A well-handled subscriber’s copy of Thomas Eastoe Abbott’s 1828 poem in memory of Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, who had died in 1827, inscribed in the year of publication to “Sarah Coulson with the Author’s affectionate regard—Bridlington, 6 Augt 1828”. Abbott’s list of subscribers features a Robert Coulson, Esq., Collector of Excise, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who took four copies, likely gifting this one to his relation (wife or daughter?), Sarah, who was evidently a close enough acquaintance of the author to merit the fond inscription.
Thomas Eastoe Abbott (1786–1854) was an English poet and Excise Officer (hence the connection with Coulson, presumably, and the preponderance of excise officers amongst his subscribers), whose poems were described by the Darlington antiquarian (and great-grandson of Elizabeth Gaunt, daughter of the poet John Dyer) William Hylton Dyer Longstaffe as “written with great simplicity of language, full of genuine patriotism and Christianity; some of them much resembling in style that of Wordsworth”.
[ref: 3555]