Elegies on the deaths of John and Lydia Burgh.
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Type of record: Archive
Title: Elegies on the deaths of John and Lydia Burgh.
Classmark: BC MS Lt q 71
Creator(s): Burgh, John
Date(s): ca. 1740
Language: English
Size and medium: 7 ff., manuscript.
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8751
Collection group(s): Brotherton Collection Manuscript Verse
Description
Two epitaphs (3 ff.) and four related documents. The poem for Lydia Burgh is 64 lines and begins 'When gloomy night had clos'd the toilsom Day'. The poem to her husband John Burgh is 72 lines, dated at the top '25th April 1740', and begins 'In this ungratefull Age where Virtue dies'. The supporting documents are a late-18th century bookplate of Henry Burgh, a lapidary epitaph for John giving biographical information, 'A Pedigree' listing Lydia's genealogy, and a poem beginning 'Ye muses at your shrine once more' addressed to Miss Blacwell at the Revd James Daubeny of Stratton, Gloucestershire, the brother of Charles Daubeny, Church of England clergyman and religious controversialist (see ODNB). The relation of the last document with the rest is not clear.
Written in brown ink.
Biography or history
John Burgh (d. 1740) was the fourth son of Ulysses Burgh (d. 1692), Bishop of Ardagh. He was an MP in Queen Anne's two last parliaments, but quit all public affairs in pursuit of country live. In 1697 he married Lydia (d. 1718), the 'sole heiress' of Henry Clarke of Molesey, Surrey. They had seven sons and five daughters. John Burgh's elder brothers included Thomas Burgh (1670-1730), military engineer and architect, and William Burgh, Comptroller of the British Army in Ireland, who is reputed to have been a friend of Swift.
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