1. 405I  ) NOWELL, Alexander (1507-1602). William WHITAKER (1548-1595), translator into Greek

 Christianismou stoicheiosis. [In Latin]: Christianae pietatis prima institutio

London: John Day, 1578. 8vo. Collation: A-Q8 (lacking two leaves: Q7-8 at end containing final leaf of the Latin text, and the Errata with John Day’s coat of arms).

Text in Greek and Latin on facing pages. Title-page surrounded with typographical ornaments, 10-line initial “H” on A2r, elaborate typographical ornament on A5 (repeated on final leaf). Contemporary vellum, traces of two alum-tawed leather ties at the fore-edge, later MS lettering on spine. Imperfect and priced accordingly; the textblock is quite fresh, and is preserved in what appears to be its first binding. 
A fresh copy of an Early English Catechism printed by John Day, in Latin with a Greek translation. As is well known, the Catechism became one if the principal vehicles for teaching the young in Elizabethan England. 

Our copy is unpressed; bears a 16th-century ownership inscription; and is preserved in contemporary vellum: on the blank leaf opposite the title-page is ink offsetting from the typographical borders, likely an indication that this binder’s leaf has been in situ since the book was printed. If that is correct, the inescapable conclusion is that is the original binding (the title in MS on the spine was added later). 
 
“This (says Ames) is a curiously printed book, equal to the Stephens’, and has the same coat of arms at the end [lacking in this copy], as the Catechism of 1577 … Herbert has been entirely indebted to Ames for his description of this rare little book; of which I never saw or heard of a copy” (Dibdin, Typographical Antiquities, 2024).

Of this edition, we have been able to trace only two other copies that have appeared on the market, namely: Christie’s NY 2003, and Maggs Catalogue 901 (1966). 

Provenance: William Hamer (contemporary signature: “William Hamers”) — we have been unable to identify this early English book owner –> Nathan Comfort Starr (armorial bookplate), former Grolier Club member.
 
ESTC S113382. STC 2nd ed. 18728. See: Foster Watson, The English Grammar Schools to 1660: Their Curriculum and Practice, 2019.

Price: $3,800 

2) 350E Christopher Ockland d. 1590 ?

Anglorum Prælia ab anno Domini. 1327. anno nimirùm primo inclytissimi Principis Eduardi erus nominis tertij, usque ad annu[m] Domini. 1558. Carmine summatim perstricta. ITEM. De pacatissimo Angliæ Statu, imperante Elizabetha, compendiosa Narratio. Authore Christophoro Oclando, primò  Scholæ Southwarkiensis prope Londinum, dein Cheltennamensis, quæ sunt à serenissima sua Maiestate fundatæ, Moderatore. Hæc duo Poemata, tam ob argumenti grauitatem, quam Carminis facilitatem, Nobilissimi Regie Maiestatis Consiliarij in omnibus huius regni Scholis prælegenda pueris præscripserunt.  Hijs Alexandri Neuilli Kettvm:  tum propter argumenti similitudinem, tum propter orationis elegantiam adiunximus.

London: Apud Radulphum Nuberie, ex assignatione Henrici Bynneman Typographi, 1582 $1,300

Octavo 4.7 x 5.8 inches A3 (lacking A1, the first blank), B-L8, M4 (the final blank, M4, is present), N8-T8, V4. Second edition.
This copy is bound in contemporary English calf that has been rebacked and is in good condition with minor scuffing. The leaves are in overall nice condition with minor marginal worming affecting gatherings I through O. The 1580 publication of Ockland’s

‘Anglorum Prælia,’ a Latin historical poem, brought Ockland into public notice, as the book was appointed by Queen Elizabeth and her privy council to be received and taught in every grammar and free school within the kingdom.The work is an hexameter poem, the meter used in classical poetry for heroic subjects.An early hand records on the flyleaf: “containing the highest Panegyric on Queen Elizabeth’s character and Government. Was enjoined by Authority to be taught as a classic author in Grammar School. This was a matchless contrivance to imprint a sense of loyalty on the minds of the people.” The DNB adds that the the teaching of Ockland was intended “for the removing of such lascivious poets as are commonly reade and taught in the saide grammer schools.”The second edition of Ockland’s work, printed two years after the first, contains Ockland’s EIPHNAPXIA, Alexander Neville’s Latin poem on Lett’s rebellion, and the poem on Elizabeth.
STC 18773; Ward 1317.

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2 copies located in the United States

3)  606G John Reading  1588-1667

Dauids soliloquie. Containing many comforts for afflicted mindes. As they were deliuered in sundry sermons at Saint Maries in Douer. By Io: Reading. 

Printed [by John Legat] for Robert Allot, and are to be sold at his shop in Saint Pauls Church-yeard at the signe of the Greyhound :1627         $950

Octavo, 5 1/2 X 3 inches . A-V X .Leaves A1, A11, A12 are blank. With additional engraved title page (plate), signed: F. Hulsius invenit et sculps·. This copy is bound in original soiled vellum. Reading matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 4 May 1604, and graduated B.A. on 17 October 1607. He took holy orders about 1614 and was chaplain to Edward la Zouche, 11th Baron Zouche of Haringeworth, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and governor of Dover Castle. After preaching at Dover many sermons before his patron, Reading was appointed minister of St. Mary’s on 2 December 1616, at the request of the parishioners, . He secured a position of influence in the town, and subsequently became chaplain to Charles I .  Although his sermons advocated Puritan principles, he supported the king’s cause in the English Civil War. In 1642 his study at Dover was plundered by parliamentary soldiers, and he was imprisoned for nineteen months.  By direction of Charles I, and William Laud,  Reading was made  the rector of Chartham, Kent, on 27 January 1643.  The House of Commons declined to sanction Reading’s institution, and appointed Edward Corbett. Laud refused to abandon Reading.  A prebend in Canterbury which was bestowed on Reading at the same time brought him no advantage. In July 1644 he was presented by Sir William Brockman to the living of Cheriton, Kent, and in the same year Reading was appointed by the Westminster Assembly to be one of nine commissioned to write annotations on the New Testament. Shortly after 1645, on the discovery of a plot for the capture of Dover Castle by the royalists, he was arrested by command of Major John Boys, and hurried to Dover Castle, and next day to Leeds Castle. There he composed the “Guide to the Holy City.”’ He was at length discharged by the parliamentary committee for Kent, and the restitution of his goods was ordered; but his livings were sequestered. On 8 January 1647 he was a prisoner in the Fleet Prison. On 10 March 1650 he attacked the right of unordained preaching in a public disputation with the baptist Samuel Fisher of Folkestone. Fisher used arguments from Jeremy Taylor’s “Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying,”’ which Reading had already criticised in print.Reading was restored to his Dover living shortly before the English Restoration of 1660. On 25 May 1660 he presented to Charles II, on his first landing, a large bible with gold clasps, in the name of the corporation of Dover, and made a short speech, which was published as a broadside. He was shortly afterwards restored to Chartham, made canon of the eighth prebend of Canterbury, and reinstituted to Cheriton on 18 July . In October following the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.D. per literas regias. Before August 1662 he resigned the living at Dover.  

STC (2nd ed.), 20788 Estc Locates Folger and Huntington only.

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2 copies located in the United States

4) 670G Edmund Gurnay ±1648

The demonstration of Antichrist. By Edmund Gurnay, Bach. Theol. p. of Harpley Norfolke

London:Printed by I[ohn] B[eale] for Iames Boler, and are to be sold at the signe of the Marigold in Pauls Churchyard 1631 $1,900

Octavo, 5 1/4 X 3 1/4 inches. First edition A12,B5{ lacking b6 Blank}. This copy is bound in calf boards rebacked. Gurney matriculated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, on 30 October 1594, and graduated B.A. in 1600. He was elected Norfolk fellow of Corpus Christi College in 1601, proceeded to M.A. in 1602, and B.D. in 1609. In 1607 he was suspended from his fellowship for not being in orders, but was reinstated by the vice-chancellor. In 1614 he left Cambridge, on being presented to the rectory of Edgefield, Norfolk, which he held till 1620, when he received that of Harpley, Norfolk. Gurney was inclined to puritanism, as appears from his writings. On one occasion he was cited to appear before the bishop for not using a surplice, and on being told he was expected to always wear it, ‘came home, and rode a journey with it on.’ He further made his citation the occasion for publishing his tract vindicating the Second Commandment. Thomas Fuller, who was personally acquainted with him, says: ‘He was an excellent scholar, could be humourous, and would be serious as he was himself disposed. His humours were never prophane towards God or injurious towards his neighbours.’ Gurney died in 1648. Gurney was married, and apparently had a son called Protestant (d. 1624—monument at Harpley). DNB STC (2nd ed.), 12529 [Stationer’s Register: Entered 29 January [1631.]
Copies – Brit.Isles British Library
Cambridge University Library
Cambridge University Magdalene College
Congregational Library
Lincoln Cathedral Library
Oxford University Copies – N.America :Folger Shakespeare &Huntington(only)
Fuller’s Worthies, p. 258, ed. 1652

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5) 812G  Jean Puget de La Serre, 1594-1665.

The sweete thoughts of death and eternity (bound with) Thoughts of Eternity.

Paris [i.e. Saint-Omer : Printed by the English College Press], 1632

Octavo; π1 ã⁴ A-X⁸ Y⁴. This copy s bound in its original limp vellym binding, soiled and rumpled.

Jean Puget de La Serre, Author and dramatist; ‘historiographe de la France’; wrote over a hundred works, including ballets and plays; he was part of the court that followed Marie de Médicis (q.v.) in exile from 1627-1639 in Brussels, until her death; upon his return to Paris he was appointed librarian in the household of Gaston of Orléans (q.v.) and almoner to Gaston’s daughter, Anne Marie Louise.

STC (2nd ed.), 20492UK Copies:

Bodleian Library, British Library, Lincoln Cathedral Library, London Oratory, St. Edmund’s College, Ushaw College.

North American Copies: Folger Shakespeare, Huntington Library, University of Texas 

 Les Portraits de Puget de La Serre », Nouvelles de l’estampe, 2000, no 170, p. 7-26

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The history (and Portraits) of the moderne protestant divines

6) 428J Verheiden, Jacob.

The history of the moderne protestant divines, containing their parents, countries, education, studies, lives, and the yeare of our Lord in which they dyed. With a true register of all their severall treatises, and writings that are extant. Faithfully translated out of Latine by D.L

London : Printed by N. and Iohn Okes are to be sold by Andrew Crooke at ye Bare in Paules church yard 1637

[Entered to J. Okes 5 September 1636; ass’d to J. Stafford 18 November 1637.]. $4,500.

Octavo: 13.5 x p cm, 5.25″ x 3.25″. A⁸(-A1) a⁸ B-Z⁸ 2A⁸(-2A7,8 Blank). The first adaptation edition in English with 48 engraved portraits. This copy is Bound in modern full calf, stamped and paneled in blind, lettered in gilt, all edges gilt.

A translation of “Imagines et elogia praestantium aliquot theologorum” by Jacob Verheiden. The section on English reformers is from “Herōologia Anglica Anglica” by Henry Holland. Translator’s dedication signed: Donald Lupton. With engraved portraits after Durer and Hondius, of notable figures from the Protestant Reformation, such as Erasmus, Calvin, Luther, Bale, Tyndale, Cranmer, etc. The Praestantium aliquot theologorum (1602) consisted of 50 engraved portraits of Protestant theologians, with a few earlier figures (Berengar of Tours, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Jerome of Prague, Girolamo Savonarola and Erasmus) and a few laymen, for which Verheiden supplied Latin text, including biographical and bibliographical information. Many of the images, by Hendrik Hondius I, had appeared in an earlier work. [STC 24660]

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7) 126J Wilhelm Fabricius Hildanus 1560-1634. 
Lithotomia vesicæ: that is, An accurate description of the stone in the bladder : shewing the causes and pathognomicall signes thereof, and chiefely of the method whereby it is to be artificially taken out both of men and women, by section. Wherein severall wayes of operation are described, and the chirurgicall instruments lively delineated. Written first in High Dutch by Gulielmus Fabritius Hildanus … Afterward augmented by the author, and first translated into Latin by his scholler and communer Henricus Schobingerus Sangalthensis ; and now done into English by N.C. … With better instruments than heretofore.

London : Printed by John Norton, and are to be sold by William Harris in Coleman-street, at the signe of the White Hinde,1640 $2,800

Octavo 6 X 4 inches (*)8, A-M8,N7 (N8 Lacking Blank) = one folding plate and four woodcuts within the text, complete minus the blank.(complete) First english edition (and only) 
This copy is bound in later quarter calf over marbled paper boards.  English; The translation is attributed to N. Culpeper in a note in the JRULM (The University of Manchester Library) copy…
Wilhelm Fabry (also William Fabry, Guilelmus Fabricius Hildanus, or Fabricius von Hilden) (June 25, 1560   February 15, 1634), often called the “Father of German surgery”, was the first educated and scientific German surgeon. He is one of the most prominent scholars in the iatromechanics school and author of 20 medical books. His Observationum et Curationum Chirurgicarum Centuriae, published posthumously in 1641, is the best collection of case records of the century and gives clear insight into the variety and methods of his surgical practice.His wife, Marie Colinet (or Fabry), was a Swiss midwife-surgeon who improved the techniques of cesarean section delivery. She helped her husband in his surgical practice and was the first (in 1624) to use a magnet to extract metal from a patient’s eye (a technique still in use today). Fabry wrote a detailed description of the procedure in his Centuriae and, although he explicitly mentioned his wife as having invented it, was given credit for the discovery.
BM; SGC; 1; STC 10658; Waller 2902; Wellcome 2133;LCCN: nuc 87-458853; Pollard & Redgrave; 10658.Copies – N.America   Harvard University Henry E. Huntington Library  New York Academy of Medicine  U.S. National Library of Medicine  Yale University, School of Medicine,  

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8) 779G Nicholas, ed Ling fl. ca. 1599

Politeuphuia, Wits Common-wealth. Newly corrected and amended. 

London : printed by M. Flesher, and are to be sold by Edward Badger at the Crane in St. Pauls Church-yard1647.

$4,900

Duodecimo 5 3/4 x 3 1/4 inches 3 preliminary leaves, 322 pages, 4 leaves A-O12. 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.”) Copies – N.America Harvard University Lehigh University Library of Congress William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of Minnesota Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Bound in ninteenth century full calf edges gilt a very lovely copy. 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 misnumber editions.” (Pforzheimer) Wing L- 2344; see Pforzheimer 802.;McKerrow 259 [triple star])

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The Cure of Wounds By The Powder Of Sympathy. 1658

9) 445J Digby, Kenelm, 1603-1665.

A late discourse made in a solemne assembly of nobles and learned men at Montpellier in France; by Sr. Kenelme Digby, Knight, &c. Touching the cure of wounds by the powder of sympathy; with instructions how to make the said powder; whereby many other secrets of nature ar unfolded. Rendred faithfully out of French into English by R. White. Gent  { Translation of “Discours fait en une célèbre assemblée, touchant la guérison des playes par la poudre de sympathie”.} 

London : printed for R. Lownes, and T. Davies, and are to be sold at their shops in St. Pauls Church yard, at the sign of the White Lion, and at the Bible over against the little north door of St. Pauls Church, 1658.                 Price  $1,900

Duodecimo   122.5 x 8.5 cm.     Signatures: A-G¹² H⁶./ Adverstisement: “Books printed for, and to be sold by, Thomas Davis”, p. [1] at end. The Second edition [same year as the first]corr. and augmented, with the addition of an index. This is boud in modern full calf in an rebacked. with two leaves of manuscript text at the end.  

This remarkable book is one of the most imaginative attempts to add a mechanistic development to the pharmacopeia.  The Powder of Sympathy, is the substantive manifestation of Sympathetic magic which is based on the metaphysical belief that like affects like.   Not a far step from the eating the heart of a brave but defeated warrior foe, throwing spears at painted animals on cave walls, or wearing the reindeer’s antlers before the hunt. But with Digby’s ‘discovery’ of  The Powder of Sympathy which facilitates an extra-perceptible connection between a wound and its cause; specifically rapier wounds. Expanding the concepts of healing, and for that matter weapons.

 Digby’s discovery is depicted in Umberto Eco’s novel The island of the day before. Where Dr. Byrd, the scientist on board a lost ship ,  can tell the time at the ship’s port of departure and can then calculate accurately how far they have traveled west. Byrd then uses The Powder of Sympathy, in the attempt to solve the problem of longitude. A dog’s wound is kept open on a ship in the South Pacific. At an agreed upon hour the knife that opened that wound is touched in London. The dog howls and whimpers. The seamen then know London time, and from that they can determine longitude.

In 1687 The Royal Navy tested the notion of sympathetic powder. A dog was wounded and sent off to sea while its bandage remained in London. At a predetermined time, the bandage was to be treated with the powder and the dog was to feel the effect. After this experiment the navy did not pursue the practice.

The Duke of Buckingham testified that Digby had healed his secretary of a gangrenous wound by simply soaking the bloody bandage in a solution of the powder (possibly due to the oligodynamic effect see the Recipe below). Digby claimed to have got the secret remedy from a Carmelite monk in Florence and attributed its potency to the fact that the sun’s rays extracted the spirits of the blood and the vitriol, while, at the same time, the heat of the wound caused the healing principle thus produced to be attracted to it by means of a current of air . 

Wing (CD-ROM, 1996), D1435; ESTC; R27859; Zeis Index,; 40

While well represented in institutions it is not commonly on the market.

Recipe

1. Take good English Vitriol [sulfuric acid], dissolve it in warm water, using no more water than will dissolve it, leaving some of the imperfect part at the bottom undissolved.2. Pour it off and filter it, which you may do so by a Coffin of fine gray paper put into a Funnel, or by laying a sheet of gray paper in a sieve, and pouring your water or Dissolution of Vitriol into it by degrees, setting the sieve upon a large pan to receive the filtered Liquor.3. When all your Liquor is filtered, boil it in an earthen Vessel glazed, till you see a thin scum upon it. 4. Set the scum in a Cellar to cool, covering it loosely, so that nothing may fall in. 5. After two or three days standing, pour off the Liquor, and you will find at the bottom and on the sides large and fair green Christals like Emerauds. 6. Drain off all the water clean from them, and dry them. Then spread them abroad, in a large flat earthen dish, and expose them to the hot sun in the Dog-days, taking them in at Night, and setting them out in the Morning, securing them from the Rain. 7. When the Sun has calcined them to whiteness, beat them to Powder, and set this Powder again in the Sun, stirring it sometimes, and when you see it perfectly white, powder it, and sift it finely, and set it again in the Sun for a day. 8. You will have a pure white Powder, which is the Powder of Sympathy.

How to preserve

9. Put it up in a Glass, and stop it close [seal it]. The next year when the Dog days come, and if you still have any of this Powder left, you may expose it again in the Sun, spreading it abroad to renew its Virtue by the influence of the Sunbeams.

How to Use – the Way of Curing Wounds

10. Take some of the Blood upon a Rag, and put some of the Powder upon the Blood. 11. Then keep only the Wound clean, with a clean Linnen [sic] about it, and in a moderate Temper betwixt hot and cold, and wrap up the Rag with the Blood, and keep it either in your Pocket or in a Box, and the Would will be healed without any Ointment or Plaster, and without any pain.

*But if the would is somewhat old, and hot, and inflamed, you must put some of this Powder into a Porringer or Basin full of cold Water, and then put anything into it that has been upon the wound, and has some of the Blood or Matter upon it, and it will presently take away all Pain and Inflammation.

** To staunch the Blood either of a Wound or Bleeding at the Nose, take only some of the Blood upon a Rag, and put some powder upon it, or take a Basin with fresh water, and put some of the Powder into it, and bathe the Nostrils with it.

Wing ; S3010; Thomason, E.1731[2]; Madan, III, 2528; Kress Lib, S.1206; Gibson, R.W. Francis Bacon,; 579; ESTC (RLIN),; R200918