The Minister: A Tragedy - 1797

1797. London: Printed for J. Bell, 1797.

8vo, (4), 220 pp. Lacking front blank. Contemporary half calf, gilt lettered label on backstrip, skillfully rehinged; boards worn, title page toned, light stain in top margins, but generally a sound copy with interesting marks of early provenance (see below).

§ From the library of Lord Dunmore, last royal governor of Virigina. A translation of Schiller's Cabale und Liebe by M.G. "Monk" Lewis, the author of the Gothic novel The Monk, published the year before. The front pastedown bears the ownership inscription of Lady Susan Thorpe dated 1797, her presentation inscription "Her gift to Lord Dunmore 1799" beneath, and the Dunmore Library bookplate with shelf mark. The name "Susan", in the same hand, appears again at the start of act one, perhaps indicating Lady Thorpe read the part of Elizabeth Munster. Given the date of the gift, it is most likely the recipient was John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia. Dunmore fled to New York after the burning of Norfolk in 1776. He was later Governor of the Bahamas but lost his post when his daughter eloped with the son of George III. By 1799 he was in retirement in England aged 69. He died in Ramsgate, Kent in 1809.

Lewis's advertisement for the play merits recording in full: "The following pages contain a Translation of Schiller's" Cabale und Liebe." A Play calling itself a Version of that admired Tragedy has already appeared in England, but so extremely ill executed, and in so mutilated a condition, as to leave scarce a shadow of resemblance between the Original and the Copy. The Author has taken the liberty of omitting whole characters and scenes, and in several places has thought proper to substitute his own sentiments for Schiller's; an alteration by which the Piece is very far from gaining. - Lest the present Translation should be mistaken for the former, I have thought it right to change the Names both of the Characters and of the Play itself; in every other respect I have endeavoured to keep strictly to the Original: and when I offer my Translation to the Public, it gives me some confidence, to reflect that, although this second attempt may be as bad as the first, it is utterly impossible for it to be worse. M. G. LEWIS.