Quarto. [2], v, [2], 8-33pp, [2]. With a half-title. Uncut. Stitched, as issued. Half-title and verso of final leaf marked, short tears to spine, edges dusty, occasional spotting.

The first edition, in original state, of poet William Thompson's (bap. 1712, d. c. 1766) joyous Spenserian ode to the month of May and the season of spring. In the Cabinet of Poetry (London, 1808), editor Samuel Jackson Pratt (1749-1814) said of Thompson: 'His Hymn to May...is the most popular of his productions, and even deserves a much higher degree of celebrity than has hitherto fallen to it its lot. It is a professed imitation of Spenser; and in more modern phraseology, it possesses all the vigour of description, opulence of imagery, and brilliancy of colouring, of that great master of the lyre'.