748J. Juvenal and Persius, trans. Barten Holyday. (1593-1661) 

Decimus Junius Juvenalis, And Aulus Persius Flaccus Translated and Illustrated, As well withSculpture as Notes. By Barten Holyday, D.D.and late Arch-Deaconof Oxon.

Oxford: Printed by W. Downing, for F. Oxlad Senior, J. Adams, and F. Oxlad Junior. Anno Dom. 1673. Price $3,200

Folio, 28.5×19 cm. First edition; first complete edition of all the Satires of Juvenal in English. [π]2, a-b2, B-Z4, Aa-Xx4 (lacking Xx4 blank ). Forty-eight text engravings and woodcuts appear in the text, as well as four large folding engravings. (4 engraved plates (incl. 1 map, 1 folding, & 1 of a manual counting system) The title page is printed in red and black.

This is a gorgeous copy, bound in full contemporary calf expertly rebacked , with renewed endpapers, later ownership note on title. 

The Illustrations in this book include full-paged maps, portraits of the two authors, games, household objects, plants, animals, architectural styles, city views, and other things the commentator thought a seventeenth century English reader would need to see illustrated in order to better understand the Satires.This is a deftly executed edition with admirable plates. The completeness and breadth of illustrations isimpressive, greatly contributing to an English reader’s enjoyment of the Satires.

“The [engravings] are nearly all by David Loggan, but unsigned. There is a liberal use of ornaments in which the Sheldonian Press was markedly deficient at this time. […] The Oxford publishers may have wished to show that they could hold their own in the face of the University Press.” (Madan)

Holyday was a dramatist, translator, and divine, archdeacon of Oxford. This posthumous edition was issued by his step son. It is a line for line translation, devoid of poetry, but rich with learned annotations and interesting illustrations.

“Juvenal, satirist of Roman vices under the empire. Of his life little is known, although most early accounts agree that he spent some time in military service and ended his life in exile for having criticized a popular stage performer who was a special favorite of the emperor Domitian. He is the author of sixteen satires, divided traditionally into five books. In these biting attacks onpublic manners and morals. Juvenal shows himself to have been a sharp observer of his fellow men.

‘Whatever men do,’ he announces in his first satire, ‘their devotion, their fear, their rage, their pleasure, their joys, their conversations —all these will make up the potpourri of my little work;’ and he fulfills his pledge with the bitter gusto of an inspired cynic. Unlike Horace, the other great satirist of Roman letters, Juvenal seldom places himself among the foolish, the corrupt, and the frustrated; and while Horace’s satires are conversational in tone and meter, Juvenal’s are tight, rhetorical, and finely polished. He excels in sketching memorable vignettes and small portraits etched in vitriol. His satires abound in wittyobservations and terse proverbs, among which is the motto mens sana in corpore sano, ‘a sound mind in a sound body.’” (Sandys HCS)

Wing J-1276; Madan III, 2979; ESTC R12290; Brueggmann, p. 680;