The Rodiad is a pornographic poem on the subject of flagellation

Flagellation

Flagellation or flogging is the act of methodically beating or whipping the human body. Specialised implements for it include rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails and the sjambok...

 published by John Camden Hotten

John Camden Hotten

John Camden Hotten was an English bibliophile and publisher.Hotten was born in Clerkenwell, London to a family of Cornish origins. He spent the period 1848–1856 in America and on his return opened a small bookshop in London at 151a Piccadilly, and founded the publishing firm later known as Chatto...

 in 1871, although falsely dated to 1810. It has been ascribed, apparently falsely, to George Colman the Younger

George Colman the Younger

George Colman , known as "the Younger", English dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was the son of George Colman "the Elder".-Life:...

. A candidate for its authorship is Richard Monckton Milnes

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton FRS was an English poet, patron of literature and politician.-Background and education:...

. Henderson places it in The Library Illustrative of Social Progress

The Library Illustrative of Social Progress

The Library Illustrative of Social Progress was a series of pornographic books published by John Camden Hotten around 1872 . They were mainly reprints of eighteenth-century pornographic works on flagellation...

published around 1872 (falsely dated 1777) but it is not in the list of Henry Spencer Ashbee

Henry Spencer Ashbee

Henry Spencer Ashbee was a book collector, writer, and bibliographer, notorious for his massive, clandestine three volume bibliography of erotic literature written under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi.-Life:...

.

The Betuliad, a manuscript in the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

 from Ashbee's bequest, is identical to The Rodiad. It was known under this title to Sir Richard Burton

Richard Francis Burton

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his...

 who wrote to Milne on 22 January 1860 praising it.

The Canadian author John Glassco

John Glassco

John Glassco was a Canadian poet, memoirist and novelist. "Glassco will be remembered for his brilliant autobiography, his elegant, classical poems, and for his translations." He is also remembered by some for his pornography.-Life:Born in Montreal to a well-off merchant family, John Glassco was...

repeated the false attribution to Colman and augmented it with an equally fictitious attribution of his own poem Squire Hardman printed in 1967.