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688G        Caussin, Nicolas, 1583-1651..              Sr. T.H. = Sir Thomas Hawkins.        

THE HOLY COURT in Three Tomes. Written in French by Nicolas Caussin, S.I. Translated into English by Sr. T.H. and Dedicated to the Queene of Great Brittaine. The Third Tome now first published in English: The first and second newly reviewed .. According to the last Edition of the Authour                 

[Rouen : printed by Iohn Cousturier] Permissu superiorum, M.DC.XXXIV. [1634 ,27 mai]                                        $4,500    

Folio,11 X 7 ½ inches .   A-Z6 [ sig e misssigned and there is a singlet P*], Aa-Cc6,Dd4; A-Z6,Aa-Ee6; a6,A-V6 [ sig E missigned and extra H1&2]} complete yet odd. There is an engraved emblematic titlepage and four full page plates (Saint Ambrose, Constantine mounted on a charger Boethius and Clotilda there are also three half page portraits in the text) This copy is bound in contemporary calf with raised bands (neatly rebacked with recent black spine titling labels a very pretty copy)

                  This work gives a Christianized account of what he calls the four principal passions: Love, Desire, Anger, and Envy, as well as many variants and subgenres of these types. The intent of the work is to instruct the proper means for controlling these affects. “A comprehensive system of moral maxims, pious reflections and historical examples, forming in itself a complete library of rational entertainment, Catholic devotion, and Christian knowledge.” It was translated into several languages and has done much to perpetuate his fame.

A famous Jesuit preacher and moralist; born at Troyes in France,he died. at Paris, 2 July, 1651. His father, a physician of extensive practice, was able from a competent income to aid materially in the development of the remarkable talents that his son early displayed. Young Caussin’s success in oratory, particularly after his entry into the Society of Jesus (1609), was brilliant, and drew to him the attention of the royal family. When the kingdom of Henry IV was fast declining under the impotent sway of the queen-regent, Marie de’ Medici, Louis XIII came to the throne. Richelieu summoned Caussin to court to direct the young king’s conscience. The task was a difficult one in those disturbed times, but Caussin, with scrupulous earnestness, gave his heart and soul to the work. The king, who relied implicitly on him, was made to realize that peace would once more reign in his realm and in his own soul when he recalled the queen-mother and other members of the royal family from the banishment in which they were languishing. Richelieu disliked this advice and accused Caussin of raising false scruples in the king’s mind, and even of holding communications that savoured of treachery or that were at all events disloyal to his sovereign, with another of the royal chaplains. Caussin was at once banished to Quimper-Corentin in Brittany, where he remained until the death of Richelieu in 1643, when he returned to Paris to prepare his works for the press.
Many false statement regarding Caussin’s disgrace were current. The Jansenist Arnauld claims that “it was well known from persons intimately connected at the former court of Louis XIII, that Father Caussin considered himself obliged to tell His Majesty that attrition, arising from the fear of hell alone, was not sufficient for justification, as there could be no justification without love of God, and this was what caused his disgrace.

DeBacker-Sommervogel vo.l II col. 911 no.7; STC 4874;

Allison & Rogers counter-reformation #404
Copies – N.America :  Duke University ,Folger Shakespeare, Harvard University , Henry E. Huntington Library,Newberry ,St. Louis University , University of Texas.

687G        Caussin, Nicolas, 1583-1651. Translator Sr. T.H. = Sir Thomas Hawkins.1575-1640.           

The holy court the command of reason ouer the passions. Written in French by F. N. Caussin, of the Society of Iesus. And translated into English by Sr. T.H (Title page in 4 states. This state has cancel title page lacking the phrase “fourth tome” in title and printer’s name in imprint, and with “commaund” in line 4 of title. See STC for other states this is state #3)  

[Rouen : printed by Iohn Cousturier] Permissu superiorum, M.DC.XXXVIII. [1638]                  $2,500    

Folio, 11 x 7 3/4 inches.   Ã6,e2, A-Z6, Aa-Ccf6, Ff8 .

The poet and translator Sir Thomas Hawkins was baptised on 20 July 1575 at Boughton under Blean. He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Hawkins (1548/9–1617) of Nash Court, Boughton,.His 1625 translation The Odes of Horace the Best of Lyrick Poets was republished in 1631, 1635 and 1638, and plagiarized in 1652. He died in the parish of St Sepulchre’s, London, probably in late 1640. The family remained Roman Catholic until well into the 18th century. The Nash Court was attacked by Protestant crowd during the 1715 Jacobean uprising and Hawkins’s valuable library destroyed.

“In addition to this literary and historical work his translating skills were used extensively by the Jesuits, presumably through his brother Henry, to produce pious works aimed at the English market. Between 1626 and 1638 came Hawkins’s translation, with the assistance of Sir Basil Brooke, of the massive four-volume work, Holy Court, by the French Jesuit Nicholas Caussin. Published in France these volumes were dedicated to Queen Henrietta Maria, the earl of Dorset, the countess of Portland, and the duchess of Buckingham respectively. The work, which included biographies and portraits of Mary, queen of Scots, and Cardinal Pole, proved immensely popular among Catholics; at least three editions of the work were published in London between 1650 and 1678.    Hawkins also translated Caussin’s Christian Diurnal (Paris, 1632), dedicated to Viscountess Savage (this edition differs from the Cambridge edition of 1648 which was aimed at protestant readers), and Étienne Binet’s The Lives and Singular Vertues of Saint Elzear (Rouen, 1638), dedicated to the earl and countess of Shrewsbury. Hawkins has also been plausibly identified as the translator of The Angel-Guardian’s Clock (Rouen, 1630) by the Jesuit Jeremias Drexelius; Hawkins’s brother Henry had already produced a translation of another of Drexelius’s works”. ODNB

DeBacker-Sommervogel vo.l II col. 911 no.7; STC 4875 (3) Allison & Rogers 220& Allison & Rogers counter-reformation 408 .”Most copies lack the engraved title and the publisher may have intended to omit it.”

Copies – N.America :   Duke University , Folger Shakespeare , Henry E. Huntington Library , Rice University , University of Chicago ,University of Illinois ,Yale University, Sterling