CELEBRATING A WINTER WEDDING IN PARIS Lines Presented to Mrs Croft with a White Rose on her Wedding Day by her affectionate Cousin Robert Charles Dallas

1823. Beautiful presentation volume by an infatuated Oxford undergraduate (shortly afterwards President of the Union) following his cousin's winter wedding at the British Ambassador's Residence in Paris. Small oblong volume with matching slipcase (13.5x11.5cm) The manuscript book has olive green printed paper overlay, the upper cover with a hand-coloured floral design; the backstrip is missing but the integrity of the binding unaffected. Internally, pink coated endpapers and 20 leaves, 18 of which have manuscript text and decorations to the rectos. On the first leaf the besotted Dallas explains his poem: 'The young Lady (Miss Huxley) to whom these Lines were addressed is of distinguished beauty and elegance of form. The young Author... was present at her Marriage at the British Ambassadors Chapel at Paris, on the 15th of January 1823, as also at a Dejeuner a la Fourchette given on the occasion, where under the inspiration of lively Music, and the gay Circle which graced it, the following Lines were conceived.' A further presentation page follows, the text set within a hand-coloured oval of poppies and roses which names the new bride as 'Mrs Croft' and describing himself as 'Robert Charles Dallas Under Graduate of Oriel College, Oxford 10th January 1823.' The first poem, a paean to love mentions the snowy setting of the wedding in a footnote 'The Country round Paris was covered with Snow when these Lines were written' and is followed by a hand drawn, coloured floral swag; another larger swag precedes 'Lines Presented to a young lady with a Rose which had fallen from her bosom'. Repeated references to 'Eve' within the poems suggest that may have been the bride's first name: Eve Huxley. A few marks to the text which is sewn in a single gathering. Original slipcase, rubbed and lacking the end sliver of card. The future Lord Dallas of Upper Harley Street, Robert Charles Dallas (1804-1874), was educated at Oriel College, Oxford where he was an early President of the Oxford Union before going on to Lincoln's Inn and practising as a barrister. Despite this youthful infatuation with his Huxley cousin, he married Frances Law in 1841 around the time that he received substantial compensation for the emancipation of enslaved people from family estates at Mount Craven on Grenada. The winter wedding which Dallas celebrates in this delicious little volume presumably took place in the chapel within the Ambassadorial residence at 39 rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré where either bride or groom - a member of the Huxley or Croft families - must have had connections. 1804-1874, half the compensation for Mount Craven Estate in Grenada, m Frances Law, 1841 Please contact Christian White Rare Books Ltd for more information or images of this item 1823