Robert Bolling Jr. scrapbook, 1764

Scrapbook of clippings from eighteenth-century issues of the Virginia Gazette. The clippings include letters written under the pseudonyms “Aristides” and “Phocion,” poetry, ballads, and letters written by “D.C.” of Chellow, the house Bolling built in 1760. A note, written in French on the fly-leaf, states, "I found this book with several other books of music (Italian, for the most part, which seem to be the remains of a singer of that nation) in Walker's shop at Williamsburg, where I was appointed to wrap up the odds and ends which were sold there." It was signed, Bolling, junr. and dated 20 Janvier 1764. Hugh Walker was a merchant resident in Williamsburg at the time of Bolling’s purchase of the volume and he may have acquired it at Walker’s shop.

The music book Bolling used to create his scrapbook is a copy of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières Les pieces de clavessin , second livre published in Paris by Gerard Jollain in 1670. The score lacks three leaves from the preliminaries, the final leaf, and pages 20-23. Pages [1]-12 are entirely, or partially obscured by the newspaper clippings. Pages 42 and 48 are unpaginated.

Robert Bolling (1738-1775) was born in Henrico County, Virginia and educated in England and Williamsburg, Virginia. Bolling's legal studies began at the Middle Temple and continued in Williamsburg, Virginia where he studied under Benjamin Waller. He served Buckingham County as a sheriff, member of the county court and Burgess (1761-1765). He was best known as a poet whose work appeared regularly in the Virginia Gazette. Between 1759 and 1775, he published more poetry than any other colonial American. He died suddenly in 1775 while attending the Third Virginia Convention in Richmond.

Bound in full calf with gold tooled double fillet borders and marbled paper pastedowns. The spine has been rebacked.