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Lord Hervey is not noted as a poet. Although his character is now seen in a more favourable light than that of Pope’s attack in An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, his reputation as a poet has not recovered; and the few who have considered his verse have, at best, damned it with faint praise. This essay argues that his verse deserves serious attention. Through close attention to 10 poems, it seeks to demonstrate that he handled poetic voice in distinctive and imaginative ways. As four of the poems are Ovidian heroic epistles, and a further three may be described as lesbian love poems, they raise questions about gender. The same is true of the other three poems, Horatian epistles to Stephen Fox, despite their different genre, because they inflect the masculine voice of that genre towards intimacy and tenderness. To support its case, the essay draws on little-known manuscript material not only for poems that have never been printed, but also for some that reached print. Taking account of Hervey’s close friendship with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, it argues that his Ovidian epistles demonstrate empathy for disempowered women, and that one in particular presents an outspoken case for female sexual independence; that the lesbian love poems do not convey the satirical emphasis that might have been expected, but that at least two celebrate lesbian desire; and that the three poems to Fox, one of which is addressed to a woman in most manuscript copies, play further variations on gender roles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents information on the subscription list for Jean Adam's "Miscellany Poems." Accounts of the subscription list for Miscellany Poems also suffer from factual inaccuracies. The earliest discussion, in 1818, reported a total of 123 subscribers, probably a misprint for the correct figure of 153. This was still being repeated at the end of the century,8 although DNB had by then achieved the closer approximation of 154. The publication of Miscellany Poems was therefore an unusual event. This may account in part for some striking qualities of its subscription list, especially the representation of many subscribers from the middling sort and even from the labouring classes.