Jacob Bailey was one of the most prolific writers in late-eighteenth-century North America and perhaps the finest practitioner of Hudibrastic verse satire after Samuel Butler himself. However, he published few of his works (a collection was published posthumously). He was content to circulate them in manuscript form among close friends. Today his papers represent perhaps the largest and most significant collection of eighteenth-century Canadian literary writings.

Bailey, the son of David and Mary Hodgkins Bailey, was born in Rowley, Massachusetts, to a poor family but received a good education, which prepared him to enter university; he received an A.B. from Harvard in 1755 and an M.A. there in 1758. After graduating he taught school for a while and served briefly as a congregationalist minister. However, he soon converted to the Church of England and in 1760 was ordained a priest in London, England. He was appointed by the Society...