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Here is a list of some of the books which I will be offering for sale.
The First English Catholic New Testament in English, printed in England.
864G The text of the Nevv Testament of Iesus Christ, translated out of the vulgar Latine by the papists of the traiterous seminarie at Rhemes. With arguments of bookes, chapters, and annotations, pretending to discouer the corruptions of diuers translations, and to cleare the controuersies of these dayes. VVhereunto is added the translation out of the original Greeke, commonly vsed in the Church of England, with a confutation of all such arguments, glosses, and annotations, as conteine manifest impietie, of heresie, treason and slander, against the catholike Church of God, and the true teachers thereof, or the translations vsed in the Church of England … By William Fulke, Doctor in Diuinitie
London: by the deputies of Christopher Barker, printer to the Queenes, 1589 £18,000
Folio 10 ½ X 7 ½ inches * A-Y 2A-2Y 3A-3Y 4A-4V 4X First Edition. This copy is bound in full older calf, a very sound and impressive copy.
The Rheims version and the Bishops’ Bible version in parallel columns, with Fulke’s commentary at the end of each chapter. The Rheims version is translated from the Vulgate chiefly by Gregory Martin; the Bishops’ Bible translation was overseen by Matthew Parker. In England the Protestant William Fulke ironically popularized the Rheims New Testament through his collation of the Rheims text and annotations in parallel columns alongside the 1572 Protestant Bishops’ Bible. Fulke’s work (as here) was first published in 1589; and as a consequence the Rheims text and notes became easily available without fear of criminal sanctions.
Not only did Douay-Rheims influence Catholics, but also it had a substantive influence on the later creation of the King James Bible. The Authorized Version is distinguished from previous English Protestant versions by a greater tendency to employ Latinate vocabulary, and the translators were able to find many such terms (for example: emulation Romans 11:14) in the Rheims New Testament. Consequently, a number of the latinisms of the Douay–Rheims, through their use in the King James Bible, have entered standard literary English. Douay-Rheims would go on through several reprintings on both sides of the continent.
The translators of the Rheims New Testament appended a list of neologisms in their work, including many latinate terms that have since become assimilated into standard English. Examples include “acquisition”, “adulterate”, “advent”, “allegory”, “verity”, “calumniate”, “character”, “cooperate”, “prescience”, “resuscitate”, “victim”, and “evangelise”.
While such English may have been generated through independent creation, nevertheless the totality demonstrates a lasting influence on the development of English vocabulary. In addition the editors chose to transliterate rather than translate a number of technical Greek or Hebrew terms, such as “azymes” for unleavened bread, and “pasch” for Passover. Few of these have been assimilated into standard English. One that has is “holocaust” for burnt offering.
“The ‘editio princeps’ of the Roman Catholic version of the New Testament in English. Translated from the Vulgate by Gregory Martin, under the supervision of William Allen and Richard Bristow. According to the “Douai Diaries”, Martin began the translation in October1578 and completed it in March 1582.
“The translation adheres very closely to the Latin, though it shows traces of careful comparison with the Greek. But its groundwork was practically supplied by the existing English versions, from which Martin did not hesitate to borrow freely. In particular there are very many striking resemblances between Martin’s renderings and those in Coverdale’s diglot The names, numbers, and chapters of the Douay–Rheims Bible and the Challoner revision follow that of the Vulgate and therefore differ from those of the King James Version and its modern successors, making direct comparison of versions tricky in some places. For instance, the books called Ezra and Nehemiah in the King James Version are called 1 and 2 Esdras in the Douay–Rheims Bible. The books called 1 and 2 Esdras in the KJV are called 3 and 4 Esdras in the Douay, and were classed as apocrypha.
STC (2nd ed.), 2888; Darlow & Moule (Rev. 1968), 202
“One of the best known collections of stories in Latin”
794G Anon [Gesta Romanorum]
Gesta Romanorum cum applicationibus moralisatis ac mystici
Strassburg: Printer of the 1483 Jordanus de Quedlinburg (Georg Husner), 25 January 1493 £ 30,000
Folio 10 ½ x 8 inches. 101 (of 102) leaves; lacking the final leaf, blank. Original wooden boards rebacked .
Some minor worming throughout, mainly marginal. The final few leaves have a few more wormholes within the text, but text remains fully legible. A marginal closed tear to leaf n5, not affecting text. Leaves a bit wrinkled and soe minor dampstaining to upper margin at the end. Overall a very good, clean copy.
The Gesta Romanorum, is a medieval collection of anecdotes, to which moral reflections are attached. It was compiled in Latin, probably by a priest, late in the thirteenth or early in the fourteenth century. The ascription of authorship to Berchorius or Helinandus can no longer be maintained. The original objective of the work seems to have been to provide preachers with a store of anecdotes with suitable moral applications. Each story has a heading referring to some virtue or vice (e.g. de dilectione); then comes the anecdote followed by the moralisatio. The collection became so popular throughout Western Europe that copies were multiplied, often with local additions, so that it is not now possible to determine whether it was originally written in England, Germany, or France. In estimating the wide influence of the ‘Gesta’ it must be remembered that the collection proved a mine of anecdotes, not only for preachers, but for poets, from Chaucer, Lydgate, and Boccaccio down through Shakespeare to Schiller and Rossetti, so that many of these old stories are now enshrined in masterpieces of European literature.” (CE vol. VI, page 539-540) The Stories of the Gesta seem to have been a mine for later writers, like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Schiller. (Mediaeval Latin, 1925. p 432)
Initials supplied in red, rubricated throughout.
BMC I, p. 142. Goff G-293. Hain-Copinger *7747, 8267. Oates 236. Polain 1652, 1826. Proctor 625.
798G Anon
The Compleat Sheriff: wherein is set forth, his office and authority; with directions, how and in what manner to execute the same, according to the common and statute laws of this kingdom, which are now in force and use: and the judgments and resolutions of the judges in divers late cases in the several courts of Westminster, relating thereunto. Likewise of Under-Sheriffs and their deputies… to which is added, the office and duty of coroners, and many modern adjudged cases relating to the office of a Sheriff to this time, &c.
In the Savoy: printed by John Nutt. 1710 £2900
Octavo 7 ½ X 4 ½ Bound in full contemp. panelled calf, raised bands, gilt dec. spine; lacking label, sl. cracking to head of upper joint. Armorial bookplate of the Marquess of Headfort. v.g. Second Edition with additions
ESTC T90638, BL, NLW, Oxford & National Trust only in British Isles; Columbia, Harvard & Kansas in North America.
649G Anon ( but probably Roger L’Estrange, 1616-1704)
A compendious history of the most remarkable passages of the last fourteen years: with an account of the plot, as it was carried on both before and after the fire of London, to this present time
London: printed by A. Godbid, and J. Playford, and are sold by S. Neale, at the Three Pigeons in Bedford-Street over against the New-Exchange 1680 £2,400
Octavo , 7 X 4 ½ inches First edition A (-A1) B-O . With frontis. portraits (plate) of Titus Oates, Captain William Bedloe, Stephen Dugdale, and Miles Prance. As well as a large fold out of London Bridge. This is a wonderful copy expertly rebacked retaining the original sheep boards.
The (Horrid) Popish Plot , a fabrication of the evil and twisted mind of Titus Oates. On 28 September 1678, Oates made 43 allegations against various members of Catholic religious orders — including 541 Jesuits — and numerous Catholic nobles. He accused Sir George Wakeman, Queen Catherine of Braganza’s physician, and Edward Colman, the secretary to Mary of Modena, Duchess of York, of planning to assassinate Charles. Oates was playing on two divergent groups of Zealous biggots.
Wing L1228
836G 1440-1520 Blanchellus, Menghus (Bianchelli, Mengo)
Super logicam Pauli Veneti expositio et quaestiones (Menghi Fauentini viri clarissimi in Pauli Veneti logicam commentum cu[m] questionibus quibusdam.)
Impressu[m] Venetiis :[Per] Antoniu[m] [et] strata de Cremona.1483 £18,000
Quarto a-t8 u6. This copy is bound in Quarter reverse calf over quarter sawn wooden boards
U.S: One copy only: The Huntington Library
Title from incipit on a2 recto./ Colophon reads: Me[n]ghi faue[n]tini viri clarissimii Pauli veneti logica[m] Co[m]e[n]tu[m] cu[m] q[uesti]onib[us] no[n]nullis feliciter finit. Impressu[m] Venetiis Su[m]ma cu[m] dilige[n]tia [per] Antoniu[m] & strata de Cremona. Anno ab i[n]carnat[i]o[n]e d[omin]ni. Mcccclxxxiii. vi calendas Septe[m]bris. Joha[n]ne mocenico iclito veneto[rum] duce./ Text printed in 2 columns; 46 lines. With initial spaces; without foliation and catchwords. Register at end
Rare philosophical treatise by the philosopher and physician M. Blanchellus (about 1440-1520), giving an explanation of the work of Paul of Venice, the important logician and realist of the Middle Ages.
Took part in a “disputation” with Pico della Mirandola in Florence
Goff B693; HR 3228; IBE 1072; IGI 1751; BSB-Ink B-545; GW 4406
723 (i.e. Conrad of Saxony) Bonaventura, Saint.
Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis.
[Augsburg]: Anton Sorg, 29 Feb. 1476 £9900
Folio 11 ¼ X 8 inches . 50 leaves a-e10 First edition This copy is bound in full modern vellum, it is a very Large copy. No longer attributed to Bonaventura, attributed to Conrad of Saxony whose the Date and place of birth are uncertain. Holyinger is perhaps his family name. The error has been made by some of confounding Conrad of Saxony with another person of the same name who suffered for the Faith in 1284, whereas it is certain that they were two distinct individuals, though belonging to the same province of the order in Germany. Our Conrad became provincial minister of the province of Saxony in 1245, and for sixteen years ruled the province with much zeal and prudence. While on his way to the general chapter of 1279, he was attacked with a grievous illness and died at Bologna in 1279. The writings of Conrad of Saxony include several sermons and now the “Speculum Beatæ Mariæ Virginis”; the latter, at times erroneously attributed to St. Bonaventure, was edited by the Friars Minor at Quaracchi in 1904. The preface to this excellent edition of the “Speculum” contains a brief sketch of the life of Conrad of Saxony and a critical estimate of his other writings. _ This is one of Anton Sorg’s early works and the second edition of this work at his press; the first one being from 29 II 1476 (Hain 3566; GKW 04817).
There is not much known about Sorg. He was an apprentice in the printing shop of the monastery of Saint Ulrich and Afra in 1472 and later its director. In 1475 he left the monastery and started his own press in Augsburg. That city was then particularly famed for the craftsmen who produced woodcuts for block-books. In that city book illustration as an art first flourished and Sorg played an important part in that development. Sorg was active in Augsburg between 1475 and 1493. And very active, he was one of the most prolific of the early printers: the GW mentions altogether 242 works. He had close professional ties to other printers, especially the Bämmler and Schönsperger offices, who often used the same illustrations. His most famous edition was the 1477-German Bible.
A peculiarity of Sorg’s press was the use of outlined woodcut initials (after the examples of the medieval manuscript). Often a large outlined initial was inserted at the start of a chapter and within each chapter smaller woodcut initials headed each division. Both large and small initials. Sorg’s use of printed outlines of the letters to be illuminated was not a common practice.
In this work there is on the first leaf a splendid 10-line decorative Maiblumen initial Q and furthermore there are 16 3- or 4-line initials (8x A; 4x D; 4x B). Curiously, on leaf 38v there is only an initial space. On Sorg see: Albert Schramm – Der Bilderschmuck der Frühdrucke. Vol. 4: Die Drucke von Anton Sorg in Augsburg (Hiersemann, 1921).
Goff B959 BMC II 434
83G Sir Thomas Browne 1605-1682
The Works of the learned Sr Thomas Brown, Kt. Doctor of Physick, late of Norwich. containing I. Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors. II Religio Medici: With Annotations and Observations upon it. III. Hydriotaphia; or, Urn-Burial: Together with The Garden of Cyrus. IV. Certain Miscellany Tracts.
Printed for Tho. Baffet, Ric. Chiswell, Tho. Sawbridge, Charles Mearn, and Charles Brome, 1686 £900
Large Folio 12 ¼ x 8 inches. A6, (a)4, B-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Iii4, KKK6, LLL-QQQ4, RRR6-Zzz4, Aaaa-Dddd4, Eeee2
First Edition. “[Thomas Browne’s] affluence and established residence (the transport of a collection containing many folio volumes is not lightly to be undertaken) enabled him to build up in ten years or so the substantial scholarly library which provided the materials for his longest work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquiries into very many Received Tenets and Commonly Presumed Truths.. In it Browne took up a suggestion by Bacon in his Advancement of Learning that there should be compiled a list of erroneous beliefs held at that time in the fields of the natural sciences and general knowledge. Browne went further, and, by combining in his disquisition on each topic the testimonies of authority, reason, and experiment, endeavored to dispose once for all of some hundreds of fallacies. The work, executed with wide learning, wit, and characteristic style, immediately established his reputation as a savant, remaining popular at home and abroad for at least a century.” (quoted from page xv of the preface of Robin Robbins’ edition of Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and The Garden of Cyrus)
“Browne is more scientific than Bacon when he discusses some notions already touched in Sylva Sylvarum: for instance, that coral is soft under water and hardens in the air; that a salamander can live in and extinguish fire (if ancient tradition is true, says Bacon, the creature has a very close skin and some very cold ‘virtue’); that the chameleon lives on air (Bacon makes air its ‘principall Sustenance’ but admits flies as well). In the examination of these and other arresting items in his encyclopedia, Browne appeals to critical authority, reason, and experience; of these criteria only the last is strictly Baconian. But Browne was in fact a tireless observer and experimenter. And when a whale was thrown upon the coast of Norfolk he verified his notion of spermaceti; in later years he was able, through his son, to test the belief that ‘the Ostridge digesteth Iron’ -after swallowing a nugget the bird died ‘of a soden.’ But in the settling of a more commonplace problem, the reputed inequality of the badger’s legs, the mere report of the senses appears, happily for readers, to count less than abstract and almost metaphysical logic. (Bush page 273)
Wing B-5150
340G Philippe Chifflet, 1597-1657? ed)
Index Librorvm Prohibitorvm, Avctoritate Pii IV. Primvm Editus, Postea Vero A Sixto V. Avctvs, Et Nvnc Demvm S.D.N. Clementis Papae VIII. iussu recognitus, et publicatus.
[bound after]
Canones et decreta sacrosancti oecumenici et generalis Concilii Tridentini.; Sacros. Concilii Tridentini Canones Et Decreta Paulo III, Iulio III et Pio IV. Pont. Max. celebrati; Index Librorvm Prohibitorvm S D.N. Clem. Papae VIII. iussu recognitus et publicatus; Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini Canones Et Decreta Paulo III, Iulio III et Pio IV. Pont. Max. celebrati; Ordo seu metodus legendi Decreta Reformat. S. Conc. Trid; Canones et Decreta iuxta ordinem titulorum Decretal
Coloniae Agrippinae : Kinchius, 1644 The Index Librorum Prohibitorum is dated 1621 £2200
Duodecimo 5 ¼ x 3 inches * 12 A-N 12 O 8 a 4 b-f 12 Bound in original full vellum.
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of publications prohibited by the Catholic Church. A first version (the Pauline Index) was promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, and a revised and somewhat relaxed form (the Tridentine Index) was authorized at the Council of Trent. The promulgation of the Index marked the “turning-point in the freedom of enquiry” in the Catholic world. The final (20th) edition appeared in 1948, and it was formally abolished on 14 June 1966 by Pope Paul VI.
The avowed aim of the list was to protect the faith and morals of the faithful by preventing the reading of immoral books or works containing theological errors. Books thought to contain such errors included some scientific works by leading astronomers such as Johannes Kepler’s Epitome astronomiae Copernicianae, which was on the Index from 1621 to 1835. The various editions of the Index also contained the rules of the Church relating to the reading, selling and pre-emptive censorship of books, including translations of the Bible into the “common tongues”.
Canon law still recommends that works concerning sacred Scripture, theology, canon law, church history, and any writings which specially concern religion or good morals, be submitted to the judgment of the local Ordinary. The local Ordinary consults someone whom he considers competent to give a judgment and, if that person gives the nihil obstat the local Ordinary grants the imprimatur . Members of religious institutes require the imprimi potest of their major superior to publish books on matters of religion or morals.
Some of the scientific works that were on early editions of the Index (e.g. on heliocentrism) have long been routinely taught at Catholic universities worldwide. Giordano Bruno,’s entire works were placed on the Index on 8 February 1600
In 2002, a retired Roman Catholic bishop gave his personal approval to the writings of Maria Valtorta, which had been on the Index (though never in a printed edition) and which have still not been given official Church approval.
For list of various editions of and appendixed to the 1681 Index, see Petzholdt, Bibliotheca bibliographica, p. 149-150;
815F Sir William Cornwallis d. 1631
Essayes, by Sr William Cornwallyes, the younger, knight. Newlie corrected.
London: Printed by Thomas Harper for I. M., 1632 £3500
Octavo 3 2/5 x 5 2/5 [A3] missing A1 blank, B-Z8, Aa-Oo8. This collation is consistent with Pforzheimer catalogue. Third edition of the “Essayes”, Parts I and II; second edition of the “Discourses.”
This is a nice copy bound in full contemporary calf rebacked. The spine has gilt label Overall, the leaves are in excellent condition, albeit trimmed a bit close on the top edge with no text loss. This book is consists of three seperate works each with a seperate title page but published together. The first “Essayes” is followed by “ Essayes the Second Part” and “Discourses upon Seneca the Tragedian”.
Cornwallis “was a friend of Ben Jonson, and employed him to write ‘Penates, or a Private Entertainment for the King and Queen,’ on their visit to his house at Highgate on Mayday, 1604. His essays are in imitation of Montaigne, but lack the sprightliness of the French author..
The “Essayes” is also a work of considerable Shakespearean interest – it is “so rare that a writer in ‘Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse,’ could not find a copy”. This work is also referred to at length by Hunter in his “New Illustrations” of the Tempest, who argues that as Florio’s translation of Montaigne had undoubtedly been seen by Cornwallis before 1600, so too, it was probably seen and used by Shakespeare in his composition of the Tempest (see Hunter, Joseph “New Illustrations of the life, studies, and writings of Shakespeare” London: J.B. Nichols and son 1845).
STC 5781; Arber IV, 92; Huntington C.L., 90; Grolier Club W-P I, 182; Hoe Catalogue I (1903) 322. Hazlitt I, 101.
792G Nicholas Culpeper 1616-1654 A directory for midwives: or, A guide for women in their conception, bearing, and suckling their children. The first part contains, 1. The anatomy of the vessels of generation. 2. The formation of the child in the womb. 3. What hinders conception, and its remedies. 4. What furthers conception. 5. A guide for women in conception. 6. Of miscarriage in women. 7. A guide for women in their labour. 8. A guide for women in their lying-in. 9. Of nursing children. To cure all diseases in women, read the second part of this book. By Nicholas Culpeper, Gent. student in physic and astrology.
London : printed, and are to be sold by most book sellers in London and Westminster, 1700 £5500
Octavo 6 1/8 X 3 ½ inches A-Q12 Newly corrected from many gross errors. Contemp. full blind stamped calf; slightly rubbed. A nice copy of a popular and ill-surviving text in contemporary binding.
A Directory of Midwives was first published in 1651 and became one of the seminal texts on midwifery and female health for the next two centuries. This volume contains – with continuous pagination – both Culpeper’s Directory, which focuses on obstetrics, and a separately titled Fourth Book of Practical Physick, which deals with female diseases and general health. The first two books first appeared together in 1671 but not in a continuously paginated edition until 1693. Though the work was frequently reprinted, seveneteenth and early eighteenth-century editions do not survive well, most being well-used on a regular basis.
ESTC R232056, Wellcome only in UK; U.S. National Library of Medicine & Yale only in North America; Copac adds Edinburgh and York Universities; OCLC adds University of Essex.
655G William Davenant 1606-1668
The Works of Sir William Davenant Kt, Consisting of those which were formerly Printed, and those which he design’d for the Press: Now Published out of the Authors Originall Copies.
London: Henry Herringman, 1673 £2500
Folio12 ¾ x 7½ inches . π1 2π2 A-3D4 3E2; Aa-Ppp4, Aaaa-Oooo4
First Edition An unusually fine, fresh, wide-margined copy, with a fine impression of the portrait. Bound in full contemporary calf with nicely gilt spine.
The First Collected Edition, with prefatory material by Hobbes, ‘The answer of Mr. Hobbes to Sr. William D’Avenant’s preface before Gondibert’, and poems by Waller and Cowley. Several of the plays originally published in blank verse are here printed for the first time, converted into prose. The volume also includes first printings of ‘The Playhouse to be Let’, ‘Law Against Lovers’, ‘News from Plymouth’, ‘The Fair Favourite’, ‘The Distresses’, and ‘The Siege’. The posthumous collection was published under the watchful eye of “Lady Mary” D’Avenant. The poems reflect the attitudes of the Cavalier poets and the received tradition of earlier poets, particularly Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne. She no doubt also insisted on the fine portrait frontispiece restoring her husband’s missing nose, which he had lost through illness in 1638.
Following the death of Ben Jonson in 1637, Davenant was named Poet Laureate in 1638. He was a supporter of King Charles I in the English Civil War. In 1641, before the war began, he was declared guilty of high treason by parliament along with John Suckling, after he participated in the First Army Plot, a Royalist plan to use the army to occupy London. He fled to France Returning to join the king’s army when the war started, he was knighted two years later by king Charles following the siege of Gloucester.
Wing D320
109E John Denham 1615-1669
Coopers Hill A Poem
[Oxford H. Hall] Printed in the yeare 1643 £3000
Quarto 6 ¼ X 7½ inches A4 B2. Second edition. The complex textual history of Coopers Hill is fully discussed in Brendan O Hehir: Expans’d Hieroglyphicks, Univ. California Press, 1969. It was probably written c.1641 and drafts circulated in manuscript. First printed in London in 1642, it was reprinted in Oxford in 1643 and then London again in 1650, probably with Denham’s consent despite the statement on the title of the 1655 edition. A major revision was published in 1655. All the printed editions are uncommon. It is usually cited as the first major English topographical poem, but its imagery is equally valid as an emblematic paradigm of society at the time of the Civil War. Denham took the Royalist side during the Civil Wars; this piece about Chertsey Abbey, dismantled by order of Henry VIII, and the scenery around Windsor, is a classic of topographical poetry. Denham’s innovation was much admired by such writers as Herrick, Dryden, Addison, Pope, Goldsmith and Johnson. According to Spence, Pope compared the early and late versions, and was much impressed by the “admirable judgement” of Denham’s revisions. Dryden singled out the famous apostrophe to the Thames, which is printed here for the first time.
Wing D 994; Madan 1570; not in Wither to Prior, see# 255.
Wing shows ; CH,CN,MH,TU,Y.
OCLC: 39623983 adding no copies
733E John Denham 1615-1669
Poems and Translations, with the Sophy; The second impression.
London: J.M. for H. Herringman, 1671 £850
Octavo 6 ½ x 4 ¼ inches A4, B-N8; Aa-Ff8, Gg4. Second edition.
This copy is bound old calf that has been rebacked, with later end-papers; titles lightly spotted, but very nice, and with the Porchester armorial bookplate.
This book begins Cooper’s Hill. Next are Both The Destruction of Troy (a verse adaptation of Virgil) and The Sophy (a tragedy, and one of the best plays of the period) have separate title-pages dated 1671, but the signatures are continuous. In 1636 he wrote his paraphrase of the second book of the Aeneid (published in 1656 as The Destruction of Troy, with an excellent verse essay on the art of translation).. It was a surprise to everyone when in 1642 he suddenly, as Edmund Waller said, “broke out like the Irish rebellion, three score thousand strong, when no one was aware, nor in the least expected it”, by publishing The Sophy, a tragedy in five acts, the subject of which was drawn from Sir Thomas Herbert’s travelsAt the Restoration Denham’s services were rewarded by the office of surveyor-general of works. He eventually secured the services of Christopher Wren as deputy surveyor. Denham’s poems include, beside those already given, a verse paraphrase of Cicero’s Cato major, and a metrical version of the Psalms. As a writer of didactic verse, he was perhaps too highly praised by his immediate successors. John Dryden called Cooper’s Hill “the exact standard of good writing”, and Pope in his Windsor Forest called him “majestic Denham.”
Wing D-1006; Sweeney #1371.
820G Rene Descartes 1 596-1650 Renati Descartes Epistolæ, partim ab auctore latino sermone conscriptæ, partim ex gallico translatæ. In quibus omnis generis quæstiones philosophicæ tractantur, & explicantur plurimæ difficultates quæ in reliquis ejus operibus occurunt .
Amstelodami: ex typographia Blaviana, 1682 £2400
Three Quarto volumes 7 ¾ X 6 inches vol I :*4, A-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Bbb4/
vol II :*2, A-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Ddd4, Eee-Fff2/
vol III : *-**4, A-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Ggg4, Hhh2
This copy is bound in three matching full calf bindings with gilt spines. edited by Claude Clerselier. These volumes contain the author’s physical and mathematical correspondence with Hobbes, Fermat, Mersenne, Roberval, the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, and several others, with many mathematical papers of Fermat that did not appear in his Opera Varia This edition has numerous woodcut diagrams.
Otegem, M. Bibliography Descartes, S. 647-651: A.J. Guibert, “Bibliographie des oeuvres de René Descartes publiées au XVIIe siècle”, Paris, 1976, p. 91-94
Descartes is properly called the father of modern philosophy
884G Rene Descartes 1596-1650 Renati Des-cartes Principia philosophiæ Ultima editio cum optima collata, dilligenter recognita, & mendis expurgata
[bound with]
Passiones animae per Renatum Des Cartes. Gallicè ab ipso conscriptae, nunc autem in exterorum gratiam Latina civitate donatae ab H.D.M.
Both) Amstelodami : Apud Danielem Elzevirium, 1672 £1800
Quarto 7 ¼ X 5 ¾ inches *-*****4, A-Z4, Aa-Nn4, Oo2, [ad 2] *4-***4 A-M4.
Translation of Les passions de l’âme by Samuel and Henri Desmarets. Bound in 19th century 1/4 sheep over marbled boards, spine with title and bands in gilt. Some rubbing to spine and wear to corners, contents quite clean throughout which some very light foxing appearing on occasion.
This volume contains two books by Descartes.
First is the Principia Philosophia, Descartes’ main work of physics, one of the most important works of philosophy and physics since Aristotle. It is in this groundbreaking work that the “Cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”) appears for the first time in the form in which we know it today and here that Descartes elaborates properly on it and puts it into the context that has been formative for philosophy – and modern thought in general – since then.
Next bound in is The Passions of the Soul, Descartes´ last work, written for Queen Christina of Sweden, and first published in French in 1649. It discusses psychology, ethics and the relationship between mind and body. Descartes believed that the soul was a definite entity giving rise to senses, thoughts, feelings, affections and acts of volition and he was one of the first to regard the brain as an organ which integrated the function of mind and body. Such beliefs had a powerful influence on the thinking of men like Robert Hooke, Giovanni Borelli, Jan Swammerdam and Thomas Willis, and at a time when scientific research was expanding rapidly Descartes´s theories helped to explain the more puzzling problems of human physiology.
Guibert #4 &2; Willems 1106. Passions Willems, Les Elzevier, no. 1469
138F John Donne 1571/2-1631
Poems, &c. By John Donne, late Dean of St. Pauls. With Elegies On The Author’s Death. To which is added Divers Copies under his own hand, Never before Printed.
London: In the Savoy, Printed by T.N. for Henry Herringman, , 1669 £6500
Octavo 4 ¼ x 6 ½ inchesA4, B-Z8, Aa-Dd8. A1 and Dd8 are both blank and present in this copy. Fifth edition.This copy is bound in contemporary full mottled calf. It has been sympathetically rebacked with raised bands and gilt title to spine. One text leaf was torn and repaired. The bookplate of Mr. O. Damgaard-Nielsen is pasted inside the front board. This is the last and most complete edition of Donne’s poetry published in the seventeenth century.. Many textual changes were made in this edition, and five new poems were added, including “To His Mistress Going to Bed,” and “O My America! My New-found-land.” “The poetry of Donne represents a sharp break with that written by his predecessors and most of his contemporaries. Donne’s poetry is written very largely in conceits— concentrated images which involve an element of dramatic contrast, of strain, or of intellectual difficulty. The tears which flow in A Valediction: of Weeping, are different from, and more complex than, the ordinary saline fluid of unhappy lovers; they are ciphers, naughts, symbols of the world’s emptiness without the beloved; or else, suddenly reflecting her image, they are globes, worlds, they contain the sum of things. The poet who plays with conceits may see into the nature of the world as deeply as the philosopher. Donne’s conceits in particular leap continually in a restless orbit from the personal to the cosmic and back again.” (Norton Anthology)
Wing D-1871; Keynes 84; Wither to Prior 291.
420E Michael Drayton 1563-1631
The Battaile of Agincovrt. Fovght by Henry the Fift of that name, King of England, against the whole power of the French: vnder the raigne of their Charles the Sixt, Anno Dom. 1415. The miseries of Queene Margarite, the infortante vvife, of that most infortunate King Henry the Sixt. Nimphidia, the court of Fayrie. The quest of Cinthia. The shepheards sirena. The moone-calfe. Elegies vpon sundry occasions. By Michaell Drayton Esquire.
London: Printed by A.M. for William Lee, 1631 £2000
Octavo 6 ¼ x 4 ¼ inches A-U8. The inner form of signature H was not re-inked before this impression was printed and therefore the inking is light, though the text is still legible. The lower margins are lightly wormed throughout, occasionally touching a letter in the last printed line. The contents are in good contemporary condition, having avoided the nineteenth century treatment of washing, pressing, and trimming the leaves. Second edition This volume is in its original boards of seventeenth century speckled sheepskin that has been recently rebacked.
“Born within a year before Shakespeare, and dying when Milton was already twenty-three, he worked hard at poetry during nearly sixty years of his long life, and was successful in keeping in touch with the poetical progress of a crowded and swiftly-moving period. His earliest published work tastes of Tottel’s Miscellany: before he dies, he suggests Carew and Suckling, and even anticipates Dryden. This quality of forming, as it were, a map or mirror of his age gives him a special interest to the student of poetry, which is quite distinct from his peculiar merits as a poet.
“The other of the two odes [most often] referred to is the most famous of Drayton’s poems, the swinging Ballad of Agincourt, dedicated ‘to the Cambro-Britans and their Harpe’. Here, more than anywhere, is heard the echo of Hewes and his like. Drayton worked upon the text of it to good purpose between 1606 and 1619, removing snags and obstructions in the course of its rhythm, and making clearer and clearer the ringing tramp of the marching army. With his stanzas of eight short, crisp lines, rhyming aaabcccb, it is the model for a war-poem; and the brave old song has as much power today to quicken the heartbeats as has the Henry V of Shakespeare, the success of which, doubtless, helped to inspire its composition.
“Drayton’s long and busy life closed at the end of 1631, and his body was buried in Westminster Abbey, under the north wall of the nave, and not in the Poet’s Corner where his bust may be seen. His right to the honour will possibly be more fully conceded by present and future ages than it has been at any other time since his own day. We see in him now, not, indeed, a poet of supreme imagination, nor one who worked a revolution or founded a school, but a poet with a remarkably varied claim on our attention and respect. Drayton was not a leader. For the most part he was a follower, quick to catch, and industrious to reproduce, the feeling and mode of the moment. So great, however, was his vitality and so fully was he a master of his craft that, living from the reign of Elizabeth into that of Charles I, he was able to keep abreast of his swiftly moving times, and, by reason of his very powers of labour, to bring something out of the themes and measures he employed which his predecessors and contemporaries failed to secure, but which after years owed to his efforts. This is especially the case, as we have seen, with his management of the rhymed couplet and the shortlined lyric. Sluggish, perhaps, of temper, and very variably sensitive to inspiration, he lacked the touchstone of perfect poetical taste, and, like Wordsworth, lacked also the finer virtues of omission. Yet everything that he wrote has its loftier moments; he is often ‘golden-mouthed’, indeed, in his felicity of diction, whether in the brave style of his youth or in the daintier manner of his age; and just as, in his attitude to life, ‘out of the strong came forth sweetness’, so, in his poetry, out of his dogged labour came forth sweetness of many kinds. In the long period which his work covered, the many subjects and styles it embraced, the beauty of its results and its value as a kind of epitome of an important era, there are few more interesting figures in English literature than Michael Drayton.” (Cambridge History of English and American Literature)
STC 7191.
1022E Michael Drayton 1563-1631
Poems by Michael Drayton esquyer. Newly corrected and augmented.
London: W. Stansby for J. Smethwick, 1637 £2200
Octavo 5 ¼ 4 x 3 ¼ inches A-X12 This copy is bound in nineteenth century full red morocco, with gilt spine and edges.
This edition of the poems contains “The Baron’s Wars”, “England’s heroical epistles”, “The legend of Robert Duke of Normandy”, “The legend of Matilda”, “The legend of Pierce Gaveston”, “The legend of Great Cromwell” and “Idea”.
STC 7225; see, Grolier, Langland to Wither, p. 74
894F William Drummond 1585-1649
The works of William Drummond, of Hawthornden. Consisting of those which were formerly printed, and those which were design’d for the press. Now published from the author’s original copies.
Edinburgh : printed by James Watson, in Craig’s-Closs, 1711. £3500
Folio 13 x 8 ½ inches [ ],a-l2, m1, a1, B-Z2, Aa-Zz2, Aaa-Qqq2, A2.A-P2. First collected edition
This copy is bound in its original full calf binding, It has been recently rebacked retaining the original spine. This is a wonderful copy of this book.
This is the first edition of Drummond’s works, printed under the supervision of his son, it contains a brief life of Drummond and his letters to Ben Jonson and other poets of his day. William Drummond is the last significant figure in Scottish poetry before the Eighteenth Century language. These conditions were now abolished. Poets who had published their work in Scots, followed James in revising it and publishing it in English, and Drummond, who did not go south with the court, was left in a state of cultural bereavement. He made a lot of that melancholy state. He became a poet of retreat and death, like Henry Vaughan during the Interregnum.
Drummond was a late practitioner of the Petrarchan sonnet sequence in English, but he worked in phrases and ideas of the French and Italian masters of late petrarchism. Marino was an author he admired and imitated. The language he writes in is not the Scots he spoke but a literary English, as correct as he could learn to make it from reading books. His art aims at refined sweetness both in versification and in the preciosity of his reworking and tinkering with petrarchan imagery. The landscape of his love-melancholy is a solitary and Arcadian Midlothian.
On this colde World of Ours,
Flowre of the Seasons, Season of the Flowrs,
Sonne of the Sunne sweet Spring,
Such hote and burning Dayes why doest thou bring?
(Madrigal vi, ll. 1-4, Poems, Part 1)
Like Poe, Drummond seems to have felt that the death of a beautiful woman was the best subject for poetry and Euphemia Cunningham did her best for him in this respect. Only a year after he had completed the Poems that end in mourning her literary epiphany. Religion was another source of melancholy interiority that he exploited; he expanded the divine poems of the 1616 collection and brought them out as Flowres of Sion in 1623. The volume includes his prose meditation on death, The Cypresse Grove. In later years he began to compile an uninteresting royalist History of Scotland. The Bishops’ Wars between Charles I and the Scots Presbyterians and the involvement of the Covenant in the politics of the English Civil War stirred Drummond to write political tracts against the Covenanters, notably Irene in response to the promulgation of the National Covenant of 1638 and Skiamachia in support of the Cross Petition to the Scottish Parliament against moves for an alliance with the English Parliamentarians. He did not publish them but they probably circulated in manuscript. Too literary, written in too elaborate and beautifully modulated a style to engage effectively in the cut and thrust of Civil War polemic, they nevertheless make shrewd points about the contradictions in which the Covenanters had involved themselves. John Sage, brought out an edition of his works in 1711, which, along with the poems, includes some of his letters, his history of Scotland and not very reliable versions of the political works.
Lowndes, p. 675. who reports that Ben Jonson thought of Drummond as a ‘Scotian Petrarch’
ESTC Citation No. T125750
676f Edmund Gibson, William Drummond,. (1585-1649) James V, King of Scotland (1512-1542)
Polemo-Middinia. Carmen macaronicum. Autore Gulielmo Drummundo, Scoto-Britanno: Accedit Jacobi id nominis Quinti, Regis Scotorum, Cantilena rustica vulgo inscripta Christs Kirk on the green ; Recensuit, notisque illustravit E.G.
Oxford: E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1691 £2500
Quarto 8 ¼ x6 ¼ inches a4, b2, A-B4, C2. Third edition. This book is bound in modern quarter calf, this is a very clean copy. The preface and notes by Edmund Gibson are in scholarly Latin, the piece attributed to Drummond in macaronic Latin, the piece attributed to James V in English; the Polemo-Middinia describes a fight between tenants of two Scottish manors. For attribution of the Polemo-Middinia to Drummond see Masson, David, Drummond of Hawthornden, London, 1873, p. 476 et seq.; attribution of Christs Kirk to James V extremely doubtful, according to DNB. Polemo-Middinia first printed Aberdeen, 1650; also previously printed Edinburgh, 1684, with title beginning Breviuscula, & compendiuscula, tellatio. “Christ’s Kirk on the green” in English. Also attributed to Samuel Colvil. Poets who had published their work in Scots, followed James in revising it and publishing it in English, and Drummond,. He made a lot of that melancholy state: becoming a poet of retreat and death, like Henry Vaughan during the Interregnum
Wing D-2204; NUC pre-1956; 149:364; BM 56:67; Folger, Printed Books 8:74.
166F John Dryden 1631-1700
Britannia Rediviva: A Poem On the Birth of the Prince.
London: Jacob Tonson, 1688 £500
Folio 8 ¾ 5 x 6 ¼ xinches A-G4, H2. 51 pages. First edition. Modern quarter morocco gilt, a fine, tall and clean unpresssed copy with a few minor spots, few uncut lower edges, and complete with the Imprimatur leaf.
This copy comes from the Brett-Smith “Collection. Although we have handled a copy in 1969 and two more in 1976, this is the sole example we have seen since then and well may be one of the last and nicest to come on the market for the foreseeable future.” (G.W. Stuart)
In Britannia Rediviva Dryden’s celebration of the prince seems strained, almost hysterical. He desperately prays that England be spared another civil war: “Here stop the Current of the sanguine flood, / Require not, Gracious God, thy Martyrs Blood.” Yet he cautions the Catholic (potential) martyrs, “Nor yet conclude all fiery Trials past, / For Heav’n will exercise us to the last.” And all he can praise at the end is no new order but James’s “Justice”–darling attribute of God himself–and James’s stoic endurance of whatever “Fortune” and “Fate” will bring. James Garrison seems right when he argues that Dryden has run out of enabling myth to sustain the Stuarts.
The Prince mentioned on the title was James Edward Stuart known as “The Old Pretender” and whose father, James II, was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Wing D-2251; MacDonald Dryden 27a.
682G Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy 1611-1688 Translated by John Dryden 1631-1700
De arte graphica. The art of painting, by C.A. Du Fresnoy. With remarks. Translated into English, together with an original preface containing a parallel betwixt painting and poetry. As also a short account of the most eminent painters, both ancient and modern, continu’d down to the present times, according to the order of their succession. By another hand.
Heptinstall for W. Rogers, at the Sun against St. Dunstan’s church in Fleetstreet, 1695 £2,200
Quarto 8 1/8 X 6 inches. [ ]2, (a-h)4, B-Z4, Aa-Yy4, Zz2. Internally, this copy is in very good shape. This copy is the first edition of the text in English translation. Bound in contemporary paneled calf it is a very clean large copy.; the spine’s title label has been replaced. “His progress in his studies was more than usually promising; he soon became well versed in the classics, and at an early period of his life showed a mark genius for poetry” (Bryan’s D-96). He was a working artist who established himself within a circle of peers that inlcuded Poussin, Claude Lorrain, and, close friend, Pierre Mignard who spent several years with him in Italy. Dufresnoy and Mignard were involved in copying Annibale Caracci’s frescoes into the Farnese Palace. However, “Dufresnoy was before all things a critic, and his best known work is not a painting, but a book, “De Arte Graphica”, a manual written in extremely elegant Latin verse…and reprinted for a hundred years as a masterpiece” (CE vol.X, p.289). The academic and creative impact Dufresnoy’s book had was great; his influence reverberated across the artistic community. This is particularly clear within his circle of friends, “this rare amateur wielded a great educational influence over Mignard, and made him acquainted with Venice and its incomparable school, which our classic art had professed to despise” (CE). Lowndes describes the book as “a work of established reputation” (p. 163) and the text itself includes Dufresnoy’s explanation of the art of painting. Examples of some topics covered include “The motions of the hands and head must agree”, “The conduct of the tones of Light and Shadows”, “The reflection of colours”, “Things which are vicious in painting to be avoided”. There is also an interesting account of “the most eminent painters, both ancient and modern” by his personal judgement (includes articles on Vouet, Caravaggio, his hero, Titian, and others).
“Painting and Poetry are two Sisters, which are so like in all things, that they mutually lend to each other both their Name and Office. One is call’d a dumb Poesy, and the other a speaking Picture” (from pg. 3 of “De Arte Graphica”).
Dufresnoy and Dryden helped assure this filial association between the two popular arts of painting and poetry. This text laid the groundwork for Jonathan Richardson’s seminal “Essay on the Theory of Painting” published in 1715 – a work that has been hailed as the “starting point for the classical school of art criticism in Britain” and the study of aesthetics. “ (Prince, “Aesthetics: Sources in the Eighteenth Century”).
Wing D-2458 ; H. Macdonald’s “Dryden Bibliography” 139a (p. 175)
453F John Dryden 1631-1700
Lucretius a poem against the fear of death. With an ode in memory of the accomplish’d young lady Mrs. Ann Killigrew, excellent in the two sister arts of poetry and painting.
London: H. Hills, 1709. £800
Octavo 6 ½ X 4 ¼ inches Hills’s pirate edition .A8
First edition in this form Price from imprint: Price One PennyThis copy is bound in full reversed calf. Killigrew died of smallpox on June 16, 1685, when she was only 25 years old so the question has frequently been raised: is Killigrew so deserving of such an immortalizing Ode by Dryden? Had he even read her poetry to properly determine her skills? Some say Dryden defended all poets as teachers of moral truths, and therefore Killigrew, despite her lack of experience, deserved his praise. However, evidence shows that she might not have been ready to see some of her work published, such as the unfinished poem “Alexandreis,” about Alexander the Great. At the end of the poem, she expresses the feeling that the task was too great for her to take on and she would try to finish it at another time. Then, there is the question of the last three poems that were found among her papers. They seem to be in her handwriting, which is why Killigrew’s father added them to her book. The poems are about the despair the author has for another woman, and could possibly be autobiographical if they are in fact by Killigrew. Some of her other poems are about failed friendships, possibly with Katherine Philips or Anne Finch, so this assumption may have some validity.
Anne Killigrew (1686), also an elegy, is devoid of theodicean complaint and provides the consolation of apotheosis throughout. Even when Dryden, in one of the best images in the poem (“Destiny … like a hardn’d Fellon,” that is, a rapist, refused to finish the “Murder at a Blow, … But … took a pride / To work more Mischievously slow, / And plunder’d first, and then destroy’d”), laments Killigrew’s premature death from smallpox, he concludes immediately that she, like Katherine Philips, the matchless “Orinda,” died only to be “translate[d]” to heaven. Moreover, the person praised is a poet–and a woman to boot. Dryden uses the occasion to apotheosize art itself. Anne is a Beatrice, a descendant of “Sappho,” whose transmigrating soul now leaves its peregrinations to sing eternally in a heavenly choir and to whom Dryden and other poets can now pray for poetic inspiration:
Hear then a Mortal Muse thy Praise rehearse,
In no ignoble Verse;
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first Fruits of Poesie were giv’n;
To make thy self a welcome Inmate there:
While yet a young Probationer,
And Candidate of Heav’n.
Dryden portrays this “Poetess” as having “Wit … more than Man,” as being indeed quasi-divine, a second Christ who “attone[s]” for the “Second Fall” of mankind through bad poetry, bad art, and bad drama; a second Noah in her ability to people creation itself through her portraits; and a cocreator who has the power to paint not only James II’s “Outward Part” but to “call out” with her very “hand” the “Image of his Heart.” Dryden thus portrays Anne’s agency on earth as a second Incarnation, one that, like Christ’s, raises mankind up to higher status–especially the “Sacred Poets,” who, at the sound of the “Golden Trump” on Judgment Day, will, because “they are cover’d with the lightest Ground,” spring first from the earth “And streight, with in-born Vigour, on the Wing, / Like mounting Larkes, to the New Morning sing,” led by Anne “As Harbinger of Heav’n, the Way to show.” Dryden has granted this “Virgin-daughter of the Skies” the status of the Blessed Virgin or Sophia, by implication a coequal member of the Trinity (from which the figure of woman has been conspicuously absent). And one of the main fictions of the poem is that his Pindaric poetry itself participates in the divine emanation. Without music itself, this poem is as wonderfully lyrical as anything the age produced. The play off the inverted iamb every time the line begins with “When” and then leads, in the first instance–or slams, in the third–into a spondee provides wonderful metrical variation, even as the foot-lengths vary, producing, along with the alliterative f’s and the collapsed iambs of the second line, these great sound effects: “When ratling Bones together fly, / From the four Corners of the Skie.” The use of medial caesuras is masterful especially in the last five lines, including double caesuras that allow the succeeding lines to explode forth in imitation of the mounting larks/resurrected bodies
Foxon, D458
English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT76294.
815G John Fisher 1469-1535
Sacri sacerdotij defensio cõtra Lutherum, per Reuerendissimu Dominum, dominum Johannem Roffeñ. Episcopum, virum singulari eruditione omnifariam doctissimum, iam primum ab Archetypo euulgata. Cum tabula et repertorio tractatorum.
Colonie : Petri Quentel, 1525 £2500
Octavo 5 ½ X 4 inches A8B4,a-G8. One of three eds. printed by Quentel in 1525. One of the others is in 4to (Kuczynski 821)- -and the other, in 8vo, has title 1st line: “Sacri sacerdotij defensio” (Kuczynski 823)./ Ed. by “frater Johãnes Romberch” (leaf [2])./ Signatures:/ Royal arms on t.p. Initials. Date in roman numerals. Marginal notes printed throughout.
“Sacri sacerdotii defensio contra Lutherum” is a defense of the priesthood by arguments in favor of tradition against innovation and a divine sanction of the priesthood.
Kuczynski, A. Thesaurus libellorum historiam Reformationis,; 822; BM STC German, 1465-1600,; p. 458; Pegg, M. Pamphlets in Swiss libraries,; 2493; VD-16,; F-1238; Adams,; F-547
454G John Floyd 1572 – 15 September 1649 The meditations, soliloquia, and manuall of the glorious doctour S. Augustine. Newly translated into English. £1500
Duodecimo 5 ½ X 3 inches A-T12 Second Edition (enlarged) of this Translation A very nice copy expertly rebacked.
John Floyd was an English Jesuit, known as a controversialist. He was known both as a preacher and teacher, and was frequently arrested in England. He was born in Cambridgeshire in 1572. After studying in the school of the English Jesuits at Eu, Normandy, he was admitted in1588 to the English College, Reims, where he studied humanities and philosophy. Next he went to the English College, Rome, admitted there 9 October 1590, and joined the Society of Jesus on 1 November 1592. On 18 August 1593 Floyd received minor orders at Reims or Douai, and on the 22nd of the same month he was sent back to the English College at Rome with nine companions, where he taught philosophy and theology, and became known as a preacher. In 1609 he became a professed father of the Jesuit order. He worked for a long time on the English mission. In 1606, he was detained, and he was unable either by entreaties or bribes to escape Sir John Popham. After a year’s imprisonment he was sent into exile with forty-six other priests, and he spent four years in preaching at St. Omer and composing controversial works. Then he returned to England, where he was often captured, and frequently contrived to pay off the pursuivants. His last years were spent at Leuven, where he was professor of theology. He died suddenly at St. Omer on 15 September 1649.
Clancy 43; (see)Allison & Rogers #306
See: DeBacker-Sommervogel volIII col 814 no8
770E Fulke, Lord Brooke Greville 1554-1628
Certaine Learned And Elegant VVorkes Of The Right Honorable Fvlke Lord Brooke, Written in his Youth, and familiar Exercise with Sir Philip Sidney. The seuerall Names of which Workes the following page doth declare.
London: Printed by E.[lizabeth]P[urslowe]. for Henry Seyle, at the the Tygers head in St. Paules Church-yard, 1633 £4500
Small folio 8 ¼ X 5 ½ inches. π2; d-k4, L2, D-Z4, Aa-Qq4 Rr6, This copy is complete, lacking the first and last blank leaves.
In all the known copies of this work the pagination begins with p. 23, signature d. It is generally believed that the book originally began with “A treatise on religion” said to have been suppressed by order of Archbishop Laud. Grosart thinks the missing pages were prefatory matter containing a life of the author “with fuller details of his murder than his friends cared to let the world read” as stated in Biographia Britannica. cf. Memorial-introd. in Grosart’s edition of Brooke’s works, 1870, and Grolier Club, Catalogue of … works … from Wither to Prior, 1905. First edition.
This copy is in good condition internally with only the usual minor dampstaining, and closely trimed . It is bound in full nineteenth century calfskin, ruled in gilt with edges stained safron. The binding has been skillfully rebacked .
“Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, who wrote (but did not publish) at the end of the sixteenth century a miscellaneous collection of poems called Caelica. The collection consisted of one hundred and nine short poems, on each of which the author bestowed the title of sonnet. Only thirty-seven, however, are quatorzains. The remaining seventy-two so-called ‘sonnets’ are lyrics of all lengths and in all meters. There is little internal connection among Brooke’s poems, and they deserve to be treated as a series of independent lyrics. […] The series was published for the first time as late as 1633, in a collection of Lord Brooke’s poetical writings. It may be reckoned the latest example of the Elizabethan sonnet-sequence.” (quoted from page 304, Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. III)
“If Fulke Greville, first Lord Brooke (1554-1628), had been born twenty years later, he might perhaps have stood —with Chapman rather than with Donne— in the forefront of the metaphysical movement. What Edward Phillips called his ‘close, mysterious and sentencious way of writing’ is nearer the metaphysical than the Spenserian manner, yet Greville shows, in Humane Learning, a Hobbesian distrust of metaphor, and his normal utterance is of a massive realistic plainness fitted for sober and penetrating thought. In parts of Caelica, which was begun under Sidney’s inspiration, he wreathed iron pokers into true-love knots, and although, according to Naunton, he ‘lived, dyed, a constant Courtier of the Ladies,’ no series of love poems was ever less amorous. For all the Petrarchan and Sidneian fancies, and the omnipresence of Cupid, Caelica, Myra, and Cynthia are something less than shadows, and towards the end they fade away altogether behind religious and philosophical reflection.” (quoted from page 94, Bush’s English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century)
STC 12361,; Grolier’s Wither to Prior, # 406; Pforzheimer 437.;Hayward #68
790G R(obert) H(owllet) fl 1696
The School Of Recreation: Or A Guide To The Most Ingenious Exercises Of Hunting, Riding, Racing, Fireworks, Military Discipline, The Science Of Defence, Hawking, Tennis, Bowling, Singing, Cock-fighting, Fowling, Angling.
London : A. Bettesworth, at the Red-Lyon on London-Bridge, 1710. £2400
Duodecimo 5 ¼ X 3. ¼ A13, B-G12
Bound in origina full calf! This little handbook, with its many and diverse subjects, provides a tantalizing window onto the past. In his preface, the author advocates the practice of these hobbies for pleasure, to promote a ‘healthful constitution,’ and for ‘profit and advantage.’ Further, he uses the phrase ‘leisure hours’ and recommends practicing these recreations ‘to unbend your cares after the tiresome drudgery of weighty temporal matters.’ He also calls the pursuit of these various diversions harmless, but warns the reader not to become so absorbed in these pastimes that he neglect his other duties.
The very idea that people in this period had leisure time is interesting in itself, and the details found inside this volume provide a very clear picture of the activities described. Any student of the past who follows the careful instructions laid out in Howllet’s School of Recreation would be able to re-create the personal entertainments of the English from the end of the seventeenth century.
We might expect to read about hunting, but the author also includes a lengthy description of dog breeding, with breeds mentioned by name, advice for what to look for when breeding for specific traits, and details about kenneling and canine health issues. Similarly, the English have had an enthusiasm for riding that goes back through the centuries, and the chapter on horses goes into great detail about training, riding, tack, and more, with a special chapter on racing.
The section on ‘Artificial Fire-works’ is a little less anticipated, and does not disappoint. Howllet categorizes fireworks into three general ‘sorts: ’those that ascend in the air; those that consume on the earth; and such as burn on the water.’ He also describes how to make molds for rockets, and follows with what can only be described as recipes for a sky rocket, golden rain, silver stars, red fiery colored stars, stars that give reports, mortars for balloons, the inimitable ‘flying saucisson,’ (or sausage) for earth and water, fire boxes, fiery lances, trees and fountains of fire, fire wheels, ground rockets, fiery globes. The author describes how to test powder, and some really amazing-sounding fireworks with figures made of cardboard and wicker to look like St. George slaying the dragon, mermaids, and whales. “In [the dragon’s] mouth and eyes you must fix serpents, or small rockets, which being fired at their setting out, will cause a dreadful sight in a dark night.”
The section on military discipline is interesting, but hard to understand practiced as a hobby. I suppose that one needs to be ever at the ready. Fun military exercises done with pikes and muskets are included here, to keep your skills in peak form, even during peacetime. The reader may perform them on foot or while mounted.
The chapters that follow are too numerous to treat separately with any fairness. They include sword fighting and fencing, hawking, bowling, tennis, hand bell ringing (with many songs or ‘bobs’ included), vocal music (with two beautiful text diagrams), followed by cock fighting (including advice on caring for your cock which includes, but is not limited to licking his head and eyes with your tongue, and then feeding him hot urine, see page 145), fowling (hunting wild birds like ducks, pheasants, etc.), and finally, fishing (including fly fishing with real and ‘artificial’ flies, and recipes for bait).
The School of Recreation continues to educate its readers with innocent and enlightening leisure time activities.
ESTC Citation No. T72534Only three copies Harvard Huntington ,McMaster University
(See; Chris Philip, A Bibliography of Firework Books, page 74; Westwood and Satchell, Bibliotheca Piscatoria, A Catalogue of Books on Angling, page110; (the fencing section is not listed in Thimm, Bibliography of Fencing and Duelling); John Resler Swift, Bibliotheca Accipitaria II A catalogue of Books Ancient and Modern Relating to Falconry, page 163; Schwerdt, A Catalogue of Books Relating to Hunting, Hawking and Shooting, Volume 4, page 49.)
825G Sir Matthew Hale 1609-1676
The Primitive Origin of Mankind considered and examined according to the light of nature.
London: William Godbid for William Shrowsbery, 1677 £2500
Folio 12 ½ X 7 ¾ inches a-4,b2,B-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Bbb4,Ccc2. First edition This copy is bound in full later panneled calf with a spine label. It is a very handsome copy. This copy was owned by Desmond Morris, and has his book plate.
“The problem of human origins, of how and when the first humans appeared in the world, has been addressed in a variety of ways in western thought. In the 17th century the predominant explanation for the origin of the world and the beings that inhabit it, especially human beings, was based on the biblical account of creation. It was almost universally accepted that humans had been created by a supernatural agent using supernatural means. But alternative explanations for the production of the first humans did exist, according to which the first humans were produced by nature through some form of spontaneous generation” (Matthew R. Goodrum). In response to Isaac de la Peyrere‘s theory of polygenesis, Hale advanced his own theory that the earth was not eternal, but rather had a spontaneous “beginning,” and went on to defend “the Mosaic account of the single origin of all peoples” (Norman). He further believed “that in animals, especially insects, various natural calamities reduce the numbers to low levels intermittently, so maintaining the balance of nature” (Garrison & Morton). Hale anticipated Malthus in studying the growth of a population from a single family, and “seems to have been the first to use the expression ‘geometrical proportion” in respect to population (Hutchinson). Primitive Origination was written as the first part of a larger manuscript entitled Concerning Religion, the whole of which “was submitted to Bishop Wilkins, who showed it to Tillotson. Both advised condensation, for which Hale never found leisure” (DNB). This first part, called “Concerning the Secondary Origination of Mankind,” was published after his death as The Primitive Origination of Mankind. A lawyer by trade, Hale distinguished himself after the fire of London in 1666 by deciding many cases of owner and tennant dispute, and helped facilitate the rebuilding of the city. He also publically demonstrated his belief in witches when as a judge he condemned more than one suspected witch to death.
Wing H-258;Norman 965. ;Garrison & Morton 215. ;Lowndes, 973.
689G Herbert, George. (1593-1633) andChristopher Harvey 1597-1663
The Temple. Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. By Mr. George Herbert, Late Oratour of the University of Cambridge. Together with his Life. with several Additions. Psal. 29. In his Temple doth every man speak of his honour. The Tenth Edition, with an Alphabetical Table for ready finding out the chief places.
[bound with]
The Synagogue: Or The Shadow Of The Temple. Sacred Poems, And Private Ejaculations. In Imitation of Mr. George Herbert. The Sixth Edition, Corrected and Enlarged.
London: Printed by W. Godbid, for R.S. and are to be Sold by John Williams Junior, in Cross-Key Court in Little-Britain, 1674
London: Printed for Robert Stephens, at the Kings-Arms in Chancery-Lane, 1673 £3000
Duodecimo 5 ¾ x 3 ½ inches [π]6, [*]5, A-L12, K6; A-C12; A-B12, C6. The tenth edition. This copy is a very nice and tidy copy bound in 19th century vellum over boards. A very nice copy
This work contains 140 stanzic patterns, including the most famous shaped poem in the English language. Herbert’s reputation rests on this remarkable collection of poems which mark perfectly the Metaphysical tone of his spiritual unrest which is resolved in final peace. “the Herbert we know through ‘Aaron,’ ‘Discipline,’ ‘The Collar,’ ‘The Pulley,’ and many other poems in which he strives to subdue the willful or kindle the apathetic self. His principal themes are those ‘two vast, spacious things, Sinne and Love.’ There is nothing soft in the poet who seeks to engrave divine love in steel; and a catalogue of gratuitous, untempered, and short-lived sweets leads up to the magnificent contrast of the disciplined soul that ‘never gives.’ (Bush)
Wing H-1521; Wing H-1049; Palmer IV, 12.
776G Hilarius, Episcopus Pictaviensis (315-367/68)ed. Cribellus, Georgius,; fl. 1489.
Libri Sancti Hilarii de Trinitate contra Arianos, contra Constantium hereticum, contra Auxentium et de synodis fidei catholicae contra Arianos. – Liber Aurelii Augustini de Trinitate. [Georgio Crivellio edente.]
Mediolani : per magistrum Leonardum Pachel 1489 £9500
Folio 11½ X 8 inches A-I, AA, BB, a-k, in eights, except H, I, in sixes. The last leaf is blank. First Edition This copy is bound in later quarter calf. There is light dampstain at top margin, few minor wormholes in the beginning, touching a few letters, some thumbing to lower outer corner of first few leaves, small old red ink note to last leaf. Without the final blank. Small bookplate of the former Redemptorist seminary St. Alphonsus in Esopus, NY. Early 19th cen.
This is the Editio princeps of Hilary of Poitiers’ major theological work, issued with St. Augustine’s work on the same subject. (first published befor 1474)
Saint Hilary devoted to writing some of the greatest theology on the Trinity, and was like his Master in being labeled a “disturber of the peace.” In a very troubled period in the Church, his holiness was lived out in both scholarship and controversy. He was bishop of Poitiers in France. Raised a pagan, he was converted to Christianity when he met his God of nature in the Scriptures. His wife was still living when he was chosen, against his will, to be the bishop of Poitiers in France. He was soon taken up with battling what became the scourge of the fourth century, Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ.
The heresy spread rapidly. St. Jerome said “The world groaned and marveled to find that it was Arian.” When Emperor Constantius ordered all the bishops of the West to sign a condemnation of Athanasius, the great defender of the faith in the East, Hilary refused and was banished from France to far off Phrygia (in modern-day Turkey). Eventually he was called the “Athanasius of the West.” While writing in exile, he was invited by some semi-Arians (hoping for reconciliation) to a council the emperor called to counteract the Council of Nicea. But Hilary predictably defended the Church, and when he sought public debate with the heretical bishop who had exiled him, the Arians, dreading the meeting and its outcome, pleaded with the emperor to send this troublemaker back home. Hilary was welcomed by his people.
His work on the Trinity is a scriptural confirmation of the philosophic doctrine of the divinity of Christ, and is of permanent value. It was not a mere restatement of traditional orthodoxy, but a fresh and living utterance of his own experience and study. In the discussion of the co-essentiality of the Son, Hilary lays emphasis on the Scripture titles and affirmations, and especially on his birth from the Father, which he insists involves identity of essence. In the elaboration of the divine-human personality of Christ, he is more original and profound. The incarnation was a move went of the Logos towards humanity in order to lift humanity up to participation in the divine nature. It consisted in a self-emptying of himself, and the assumption of human nature. In this process lie lost none of his divine nature; and, even during the humiliation, he continued to reign everywhere in heaven and on earth. Christ assumed body, soul, and spirit, and passed through all stages of human growth, his body being really subject to pain and death. Redemption is the result of Christ’s voluntary substitution of himself, out of love, in our stead. Between the God-man and the believer there is a vital communion. As the Logos is in the Father, by reason of his divine birth, so we are in him, and become partakers of his nature, by regeneration and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
The christology of Hilary is full of fresh and inspiring thoughts, which deserve to be better known than they are.
Goff H269( Yale U , Villanova Univ);
BMC VI 777
808G Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679 De Mirabilibus Pecci. Being the Wonders of the Peak in Derby-shire. Commonly Called The Devil’s Arse of Peak. In English and Latine. The Latine written by Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury. The English by a Person of Quality.
London: Printed for William Crook at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar 1678 £2,000
Octavo 6 ¼ X 3 ¾ inches A-E8, F7 (F8 blank and lacking) First English edition .This copy is bound in later quarter calf. From 1608, Hobbes, was appointed tutor to William, only two years his junior. During this interval Hobbes wrote a Latin poem, giving an account of a short tour of the Peak in Derbyshire, made in company with the second earl. It was, it appears, a new year’s gift to his friend, who rewarded him with a gift of 5 pounds. The poem was first published in 1636. This version includes the original Latin and an English translation by ‘a Person of Quality.’ Chatsworth House which features largely in the poem as one of the Wonders of the Peak:
Wing H-2224; T.C. I. 296.
805G Christopher Irvine fl 1638-1685 Historiæ Scoticæ nomenclatura Latino-vernacula: multis flosculis, ex antiquis Albinorum monumentis, & lingua Galeciorum prisca decerptis, adspersa. In gratiam eorum, qui Scotorum nomen, & veritatis numen colunt, Christophorus Irvinus, abs Bon-Bosco, auspice summo numine, concinnavit;
Et Edinbruchii : sumptibus Gideonis Schaw, bibliopolæ nobilis, typisq[ue] Andersonianis regiis, calendas Januarias, M.CD.LXXXII. [sic] Imprimi curavit, [1682] £1,500
Octavo 6 ½ x 4 inches A-M4. First Edition This copy is bound in nice later full calf. Irvine was physician, philologist, and antiquary, (Preface to his Nomenclatura). ‘After my travels,’ he continues, ‘the cruel saints were pleased to mortify me seventeen nights with bread and water in close prison’ (ib.) Allowed to return to Scotland, he was reduced to teaching in schools at Leith and Preston (Sibbald, Bibliotheca Scotica, MS. Adv. Lib. ap. Chambers). About 1650 Irvine resumed the profession to which he seems to have been bred, and became surgeon, and finally physician, at Edinburgh. He was present in the camp of Charles II in Athol in June 1651 At the battle of Worcester he made his peace with the party in power, and was appointed about 1652 or 1653 surgeon to Monck’s army in Scotland. This office he held until the Restoration. He was in London in 1659, and after the Restoration held the office of surgeon to the horse-guards. By what he calls ‘a cruel misrepresentation’ he lost his public employment before 1682 (Preface to Nomenclatura). Irving says he was also historiographer to Charles II.
Wing I-1051
560G Sebastián Izquierdo1601-1681 & Ignatius,; of Loyola, Saint,; 1491-1556.
Practica de los Exercicios Espirituales de Nuestro Padre San Ignacio
Romae : Por El Varese, 1675 £2500
Octavo 6 X 4 inches A-G H . Second Spanish edition. The copy offered here is a little browned but not badly , it is bound in modern full calf with gilt spine by Roycroft.
The Jesuit Sebastián Izquierdo in his Práctica de los ejercicios espirituales, written in 1665 translated in to Italian the same year then in 1678 translated into Latin and later published in several translations and versions offers an illustrated guide to the Ignatian spiritual exercises. The illustrations, 12 of them, are the subject of image meditation which was a favorite method of the Jesuits who, beginning with the monumental Evangelicae Historiae Imagines (1593) of Jerónimo Nadal, actively took hold of religious iconography and adjusted and concentrated it for the teaching of the Societies ( and Ignatius’ ) vision. The images are not just simple depiction’s instead they are mnemonic devices. These images are points of departures and give the current 21st century reader a precious examples of images that inspire meditation, direct the reception of the teachings and anchor them in the memory. Particularly memorable is the Image of Hell on page 72, or the Puteus Abyssi (the bottomless pit) . The lay-out shows the pedagogical intentions and possibilities of this little book: there are 12 parts consisting of 12 separate quires, numbered from ‘A’ to ‘M’ and paginated each from 1-12, each with its own full-page illustration , these could have been meant to be distributed separately – according to match the educational needs or level of the students. The Images are in high contrast, with plenty of Bloody and memorable images.
The Puteus Abyssi depicts a poor man who is naked and sitting in a chair in some sort of oubliette. He has seven swords, each with animal head handles, in him and each is strategically stuck in various parts of the body. The swords are labeled for the passions. Most interesting of these might be the sword marked ‘Vengeance’ it is hanging offer the mans head, the Idleness sword is stuck between his legs, Gluttony in his stomach, Lust … Envy in his back, Avarice between his Shoulders and Pride in his heart.
Izquierdo was also the author of Pharus scientiarum, a treatise on the methodology and propaedeutic to be used to access knowledge, conceived it as a single science. In this work, which is felt the imprint of Raymond Lully and traditions are assimilated Aristotelian and Baconian logic, outlines some of the ways that will travel later Leibniz and expressed some original ideas on mathematics and logic that have earned their author be among the most outstanding Spanish of his time in those fields. Thus, for example, used it not only featured Spanish mathematicians, like his contemporary John Caramuel or illustrated Tomás Vicente Tosca , but also significant foreign mathematicians as Athanasius Kircher , Gaspar Knittel or Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , the latter, in particular, cited another work of its author, his Disputatio of Combinatione, in Combinatorial Art (1666).
DeBacker-Sommervogel, vol.IV, col 700 no.4 ; Landwehr:Romantic 412.; Praz,p.382: Palau y Dulcet (2nd ed.); 291352:Toda 2466.
393G Silvester Jenks, 1656?-1714.
An essay upon the art of love, containing An Exact Anatomy of Love and all the other Passions which attend it.
[London?] : [s.n.], Printed MDCCII. [1702] £1000
Octavo 5 X 3 inches A-M12 N6 First edition. This is a very nice copy bound in contemporary calf. Jenks was educated at Douai College, where he was professor of philosophy from 1680 to 1686 Jenks, Sylvester, bishop-elect of Callipolis in partihtu, He was a Catholic non-juror in 1717. At an early age, Sylvester Jenks was sent to Douay College, where he took the missionary oath, in the name of Medcalfe, Aug. 15, 1675. Lady Yate, of Harvington Hall, Worcestershire, undertook the principal part of the expense of his education. He progressed rapidly in his studies, and, having completed the course of divinity, publicly defended his tlieses on July 12, 1680. Dr. Edward Paston was moderator, and the occasion was honoured with the presence of Guido de Save, bishop of Arras, to whom the young divine dedicated his theses. He was then appointed professor of philosophy in the college. In the meantime he was ordained priest, Sept 23, 1684, and, after teaching philosophy for six years, was sent to England, Sept. 23, 1686.
His first mission was Harvington Hall, the seat of his great friend and patroness, Lady Yate, The quiet life which he-enjoyed there, however, was soon exchanged for more active scenes. James II., in his progress through the country, being made acquainted with his abilities, called him up to London, and appointed him one of his preachers in ordinary. It was but for a short time that he held this honorary position, for the revolution of 1688 necessitated his flight, and he resided in Flanders. Subsequently he returned to England, and was stationed in London, for he was appointed by the chapter archdeacon of Surrey and Kent In one of his letters he refers to a journey to his native county, Shropshire, which he commenced on June 18, 1706, but it would seem that it was only for a visit to his relatives and friends.. His abilities and his strictly religious life were so highly appreciated by his brethren that he was proposed by Bishops Giffard and Witham for the vicariate of the northern district, vacant by the death of Bishop James Smith in 1711. In a particular congregation, held Aug. 13, the Propaganda unanimously elected Sylvester Jenks to be vicar-apostolic of the northern district, and the Pope gave his consent on Aug. 22, 1713. On the following Nov. 13, the agent in Rome for the English clergy applied to the Propaganda in congregation for faculties for Monsignor Jenks, Bishop of Callipolis in partibiis, and vicar-apostolic of England. In another particular congregation, held Feb. 4, 1714, it was reported that the arrival of the brief, sent in August, 1713, had not been notified to the Propaganda. It had been sent to the internuncio of Flanders through the Propaganda secretariat. In the congregation held on the following July 3, a letter was laid before the Propaganda, written on April 15, 1714, by Bishops Giffard and Witham, to thank their eminences, the cardinals of the congregation, for the election of Mr. Jenks, whom they had proposed for the northern vicariate. They at the same time mentioned, in excuse for Mr. Jenks, who had not himself written to Propaganda, the circumstance of his having been seriously ill. He was possessed of singular qualifications, says Dodd, but most especially was he remarkable for the clearness of his conceptions, his well-balanced mind, and the elegance of his language. His theological learning and abilities were most eminent, and his strictly religious life was an example of solid piety and sterling humility. To conclude, his own words may be quoted from the preface to his “Blind Obedience“:
—” I keep my name to myself, and my reason is, because I love a quiet life. I ever looked upon it as the greatest blessing which a bad world can afford, and am persuaded that being private is the easiest and securest way of being quiet. Besides, I see no good there is in being talked of, either well or ill. The one is good for nothing but to make a man vain; the other is apt to make him vexed; all to no purpose.”
Dodd, Ch. Hist., vol. iii. p. 486; Mazicre Brady, Episc. Succession, vol. iii. ; Boiven, God’s Safe Way; Bcnveti, The Lavs, July to Aug. 1872, pp. 30, 36, 59 ; Jenks, Contrite and Hitmbl; Heart.
Gillow vol III page 619 #11
907G Johannes de Verde (d.1437)
Sermones Dormi secure vel dormi sine cura de t[em]p[or]e.
[bound with]
Sermones Dormi secure de tempore et de sanctis.
Nuremberg : Anton Koberger, 12 Mar. 1498
Nuremberg : Anton Koberger, 5 Jan. 1494 £15000
Folio 11 X 8 inches A-F8 G6 & a-e8 f6 g-k8 I10 The first works lacks title slug. Rubicated in red and blue thruout. The two parts of the famous preaching collection of the Franciscan monk Johannes de Verdana , who, besides Johann von Minden and Heinrich von Werl, belonged to the three best known German preachers of the thirties of the fifteenth century. The “Sermones Dormi secure” is a command to calm the preacher who can keep his sermons on Sundays and holidays (de tempore et de sanctis) without his having the nights With composing your own texts. Compiled by a Franciscan friar, this collection of 71 sermons was intended to provide sample texts for those preachers who could not create their own. The nickname of the collection, “dormi secure” (“sleep soundly”), may have implied jokingly that its users were too ignorant or lazy to compose new sermons on short deadlines. Although it was a highly successful book, appearing in dozens of editions, Martin Luther dismissed it as “donkey dung, introduced by the devil.” Compiled by a Franciscan friar, this collection of 71 sermons was intended to provide sample texts for those preachers who could not create their own. The nickname of the collection, “dormi secure” (“sleep soundly”), may have implied jokingly that its users were too ignorant or lazy to compose new sermons on short deadlines. Although it was a highly successful book, appearing in dozens of editions, Martin Luther dismissed it as “donkey dung, introduced by the devil.” (oh Luther)This practical preaching document was particularly popular and was printed between 1476 and 1500 in more than 30 editions in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Numerous other editions were held until the 17th century.
De tempore: Goff J468; HC 15977; Walsh 759; Pr 2120; BMC II 444; BSB-Ink I-551; GW M14946
De sanctis: Goff J470; HC 15979*; IBP 3259; SI 2227; Sajó-Soltész 1969; Coll(U) 872; Walsh 736; Pr 2087; BMC II 438; BSB-Ink I-539; GW M14945
(Goff and ISTC showing two copies in the US :Harvard & St Bonaventure Univ)
683G Benjamin Jonson ca. 1572-1637 The Works of Ben Jonson, which were formerly Printed in Two Volumes, are now Reprinted in One, to which is added a Comedy, called the New Inn, with Additions never before Published.
London: Thomas Hodgkin, H. Herringman, E. Brewster, T. Bassett, R. Chiswell, M. Wotton, G. Conyers, 1692 £6500
Folio 14 ½ x 9 inches A6, B-Ll4, Oo-Bbb4, Ccc2, Eee-Zzz4, Aaaa-Zzzz4, Aaaaa4, Bbbbb6. “Dr. Greg called attention to the fact that sheet Ccc of this volume is invariably discolored. Besides that sheet, in all copies examined, sheet Zz2-3 is likewise foxed.” (Pforzheimer) Notably, these sheets are printed on paper which has a watermark not found elsewhere in the volume. The foxing is most likely due to the inferior quality of the paper, since all offending sheets share the same watermark. First complete collected edition. This copy is bound in contemporary calf with a gilt stamp of initals under a correnet which has been rebacked. It is a very large and clean copy. This is the first complete single volume edition, and last of the folio editions, of Ben Jonson’s works. It is truly complete, containing all the masques; epigrams; plays; verse letters and panegyrics; sonnets; the English Grammar; Timber, or Discoveries; and the translation of Horace’s de Arte Poetica. The New Inne is included in this collected edition for the first time.
“Jonson’s life was tough and turbulent., Ben was adopted in infancy by a bricklayer and educated by and antiquarian William Camden, before necessity drove him to enter the army. In Flanders, where the Dutch with English help were warring against the Spaniards, he fought single-handed with one of the enemy before the massed armies, and killed his man. Returning to England about 1595, he began to work as an actor and playwright but was drawn from one storm center to another.He killed a fellow actor in a duel, and escaped the gallows only by pleading ‘benefit of the clergy’ (i.e., by proving he could read and write, which entitled him to plead before a more lenient court). He was jailed for insulting the Scottish nation at a time when King James was newly arrived from Scotland. He took furious part in an intricate set of literary wars with his fellow playwrights. Having converted to Catholicism, he was the object of deep suspicion after the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes (1605), when the phobia against his religion reached its height. Yet he rode out all these troubles, growing mellower as he grew older, and in his latter years became the unofficial literary dictator of London, the king’s pensioned poet, a favorite around the court, and the good friend of men like Shakespeare, Donne, Francis Beaumont, John Selden, Francis Bacon. In addition, he engaged the affection of younger men (poets like Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, and Sir John Suckling, speculative thinkers like Lord Falkland and Sir Kenelm Digby), who delighted to christen themselves ‘sons of Ben.’ Sons of Ben provided the nucleus of the entire ‘Cavalier school’ of English poets.” (Norton Anthology of English Literature) Wing J-1006; Pforzheimer 561.
“ Nothing is more beautiful than know all things”
622G Athansius Kircher 1602-1680
Ars Magna Sciendi, In XII Libros digesta. Qua Nova & Universali Methodo Per Artificiosum Combinationum contextum de omni re proposita plurimis & prope infinitis rationibus disputari, omniumque summaria quædam cognitio compari potest… (tomes 1&2)
Amsterdam: Apud Joannem Janssonium à Waesberge, & Viduam Elizei Weyerstraet, 1669 £11,500
Folio 14 ½ X 9 inches *4, **4, A-Z4, Aa-Gg4-Zz4, Aaa-Ooo4, Ppp6.
First edition. This copy is bound in full original calf with a gilt spine with an expertly executed early rebacking. The vovell sheets are present but not cut or placed. And two very large foldouts A complete copy with the usual browing.
The ‘Ars Magna Sciendi’ is Kircher’s exploration and development of the ‘Combinatoric Art’ of Raymond Lull, the thirteenth century philosopher. Kircher attempts in this monumental work to classify knowledge under the nine ideal attributes of God, which were taken to constitute the pattern for all creation. In the third chapter of this book is presented a new and universal version of the Llullistic method of combination of notions. Kircher seems to be convinced that the Llullistic art of combination is a secret and mystical matter, some kind of esoteric doctrine. In contrast with Llull, who used Latin words, words with clearly defined significations for his combinations, Kircher began filling the tables with signs and symbols of a different kind. By doing this Kircher was attempting to penetrate symbolic representation itself. ( forming a ‘symbolic-Logic)
Kircher tried to calculate the possible combinations of all limited alphabets (not only graphical, but also mathematical). He considered himself a grand master of decipherment and tried to (and thought he did) translate Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, he felt that knowledge was a process of encoding and decoding. His tabula generalis, the more mathematical way of thinking created the great difference between Llull and Kircher.
Kircher used the same circle-figures of Llull, but the alphabet which Kircher proposes as material for his combination-machine reveals the difference to Lullus’ at first sight. It is not the signification in correlation with the position in the table, because all nine places in each table are filled with the same significations we find in the Llullistic tables, that makes the difference. It is the notation, which creates the difference. While making certain modifications, mainly in the interest of clarity, Kircher retains the main thesis of Raymond Lull in the search for a scientific approach to the classification of all branches of knowledge. The central aim of Lull’s and Kircher’s activity was to invent a type of logic or scientific approach capable of finding and expressing universal truth. Kircher and his seventeenth century contemporaries had discarded common language as a satisfactory vehicle for this undertaking. Kircher favored the use of symbols as a possible solution to his problem, which he had explored in his earlier work on a non-figurative universal language was not a primary concern of lull’s ‘Combinatoric Art,’ his approach lent itself naturally to the seventeenth century savants and their abiding interest in this subject. (see Brian L. Merrill, Athansius Kircher An Exhibition at Brigham Young University).
Sommervogel 1066.28; Merrill 22; Ferguson I. 467; Brunet III, 666; Caillet II, 360.5771; Clendening 10.17; De Backer I, 429-30.23; Graesse IV, 21; Reilly #26.
720G Athanasius Kircher 1602-1680
Athanasi Kircheri Fuldensis Buchonii è Soc. Jesu presbyteri ars magna lucis et umbræ, in X. libros digesta. Quibus admirandæ lucis & umbræ in mundo, atque adeò universa natura, vires effectusque uti nova, ita varia novorum reconditiorumque speciminum exhibitione, ad varios mortalium usus, panduntur. Editio altera priori multò auctior.
Amstelodami, apud Joannem Janssonium à Waesberge, & hæredes Elizæi Weyerstraet. 1671 . £15000
Folio 15 X 9 ¾ inches *4, **4, ***6, (*)2, A-Xxxx4 Second Enlarged edition Bound in contemporary calf, with nicely gilt spine.
Kircher’s Major Scientific Work and his Principal Contribution to Optics”In Ars magna lucis et umbrae Kircher discusses the sources of light and shadow. The work deals especially with the sun, moon, stars and planets. Kircher also treats phenomena related to light, such as optical illusions, color and refraction, projection and distortion, comets, eclipses, and instruments that use light, such as sundials and mirrors. He theorizes about the type of mirror supposed to have been used by Archimedes to set Roman ships afire, drawing from notes of his own experiments performed in the harbor of Syracuse. The work includes one of the first treatises on phosphorous and fireflies. Here Kircher also published his depictions of Saturn and Jupiter as he saw them through a telescope in Bologna in 1643. On that occasion he observed that the planets were neither perfectly round nor self-luminous, contrary to the popular Aristotelian belief that they are perfect, unchanging spheres.”Kircher takes a great interest in sundials and mirrors in this book, and several interesting engravings are of fanciful sundials. He had written extensively on these subjects on his previous work, the Primitiae gnomonicae catoptricae. In Ars magna lucis et umbrae Kircher also discusses an odd ancestor of the modern projector: a device called the ‘magic lantern,’ of which he is generally, though erroneously, considered the inventor. “Before writing this work, Kircher had read Kepler’s Ad vitellionem paralipomena (1604), the first modern work on optics and was influenced to some extent by it. The Ars magna lucis et umbrae reveals Kircher’s contribution as an astute observer and cataloguer of natural phenomena” (Merrill) DeBacker- Sommervogel IV, col. 1050, no.9 ; Merrill 7; Caillet 5770
744G John Langston 1641-1704
Lusus poeticus Latino-Anglicanus in usum scholarum. Or The more eminent sayings of the Latin poets collected; and for the service of youth in that ancient exercise, commonly called capping of verses, alphabetically digested; and for the greater benefit of young beginners i the Latin tongue, rendred into English. By John Langston teacher of a private grammar-school near Spittle-fields, London
London : printed for Henry Eversden at the Crown in Cornhil, near the Stocks-market, 1675. £1400
Octavo 5 ¾ X 3 ¾ Inches This copy is bound in full 17th century calf, recently expertly rebacked. First edition, 2nd edition in 1679 and 3rd edition in 1688.
This alphabetically arranged compendium of eminent sayings by Latin poets for the service of youth in capping of verses is the work for which Langston is best remembered. He issued a lesser known grammatical work, “Poeseos Graecae Medulla”, in 1679. He published nothing of a religious nature, but issued the following for school purposes: 1. ‘Lusus Poeticus Latino-Anglicanus,’ &c., 1675, 8vo; 2nd edition, 1679, 8vo; 3rd edition, 1688, 12mo (intended as an aid to capping verses). 2. Sive Poese Græcæ Medulla, cum versione Latina,’ &c., 1679, 8vo.”
LANGSTON, was an , independent divine, was born about 1641, according to Calamy. He went from the Worcester grammar school to Pembroke College, Oxford, where he was matriculated as a servitor in Michaelmas term 1655, and studied for some years. Wood does not mention his graduation. At the Restoration in 1660 (when, if Calamy is right, he had not completed his twentieth year) he held the sequestered perpetual curacy of Ashchurch, Gloucestershire, from which be was displaced by the return of the incumbent. He went to London, and kept a private school near Spitalfields. On the coming into force of the Uniformity Act (24 Aug. 1662) he crossed over to Ireland as chaplain and tutor to Captain Blackwell, but returned to London and to school-keeping in 1663. Under the indulgence of 1672 he took out a license, in concert with William Hooke, formerly master of the Savoy, ‘to preach in Richard Loton’s house in Spittle-yard.’ Some time after 1679 he removed into Bedfordshire, where he ministered till, in 1686, he received an invitation from a newly separated congregation of independents, who had hired a building in Green Yard, St. Peter’s parish, Ipswich. Under his preaching a congregational church of seventeen persons was formed on 12 Oct. 1686. Langston, his wife, and thirty others were admitted to membership on 22 Oct., when a call to the pastorate was given him; he accepted it on 29 Oct., and was set apart by four elders at a solemn fast on 2 Nov. A ‘new chappell’ in Green Yard was opened on 26 June 1687, and the church membership was raised to 123 persons, many of them from neighbouring villages. Calamy says he was driven out of his house, was forced to remove to London, and was there accused of being a jesuit, whereupon he published a successful ‘Vindication.’ The publication is unknown, and Calamy gives no date; the year 1697 has been suggested. Langston’s church-book gives no hint of any persecution, but shows that he was in the habit of paying an annual visit of about three weeks’ duration to London with his wife. He notices the engagement with the French fleet at La Hogue on 19 May 1692, ‘for ye defeat of wh blessed he God,’ and the earthquake on 8 Sept. in the same year. The tone of his ministry was conciliatory ‘towards people of different perswasions.’ In November 1702 Benjamin Glandfield (d. 10 Sept. 1720) was appointed as his assistant. Langston died on 12 Jan. 1704, ‘aetat. 64.’ (DNB).
Wing L411; Arber’s Term cat. I 213.
551G Nicholas Ling fl. ca. 1599 , ed
Politeuphuia, Wits Common-wealth. Newly corrected and amended.
London : printed for E. Flesher, in the year 1684. £2100
Duodecimo 5 ¾ x 3 ¼ inches. A-O12 (lacking A1, blank. Edition(?), first printed in 1597. Bound in full period style calf, a very nice copy. (see image on page 77)
Usually ascribed to John Bodenham, who planned the collection, though the work appears to have been done by Nicholas Ling. Cf. Dedication; also DNB.p. Often cited as Wits’ commonwealth, and some editions appeared under that title. Published first in 1597, as the first in a series of which Mere’s “Palladis tamia”, 1598, was the second, “Wits theater of the little world,” by Robert Allott, 1598, the third, and “Palladis palatium, wisedoms’ pallace,” 1604, the fourth. Cf. DNB. “The popularity of this book, of which altogether some eighteen editions before the end of the seventeenth-century were issued, was due it would seem to the fact that it filled a peculiar need of the public of the day. It is difficult to imagine the style and tone of the conversation of the later years of Elizabeth’s court — the written word is the only clue. But it is certain that the more commonly endowed members of a society which included men of such wide reading and extensive knowledge as Bacon, Selden, Jonson and Raleigh must have frequently felt the need of some compendium of wise and sententious aphorisms by means of which they might ornament their discourse. It is just that function which this volume appears to be intended to fulfill for it is a compilation of precepts and maxims, frequently with their source noted, gathered under various heads such as ‘Of Courage’, ‘Of Nobilitie’, etc. Each division begins with a definition and ends with a Latin quotation, while the tables which are appended enable one to search not only the divisional topics, but also the individual aphorism much in the manner of a modern Bartlett.
“The popularity of this type of manual in the early years of the seventeenth century may be compared with the deluge of ‘outlines’ of this and that which the public of the present day is encouraged to imagine will provide a short and easy road to knowledge and culture. This appears to be substantiated by the fact that this book is but one, the first of a series, of four volumes which for the want of a better name is called the ‘Wits Series’. From the fact that there is no indication in this book that it was to be followed by others it may be assumed that the series, as a series at least, was not projected until after the demand for this first book indicated the public taste.
“In the address To the Reader, which otherwise appears to be a reprint of the text of the third edition, the present is numbered the ‘fifteenth edition’. It is quite possible that it is the fifteenth but we have only the publisher’s word as no copies of editions five to eight can be traced, and it is a well known ‘puffing’ device to misnumbered editions.” (Pforzheimer)
Wing L-2337; Pforzheimer 803.
Copies – N.America Folger Shakespeare
Harvard University
Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery
Indiana University
San Francisco Public Library
University of Cincinnati
University of Illinois
[another edition]
779G Nicholas, ed Ling fl. ca. 15
Politeuphuia, Wits Common-wealth. Newly corrected and amended.
London :printed by E. Flesher, and are to be sold by Edward Brewster at the Crane in St. Pauls Church-yard
1647. £3900
Duodecimo 5 ¾ x 3 ¼ 4 inches, A-O12. Bound in ninteenth century full calf edges gilt a very lovely copy. Edition(?), first printed in 1597.(To the reader: “Courteous reader, encouraged by thy kind acceptance, of the first and second impression of Wits Common-wealth, I have once more adventured to present thee with the foureteenth edition.”)
Wing L- 2344; see Pforzheimer 802.;McKerrow 259 [triple star])
Copies – N.America :Harvard University
Lehigh University
Library of Congress
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of Minnesota Yale University
344G Horatio Lutius (Lucio) 1541-1569.
Index librorum prohibitorum cum regulis confectis per patres à Tri. Synodo delectos, auctoritate Pii IV. primum ed., posteà verò à Xisto V. auctus, et nunc demum S.D.N. Clementis Papae VIII. iussu recogn., & publ.; instructione adiecta, de exequendae prohibitionis, deque sincere emendandi, et imprimendi libros ratione.
[bound After]
Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini Canones, et decreta : cum citationibus ex utroq[ue] testamento, & Juris Pontificii constitutionibus aliisque S.R.E Concil. / ab Horatio Lucio Calliensi … ; hic novissimè praeter piorum IV. & V. Rom. Pontif. bullas, necnon indicem sess. decr. cap. librorumque prohibitorum postremò publicatum ; accessit aurea margarita materiarum, omnes gemmas in ipsis concilii singulis contextibus abditis copiosè depromens ; cum hyacintho omnium conciliorum ex primo sub D. Petro, usque ad Paulum V. per magistrum Mauritium de Gregorio Siculum Ordinis Praedicatorum ; quae omnia hac postrema editione accuratissimè recognita, emendatiora, & uberio
Bassani : Apud Jo: Antonium Remondinum, [ca. 1699?] £800
Octavo 6 ½ X4 ¼ inches *8,A-Z8,Aa-Cc8,Dd4. This copy is bound in an original paste paper binding. See page 14 on the Index librorum prohibitorum .
834G Moses Maimonides [also .; John, of Damascus Saint.; `Abd al-Malik ibn Abi al-`Ala Ibn Zuhr ]
Hoc in volumine hec Continent’. Aphorismi Rabi moysi. Aphorismi Io Damasceni. Liber secreto⁄¿ Hipocratis. Liber Pnosticationum bm lunazin signis et aspectu planetarum Hipoc. Liber Q dicit’ capsula eburnea Hipo. Liber de elements siue de humana natura Hipocratis. Liber de aere r aqua r regioin9 Hip. Liber de pharmacijs Hipocratis. Liber de insomnijs Hipocratis. Liber zoar de cura lapidis.
[Venice] : Bonetus Locatellus for Octavianus Scotus’ (i.e. Johannes Hamman),1497 £22,000
Folio 12 x 8 ¼ inches. A6,B6 C4 D6 E4 F-G6 H4 I6. (48 leaves complete) Second edition This copy is bound in later boards.
The Aphorisms of Maimonides, a digest of the teachings of Galen organized in 25 “particulae”, are in an anonymous thirteenth-century translation from the Arabic. Part II consists of Johannes Damascenus, Aphorismi; Mohammed Rhasis, De secretis in medicinis; and pseudo-Hippocrates, Capsula eburnea. This last is a brief treatise on the external signs of impending death. According to its introduction, Hippocrates asked his servants to bury with him an ivory chest in which he had placed certain medical secrets. Learning of this, Caesar ordered the tomb to be opened and the chest removed, revealing this treatise. It is printed in the Latin translation made from an Arabic version by Gerard of Cremona in the twelfth century. It had already been printed in Milan, 1481, in the supplement of miscellaneous medical tractates added to the first edition Rhasis, Liber ad Almansorem .
This edition includes the aphorisms of Johannes Damascenus or Mesue, a ninth-century Baghdad physician responsible for the translation of Greek medical works into Arabic. Ibn Zuhr (Avenzohar)’s short treatise De curatione lapidis appears here in print for the first time.
Maimonides was born in Cordova but when driven out of Spain for refusing to convert to Islam he settled permanently in Cairo. His erudition and medical skill earned him the appointment of physician to the court of Saladin, the sultan of Egypt. His medical writings deeply influenced not only Muslim and Jewish but also Christian doctors, for example Henry of Mondeville and Guy de Chauliac. From 1177, Maimonides was head of the Jewish community of Egypt. This work, created towards the end of his life, was originally written in Arabic, then translated into Hebrew in the thirteenth century, and into Latin to be published in print. It is the most important and influential work of the most revered early Jewish physician.
Goff; M79;ISTC; im00079000; Reichling (Suppl.); 1257; Klebs; 644.2 var. & 836.3 (note); IGI; 6745; Craviotto, F.G. Incunables en bibliotecas españolas,; 3680; IBP; 4758; Sack, V. Freiburg; 2311; Rhodes, D. Oxford,; 1151; Proctor; 5200; BM 15th cent.; 429
714G Luther, Martin Melanchthon, Philip (1497-1560) 1483-1546
Confessio fidei exhibita invictiss. Imp. Carolo V. Caefari Aug. in Comiciis Auguftae. Anno M.D.XXX. Addita est Apologia Co(n)fessionis Psalm. 119 Et loquebar de te stimonijs tuis in conspectu
Wittenberg: Georg Rhau, 1531. £15,000
Octavo 5 ¼ x 3 ½ a-d8, e4,9e4 blank and present) f-n8, A-P8, Q4, Q4 blank and present. This edition is an impression of the “editio princeps” printed in the same year. This is bound in full modern calf over wooden boards in an antique style, it is a very nice copy with annotations on every page.
The Augsburg Confession is “the oldest and most authoritative of the Lutheran creeds,” and a major historical document, in which the revolution of Martin Luther assumed organized political action and permanently changed the religious and national identity of Europe. “It was drafted by Melanchthon, on the basis of Luther’s Marburg, Schwabach, and Torgau articles, and bore the signature of seven German princes….On 25 June, 1530, copies of it, in Latin and German, were presented to Charles V, at the diet of Augsburg, and the German version of it was read aloud before the secular and ecclesiastical Estates of the Empire. Charles retained his Latin copy which he brought with him to Spain, giving the other into the custody of the Archbishop of Mainz.”
In a remarkable calm and able “Answer” to the Confession, controversialists such as Eck, Wimpina, and Cochlaeus analyze the Confession, giving praise and censure where either is due. Melanchthon retorted with an “apologia” which Lutherans generally regard as their second symbolic book; Charles refused to accept it, because of the violent language against the Catholic Church. (summerized from the Catholic Encyclopedia)
“Although the emperor prohibited the printing of the evangelical confession without his special permission, during the diet six German editions and one in Latin were published….Their inaccuracy and incorrectness induced Melanchthon to prepare an edition to which he added the Apology. Thus originated the so-called editio princeps of the Augustana and Apology, which was published in the spring of 1531. This edition was regarded as the authentic reproduction of the faith professed before the emperor and empire.” (Schaff-Herzog)
904G Theophilus Metcalfe active 1649.
Manuscript copy of Short-writing, the most easie, exact, lineal, and speedy method that hath ever been obtained, or taught. Composed by Theophilus Metcalfe, author and professor of the said art. The last edition. With a new table for shortning of words. Which book is able to make the practitioner perfect without a teacher. As many hundreds in this city and elsewhere, that are able to write sermons word for word, can from their own experience testifie
England: after 1689 and before 1717 £5500
Octavo 6 x 4 inches 55, [7]pp. + portrait of author. The last section of 7 pp. contains Directions for Book-keeping after the Italian Method.
An early English work, guessed to have first appeared in 1635,(ESTC shows the earliest as 1645 called the sixth) and oft reprinted throughout the 17th century, and into the 18th. “The editions, as they were called, were only small numbers taken from the same plates.” – Lowndes. NYPL, p. 186.; Bib. Pepysiana, p. 51. Westby-Gibson, p. 130, “10th ed.” not calling for engraved title and portrait, as noted in “some copies” by Bib. Pepys. (5287) Cross, Thomas,; active 1632-1682, ; engraver.
Theophilus Metcalfe (bap. 1610 – c.1645) was an English stenographer. He invented a shorthand system that became popular, in particular, in New England, where it was used to record the Salem witch trials.
Metcalfe was baptised in Richmond, Yorkshire, and was the tenth child of Matthew Metcalfe and his wife Maria Taylor; Thomas Taylor (1576–1632) was his mother’s brother. A professional writer and teacher of shorthand, Metcalfe in 1645 resided in the London parish of St Katharine’s by the Tower. He died that year or early in 1646, when his widow assigned rights to reissue the book of his system. Metcalfe published a stenographic system very much along the lines of Thomas Shelton’s Tachygraphy. The first edition of his work was entitled Radio-Stenography, or Short Writing and is supposed to have been published in 1635. A so-called sixth edition appeared at London in 1645. It was followed in 1649 by A Schoolmaster to Radio-Stenography, explaining all the Rules of the said Art, by way of Dialogue betwixt Master and Scholler, fitted to the weakest capacities that are desirous to learne this Art. Many editions of the system appeared under the title of Short Writing: the most easie, exact, lineall, and speedy Method that hath ever yet been obtained or taught by any in this Kingdome.
It was widely used and apparently was popular in colonial Massachusetts, where an early version was used by the Reverend Samuel Parris to take depositions in the Salem witch trials.
This mannuscript is bound in full mondern calf.
This copy-book manuscript is taken from the last edition published by Metcalfe. The entire work is done with remarkable calligraphy. This is a rare copy manuscript item with complementary addendum on Italian Book-Keeping.
103G Katherine Philips 1631-1664
Letters from Orinda to Poliarchus
London: printed by W.B. for Bernard Lintott, 1705 £5500
Octavo 6 ¾ X 3¾ inches A-R8 First edition This copy is bound in original full calf stored in a custom morroco case. This is a collection of 48 ( XLVIII) actual letters written by Philips to her patron Sir Charles Cotterell published several decades after her death, there is quit a bit of discussion of the literary culture of the seventh century in Britain. Including insite to Philips writing and reading habits. she often mentions books she is reading and plays which she is working on.
Philips was interested in the epistolary form, she founded the Society of Friendship in 1651 until 1661 was a semi-literary correspondence circle made up of mostly women, though men were also involved. The membership of this group, however, is somewhat questionable, because the authors took on pseudonyms from Classical literature (for example Katherine took on the name Orinda, in which the other members added on the accolade “Matchless.”) It is interesting to see the relations between the female members of the circle, especially Anne Owen, who is known in Philips’s poems as Lucasia. Half of Katherine’s poetry is dedicated to this woman. Anne and Katherine seem to have been lovers in an emotional, if not in a physical, sense for about ten years. Also significant as correspondents and lovers were Mary Awbrey (Rosania) and Elizabeth Boyle (Celimena). Elizabeth’s relationship with Katherine, however, was cut short by Philips’ death in 1664.
In “The Sapphic-Platonics of Katherine Philips, 1632-1664” Harriette Andreadis
Source:Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15, no. 1 (autumn 1989): 34-60.
Ms Andreadis, in this essay nicely gives a view of Orinda’s live (and Loves) in relation to her writing by using excerpts from her poems and These letters.
189G John Playford 1623-1687
An introduction to the skill of musick : in three books: by John Playford. Containing I. The Grounds and Principles of Musick, according to the Gamut: In the most Easy Method, for Young Practitioners. II. Instructions and Lessons for the Treble Tenor, and Bass-Viols; and also for the Treble-Violin. III. The Art of Descant, or composing Music in Parts: Made very Plaion and Easie by the Late Henry Purcell.
London, Printed by William Pearson, for John and Ben. Sprint … 1718 £2900
Octavo 6 X 4 inches A-M8 (A1 , frontispiece; M8 , advertisements both present!) This copy is bound in full contemporary calf, expertly rebacked.
Henry Purcell. 1659-1695 Purcell’s legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest English composers; no other native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar.
Playford,as a bookseller, publisher, and member of the Stationers’ Company, published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, and psalters with tunes for singing in churches. He is perhaps best known today for his publication of The English Dancing Master in 1651, during the period of the Puritan-dominated Commonwealth (later editions were known as ‘The Dancing Master’). This work contains both the music and instructions for English country dances. This came about after Playford, working as a war correspondent, was captured by Cromwell’s men and told that, if he valued his freedom (as a sympathiser with the King), he might consider a change of career. Although many of the tunes in the book are attributed to him today, he probably did not write any of them. Most were popular melodies that had existed for years. __
!!!In typographical technique Playford’s most original improvement was the invention in 1658 of ‘the new-ty’d note.’ See the Title of this volume) These were quavers or semiquavers connected in pairs or series by one or two horizontal strokes at the end of their tails, the last note of the group retaining in the early examples the characteristic up-stroke. Hawkins observes that the Dutch printers were the first to follow the lead in this detail. In 1665 he caused every semibreve to be barred in the dance tunes; in 1672 he began engraving on copper plates. Generally, however, Playford clung to old methods; he recommended the use of lute tablature to ordinary violin players; and he resisted, in an earnest letter of remonstrance (1673), Thomas Salmon’s proposals for a readjustment of clefs. Playford’s printers were: Thomas Harper, 1648 1652; William Godbid, 1658 1678; Ann Godbid and her partner, John Playford the younger, 1679 1683; John Playford alone, 1684-1685
881G Gaius Plinius Secundus. (23-79); trans. Philemon Holland Pliny the Elder 1552-1637
The Historie Of the World: Commonly called, the Natvrall Historie of c. Plinivs Secvndvs. Translted into English by Philemon Holland Doctor of Physicke. The first [and second] Tome[s].
London: Adam Islip,1601 £12,000
Folio 12 x 8 inches. [π]6, ¶4 a-b6 A8 B-3I6 3K4; A-3G6 3H4 3I-3O6 3P8 (lacking blank leaves 1 and 3P8) First edition. Title pages to both volumes. This copy is bound full English calfskin expertly rebacked with Gilt spine. An excellent, crisp, bright copy with very minor faults: repaired clean tear with slight to the upper corners of 6 leaves of volume 2 with only slight loss. Occasional rust spots, marginal tears, or marginal natural paper flaws. “All [of Pliny’s] works have been lost, except for the ‘Naturalis Historia.’ An atmosphere of excess surrounds the work. We know that Pliny claims never to have read a book so bad as not to have any value at all; and Pliny was constantly reading, taking notes, and indexing. The final result was a work in thirty-seven books, intended to inventory the total knowledge possessed by man. The indefatigable Pliny worked his way through impressive numbers: 34,000 notices, 2,000 volumes read, from 100 different authors, and 170 dossiers of notes and preparatory files (‘I have not knowingly omitted any piece of information, if I have found it anywhere.’).
“Pliny remained popular in the Renaissance. He was one of the most frequently consulted authorities on many subjects for Valla and many other humanists and into English by Philemon Holland (1601). But gradually the intense philological work of humanist scholars on the one hand and the new discoveries of the scientific revolution on the other began to throw doubt upon Pliny’s reputation as an infallible authority, and in the end his reputation could not even be rescued by blaming the manuscripts. Yet as Pliny has lost his practical value as a reference handbook for the modern period, he had gained in historical importance for the information he transmits concerning ancient art, science, folklore, religion, and material culture. (Conte)
“Along with the patriotic aims of an Englishman and a literary voyager Holland [the translator of this volume] has a theory of his art, though only hints of it are given in his prefaces. What he calls his ‘meane and popular stile’ might be taken as a generic representative of the best early seventeenth century writing. Holland’s unusual learning and care chastened his prose without robbing it of colloquial energy, concrete amplitude, and metaphorical color. His slight but frequent additions are made in the interest of complete and vivid clarity and emotional effect. And the whole tone of his work reflects his Elizabethan veneration for, and sense of contemporaneous intimacy with, the great men and events and the ethical wisdom of antiquity. Pliny’s philosophy gave him some qualms, but these were satisfactorily quieted. In his life and in his work Holland was a fine example of the Christian humanist.” (Bush)
One of the Most Important Elizabethan Science Books The Natural History of Pliny the Elder is more than a natural history: it is an encyclopaedia of all the knowledge of the ancient world. It comprises 37 books with mathematics and physics, geography and astronomy, medicine and zoology, anthropology and physiology, philosophy and history, agriculture and mineralogy, the arts and letters? “The Historia” soon became a standard book of reference; abstracts and abridgements appeared by the third century. Bede owned a copy, Alcuin sent the early books to Charlemagne, and Dicuil, the Irish geographer, quotes him in the ninth century? Over and over again it will be found that the source of some ancient piece of knowledge is Pliny.? (PMM 5) (ODNB)
Pforzheimer, 496; STC 20029
871G Raymond Sabunde d1436
Theologia naturalis sive Liber creatura[rum] specialiter de homine [et] de natura eius in qua[n]tum homo. :[et] de his qu[a] sunt ei necessaria ad cognoscendu[m] seip[su]m [et] Deu[m] [et] om[n]e debitu[m] ad q[uo]d ho[mo] tenet[ur] et obligatur tam Deo q[uam] p[ro]ximo.
Nurembergae : Anthoniu[m] koberger [sic] inibi co[n]cluem,1502 £6800
Folio 11 X 8 inches A-Q8 R6 This is about the fifth printed edition. In this copy there are contemporary manuscript initials added in red and blue, There is a gilt initial at the beginning of the prologue tooled in the gold leaf into a gesso ground. It is bound in full contemporary Nuremberg blind-tooled brown sheepskin over wooden boards,lacking clasps, titled is blind stamped on front board with contemporary paper label; There are several inscriptions on title, including reference to the Prologue’s inclusion on the Index Prohibitorum;(1589)there are the usual stains, browning and internal wear, some marginal rodent damage, the binding has been rebacked,it is a good solid copy .
Sabunde was Born at Barcelona, Spain, towards the end of the fourteenth century; died 1432. From 1430 to his death he taught theology, philosophy, and medicine at the University of Toulouse. Apparently, he wrote several works on theology and philosophy, only one of which remains, “Theologia Naturalis”. It was first written in Spanish then translated into Latin.
This text marks the dawn of a knowledge based on Scripture and reason.
The Catholic Encyclopedia sees this as “It represents a phase of decadent Scholasticism, and is a defense of a point of view which is subversive of the fundamental principle of the Scholastic method. The Schoolmen of the thirteenth century, while holding that there can be no contradiction between theology and philosophy, maintain that the two sciences are distinct. Raymond breaks down the distinction by teaching a kind of theosophy, the doctrine, namely that, as man is a connecting link between the natural and the supernatural, it is possible by a study of human nature to arrive at a knowledge even of the most profound mysteries of Faith. The tendency of his thought is similar to that of the rationalistic theosophy of Raymond Lully….Moreover, in Spain scholastics, in combating Islam, borrowed the weapons of their erudite antagonists. Close internal resemblance indicates that Raimund de Sabunde was preceded in method and object by Raymund Lully.” CE
What is new and epoch-making is not the material but the method; not of circumscribing religion within the limits of reason, but, by logical collation, of elevating the same upon the basis of natural truth to a science accessible and convincing to all. He recognizes two sources of knowledge, the book of nature and the Bible. The first is universal and direct, the other serves partly to instruct man the better to understand nature, and partly to reveal new truths, not accessible to the natural understanding, but once revealed by God made apprehensible by natural reason. The book of nature, the contents of which are manifested through sense experience and self-consciousness, can no more be falsified than the Bible and may serve as an exhaustive source of knowledge; but through the fall of man it was rendered obscure, so that it became incapable of guiding to the real wisdom of salvation. However, the Bible as well as illumination from above, not in conflict with nature, enables one to reach the correct explanation and application of natural things and self. Hence, his book of nature as a human supplement to the divine Word is to be the basic knowledge of man, because it subtends the doctrines of Scripture with the immovable foundations
of self-knowledge, and therefore plants the revealed truths upon the rational ground of universal human perception, internal and external
The first part presents analytically the facts of nature in ascending scale to man,the climax; the second, the harmonization of these with Christian doctrine and their fulfillment in the same. Nature in its. four stages of mere being, mere life, sensible consciousness, and self-consciousness, is crowned by man, who is not only the microcosm but the image of God. Nature points toward a supernatural creator possessing in himself in perfection all properties of the things created out of nothing (the cornerstone of natural theology ever after). Foremost is the ontological argument of Ansehn, followed by the physico-theological, psychological, and moral. He demonstrates the Trinity by analogy from rational grounds, and finally ascribes to man in view of his conscious elevation over things a spontaneous gratitude to God. Love is transformed into the object of its affection; and love to God brings man, and with him the universe estranged by sin, into harmony and unity with him. In this he betrays his mystical antecedents. Proceeding in the second part from this general postulation to its results for positive Christianity, he finds justified by reason all the historic facts of revealed religion, such as the person and works of Christ, as well as the infallibility of the Church and the Scriptures; and the necessity by rational proof of all the sacraments and practices of the Church and of the pope. It should be added that Raimund’s analysis of nature and self-knowledge is not thoroughgoing and his application is far from consistent. He does not transplant himself to the standpoint of the unbeliever, but rather executes an apology on the part of a consciousness already Christian, thus assuming conclusions in advance that should grow only out of his premises. Yet his is a long step from the barren speculation of scholasticism, and marks the dawn of a knowledge based on Scripture and reason.
Adams; R-36
679G Gaspar Schott 1608-1666 (Aspasius Caramuelius); Athanasius Kircher
Joco-seriorum naturæ et artis, sive, Magiæ naturalis centuriæ tres, das ist, Drey-Hundert nütz- und lustige Sätze allerhand merckwürdiger Stücke, von Schimpff und Ernst, genommen auss der Kunst und Natur, oder natürlichen Magia Athanasii Kicheri Diatribe .
Franckfurt am Mayn : In Verlegung Johann Arnold Cholin,1672 £4500
Quarto inches 8 X 6 ½ inches [6] unsigned leaves, A-Z4, Aa-Tt4. First Edition
This copy is bound in full contemporary sheep. Rare first German translation of this esoteric work by the German Jesuit and scientist G. Schott (1608-1666) describing scientific and magical tricks to show that science can be fun and enjoyable. Engr. ills : front. and 22 pl. (some folding) depicting i.a. how to build a fireplace, how to walk on water or how to catch fish with your hands. At the end the treaty of Schott’s famous mentor, the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, titled “Diatribe, Oder Beweisschrifft”. Ms. ownership entry “Joannes Michaël Jenigen, jurisprudentia et (…) professor”.
DeBacker-Sommervogel vol.VII col.911 no.13 ; Faber du Faur,; no. 1011; [Caillet 10003 and cf. Caillet 10002]; Ref. VD-17 14:637268W. DBS VII c. 911
893F Sir John Suckling 1609-1642
Fragmenta Aurea. A Collection of all The Incomparable Peeces, Written By Sir John Svckling. And published by a Friend to perpetuate his memory. Printed by his owne Copies.
London: Humphrey Moseley, sold at his shop, at the Signe of the Princes Armes in St Pauls Churchyard, 1646 £5,500
Octavo 7 x 4. ¾ inches A4, A6, B-G8, H4. First edition.
This is a very large copy, with many deckle edges throughout. The leaves are large and clean, with a crisp type impression. They have not been washed or pressed. It is bound in comenmporary full calf, housed ia a custom made solander case. This copy has the words ‘Fragmenta Aurea’ with the ‘F’ and ‘A’ capitalized, the rest in small letters. Some copies of the first edition have ‘Fragmenta Aurea’ in all caps. This volume is divided into four parts, each with a separate title-page and pagination. The first contains a medley of poems and songs, a number of letters, and an essay on religion; the other three are plays, “Aglaura,” “The Goblins,” and “The Tragedy of Brennoralt.” At his best, Suckling writes with considerable charm; the song which begins, “Why so pale and wan fond lover” has a permanent place in the language of courtship. There is also a short “supplement” to Shakespeare”s Lucrece.
“Sir John Suckling, a Cavalier poet, Suckling’s short life was so crowded with activity that the amount of his literary output is remarkable. The son of an old Norfolk family, he seems to have taken his education none too seriously: he left Cambridge without graduating and spent a year at Gray’s Inn. His father died when Suckling was 18, and this gave him freedom to seek what adventures he pleased. He was a member of the expedition to the Ile de Re (1627), was in the Netherlands (1629-30), and served under Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1631-32). He was knighted in 1630. “A staunch Royalist, Suckling took up arms on the king’s behalf in 1639 and 1640 and is believed to have been active in a plot to free the Earl of Strafford from the Tower. It was to the Parliamentary party’s advantage to make a ‘plot’ of the affair and Suckling fled to Paris, where he died in the following year—by his own hand according to John Aubrey. “Suckling was the author of three plays—Aglaura, The Goblins, and Brennoralt—which have never been revived but which contain some good lyrics, notably ‘Why so pale and wan, fond lover?’ His best work, indeed, is in the form of short pieces, occasional verses and songs, and in the delightful ‘A Ballad upon a Wedding.’ His expression is direct and robust, reflecting to some degree his lively, pleasure-loving, and tragically short life. Fragmenta Aurea wa published by a Friend to perpetuate his memory appeared posthumously (1646).” (quoted from Stapleton’s Cambridge Guide to English Literature)
Wing S-6126; Pforzheimer 996; Hayward 84; Greg, III, 1130- 1; Studies in Bibliography, L. A. Beaurline and T. Clayton, “Notes on Early Editions of Fragmenta Aurea,” Studies in Bibliography 23 (1970), pp. 165-170; Wither to Prior 827; CBEL I, 1213; Folger, Printed Books 25:575.
865G Thucydides (471?-400? B.C.) tr. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679
Eight Books of the Peloponnesian Warre. Written by Thvcydides the sonne of Olorvs. Interpreted with Faith and Diligence Immediately out of the Greeke By Thomas Hobbes.
London: Andrew Clark 1676 £10,500
Folio 12 x 7 in A4, (a)-(d)4 (e)2, B-Aaa4. 2 engravings and 3 folded maps. This is the third edition is often referred to as the second (see the title page) the Second issue of the first edition. This is a crisp copy bound in full calf, rebacked.
“The historical methods of Thucydides, who lived in the fifth century B.C., have never been bettered. His severe standard of historical truth, coupled with his passionate belief in the general significance of particular events, have given his history of the tragic war between Athens and Sparta a universal value to statesmen and historians alike.” (Printing and the Mind of Man, 219)
While travelling with Cavendish, Hobbes “made the important discovery that the scholastic philosophy which he had learned in Oxford was almost universally neglected in favor of the scientific and critical methods of Galileo, Kepler and Montaigne. Unable at first to cope with their unfamiliar ideas, he determined to become a scholar, and until 1628 was engaged in a careful study of Greek and Latin authors, the outcome of which was his great translation of Thucydides. But when he had finished his work, he kept it lying by him for years’ he was finally determined to publication by the political troubles of the year 1628 may be regarded as certain, not only from his own express declaration at a later time but also from unmistakable hints in the account of the life and work of his author prefixed to the translation on its appearance. This was the year of the Petition of Right, extorted from the king in the third parliament he had tried within three years of his accession; and, in view of Hobbes’ later activity, it is significant that he came forward just then, at the mature age of forty, with his version of the story of the Athenian democracy as the first production of his pen.” (DNB)
Macdonald & Hardgreaves #4: Term Catalogue i.241, May 1676
Wing T-1134
758F Edward (Sometimes Ned) Ward 1667-1731
The secret history of the Calves-Head Club: or, the republican unmask’d. With a large continuation, and an appendix to the history. Wherein is fully shewn, The Religion of the Calves-Head Heroes, in their Anniversary Thanksgiving-Songs on the xxxth of January, by them called Anthems, With Reflections thereupon. The Seventh edition, with large Improvements; and a Description of the Calves-Head Club, and the Effigies of Oliver Cromwel and his Cabinet Council; curiously engrav’d on Copper Plates. To which is annex’d, a vindication of the royal martyr, King Charles the First. Wherein are laid open, the Republicans Mysteries of Rebellion. Written in the Time of the Usurpation, by the Celebrated Mr. Butler, Author of Hudibras. With a character of a Presbyterian, written by Sir John Denham, Knight; And the Character of a Modern Whig; or, The Republican in Fashion. [The appendix the ’Vindication’ and ’The true Presbyterian without disguise’ have each a separate divisional titlepage.]
London : printed, and sold by B. Bragge, at the Raven in Pater-Noster-Row, 1709. £1700
Octavo 7 ½ X4 ½ A2, B-O4, Aa4-Gg4,H4. (page count [2],104,[4],42,[i.e.36],[2],37-55[i.e.39-54]p) Seventh edition, greatly enlarged over erlier editionsBound in full early eighteenth century calf , neatly rebacked. This copy has the signature of Robt. Chadwick on the title page and the book plate of “Rev Wm Goodall” This book is a tour de force of insults and political ad hominem. The Calves Head Club was a club established in derision of the memory of Charles I of England shortly after his death. Its chief meeting was held on each 30 January, the anniversary of the king’s execution. The dishes served were a cod’s head to represent Charles Stuart; a pike representing tyranny; a boar’s head representing the king preying on his subjects; and calves’ heads representing Charles I and his supporters. On the table an axe held the place of honour. After the banquet a copy of the Eikon Basilike was burnt, and a toast was made “To those worthy patriots who killed the tyrant”. After the Restoration, the club met secretly. The first mention of it is in a tract reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany entitled “The Secret History of the Calves Head Club”. The club survived till 1734, when the diners were mobbed owing to the popular ill-feeling which their outrages on good taste provoked, and the riot which ensued put a final stop to the meetings.
1 February 1735 Thursday in the evening a disorder of a very particular nature happened in Suffolk-street: ’Tis said that several young gentlemen of distinction having met at a house there, call’d themselves the Calf’s-Head Club; and about seven o’clock a bonfire being lit up before the door, just when it was in the height, they brought a calf’s-head to the window dress’d in a napkin-cap, and after some Huzza’s, threw it into the fire: The mob were entertained with strong-beer, and for some time halloo’d as well as the best; but taking a disgust at some healths which were proposed, grew so outrageous, that they broke all the windows, forc’d themselves into the house, and would probably have pull’d it down, had not the Guards been sent for to prevent further mischief. Weekly Oracle.
“The anthems are said to have been written by Mr. Benj. Bridgewater [i.e. John Dunton]”ESTC note.
STC Citation No. T108842
“All human things Of dearest value hang on slender strings.”
108F Edmund Waller 1606-1687
Poems, &c. Written upon several Occasions, And to several Persons: By Edmond Waller, Esq; Licensed, May 18, 1686. Roger L’Estrange. The Fifth Edition, with several Additions Never before Printed. Non ego mordaci distrinxi carmine quenquam, Nulla venenato littera Mista ioco est.
[London] Printed for H. Herringman, and are to be sold by J. Knight and F. Saunders at the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1686 £,1000
Octavo 4.25 x 6.75 inches A4, B-T8, V10 (final blank V10). Fifth edition.
The full calf binding is newly rebacked. Waller involved in a royalist plot in 1643 . He was subsequently imprisoned in the tower, banished from parliament, fined, and exiled, barely escaping execution. He was readmitted to the house of commons in 1651. He consistently argued against despotism, in favor of tolerance.“ Waller had been in circulation in manuscript some time before their first publication. His lines on the escape of Charles (then Prince of Wales) from drowning, near Santander, though subsequently retouched, were probably written in or about the time of the event which they celebrate; but it was not until 1645 that the first edition of his poems was published. In spite of this, his reputation was already so well established that Denham wrote of him in ‘Cooper’s Hill’ (1642) as ‘the best of poets,’ and it is probable that no writer, in proportion to his merits ever received such ample recognition from his contemporaries. Waller will always live as the author of ‘Go, lovely rose,’ the lines ‘On a Girdle,’ and ‘Of the Last Verses in the Book.’” (DNB)
Wing W-517; Wither to Prior # 931 ; Arber’s Term cat.; II 189
874G Robert Wild 1609-1679
Iter boreale: attempting somthing upon the successful and matchless march of the Lord General George Monck from Scotland to London the last winter, &c. Veni, Vidi, Vici. By a Rural Pen
London: Printed on St George’s Day, for George [Thomason, at the Rose and Crown in St Pauls Churchyard, 1660.] £4500
Quarto 7¼ X 5 ¾ A-B4,C2. (20 pages) First edition. This copy is bound in full modern calf with slight loss of the last line of imprint on title page.(as are all the other copies I have seen?)
This is the first appearance of this poem ; a larger collection appeared in 1661, and was reprinted in 1665. Wild, a Puritan divine, salted his religious life with a good deal of irregular wit; the popularity of his poetry rather disturbed such nonliterary friends as Richard Baxter. This Poem First published in 1660 upon Charles II’s Restoration, is Wild’s “ attempting something upon the Successful and Matchless March of General Monck from Scotland to London”
Wing W-2132
735F John. Earl of Rochester Wilmot 1647-1680
Poems, (&c.) on several occasions: with Valentinian: a tragedy. Written by the right honourable John late earl of Rochester.
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1696 £5500
Octavo 7 ¼ x 4 ½ . A8,a8, B-R8 Second edition. The spine has been rebacked with the original boards so the binding is tight and secure throughout, and bound with new endpapers. A previous owner has written his name several times throughout but this does not affect the text and indeed adds to the book. The pages are clean, if browned. The only flaw is wormholes to the pages’ top margins. These are predominantly from page 200 to the end but with other smaller worming present in the book. There has also been some bookworm damage to the rear board, and this has now been repaired. Needless to say, the worms are long since gone. “During Rochester’s lifetime only a few of his writings were printed as broadsides or in miscellanies, but many of his works were known widely from manuscript copies, a considerable number of which seem to have existed. […] In February of 1690/91, Jacob Tonson, the most reputable publisher of the day, produced a volume entitled ‘Poems On Several Occasions.’ The appearance of the author’s name and title on the title-page is significant. It may indicate that this edition was produced with the approval of the Earl’s family and friends, and it is possible that they may have intervened to prevent the publication of Saunders’s projected edition [license obtained from the Stationer’s Company by Saunders in November of 1690, no edition was ever produced]. Tonson’s edition is introduced by a laudatory preface written by Thomas Rymer which states that the book contains ‘such Pieces only, as may be receiv’d in a vertuous Court’ and is therefore to be regarded only as a selection of Rochester’s writings. Nevertheless it contains, in addition to twenty-three genuine poems which had appeared in the [pirated] Antwerp editions of 1680, sixteen others, including some of Rochester’s best lyrics. No spurious material seems to have been admitted to this collection, but there is a possibility that salacious passages may have been toned down to suit the taste of a ‘virtuous Court.’”
“[Wilmot] is one of these English poets who deserve to be called ‘great’ as daring and original explorers of reality; his place is with such memorable spiritual adventurers as Marlowe, Blake, Byron, Wilfred Owen and D. H. Lawrence. Like Byron and Lawrence, he was denounced as licentious, because he was a devastating critic of conventional morality. Alone among the English poets of his day, he perceived the full significance of the intellectual and spiritual crisis of that age. His poetry expresses individual experience in a way that no other poetry does till the time of Blake. It makes us feel what it was like to live in a world which had been suddenly transformed by the scientists into a vast machine governed by mathematical laws, where God has become a remote first cause and man an insignificant ‘reas’ning Engine.’ [See ‘A Satyr Against Mankind] In his time there was beginning the great Augustan attempt to found a new orthodoxy on the Cartesian-Newtonian world-picture, a civilized city of good taste, common sense and reason. Rochester’s achievement was to reject this new orthodoxy at the very outset. He made three attempts to solve the problem of man’s position in the new mathematical universe. The first was the adoption of the ideal of the purely aesthetic hero, the ‘Strephon’ of his lyrics and the brilliant and fascinating Dorimant of Etherege’s comedy. It was a purely selfish ideal of the ethical hero, the disillusioned and penetrating observer of the satires. This ideal was related to truth, but its relationship was purely negative. The third was the ideal of the religious hero, who bore a positive relation to truth. This was the hero who rejected the ‘Fools-Coat’ of the world and lived by an absolute passion for reality. In his short life Rochester may be said to have anticipated the Augustan Age and the Romantic Movement and passed beyond both. In the history of English thought his poetry is an event of the highest significance. Much of it remains alive in its own right in the twentieth century, because it is what D.H. Lawrence called ‘poetry of this immediate present, instant poetry … the soul and the mind and body surging at once, nothing left out.” (Quoted from Vivian de Sola Pinto’s edition of Wilmot’s Poems published by ‘The Muses Library’)
Wing 1757; Prinz XIV;Grolier’s Wither to Prior #987; O’Donnell A 16 (Prologue), BB 4.1c.
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