics treated are those that followed the
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...
. Just as important for the more straight-laced audience of the time, the love interest provided by Biddy Fudge and her suitor replaces with farcical social satire the coarseness once deplored in Anstey's treatment of Prudence Blunderhead. Later imitations were to transfer relatives of the Fudge family to the Scottish and American capitals and to Ireland (1822). Then a French Fudge turns the tables by visiting the English capital and describing life there to his exiled relative in France.
At the decade's end, an inhabitant of Bath, refusing to be dazzled by the recent tourist preference for capital cities, called the strayed brood of imitators to heel with ''Eight Letters from Bath by the Fidget Family'' (Bath, 1830) in impeccable Anstey measure. Nor was it until 1835 that the harassed and impecunious Moore could himself get round, much too late, to writing his own sequel, ''
The Fudges in England''. That too was set, according to its preface, in "a well-known fashionable watering place". But though the work sold well, the critical response was muted. "Mr Moore’s poetical ''
rabies
Rabies is a viral disease that causes encephalitis in humans and other mammals. It was historically referred to as hydrophobia ("fear of water") because its victims panic when offered liquids to drink. Early symptoms can include fever and abn ...
'' is incurable" commented the reviewer of ''The Dublin University Magazine''. A modern judgment, comparing Moore's original work and its sequel, finds that while "in the first Fudge saga, the influence of Anstey is less evident", the story line of the second is much more derivative. In any case, writers seem to have decided by now that enough was enough and no further imitations of Anstey followed.
20th century
A later tribute came from
John Betjeman in 1973. As a trustee of the
Bath Preservation Trust since the 1940s, he protested the depredations of philistine developers in "The Newest Bath Guide", quoting from and addressing Anstey. Its final couplet demonstrates how much Betjeman was indebted to him for his own art of satirical rhyming:
::Goodbye to old Bath! We who loved you are sorry
::They're carting you off by developer's lorry.
Betjeman Concordance
/ref>
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
* Anstey, John
''The Poetical Works of the Late Christopher Anstey, Esq: With Some Account of the Life and Writings of the Author''
London 1808
* Bishop, Philippa
"The Sentence of Momus: satirical verse and prints in 18th century Bath"
in ''Bath History'' 5, 1994, pp. 51–79
*
*
* Cossic, Annick (ed)
''The New Bath Guide''
International Academic Publishers 2010
External links
Christopher Anstey
at th
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anstey, Christopher
1724 births
1805 deaths
People from East Cambridgeshire District
18th-century English poets
People educated at Eton College
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Fellows of King's College, Cambridge
Members of the Middle Temple
High sheriffs of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire
English male poets
18th-century English male writers
18th-century English writers
18th-century writers in Latin
British writers in Latin
Neo-Latin poets