THE HEAD OF NILE: OR THE TURNINGS AND WINDINGS OF THE FACTIOUS SINCE SIXTY, IN A DIALOGUE BETWEEN WHIGG AND BARNABY

44 pages, disbound, outer leaves soiled, stained, chipped with some losses and somewhat brittle, toned with some foxing throughout. Fair.

Restoration-era political satire demonstrating the emerging Whig and Tory parties during the Exclusion Crisis. The pamphlet combines a dialogue between 'Whigg' and 'Barnaby', the latter supporting the royalist point of view and the former representing the dissenting point of view (i.e., rabid anti-Catholicism, religious dissent, and parliamentary factionalism) in a decidedly negative light. The title refers to the convoluted, impossible to trace politics of the previous two decades, comparing it with the age-old quixotic search for the source of the River Nile; the authorship of the pamphlet, also shrouded in a veil of secrecy, is attributed to Thomas Baker.

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