A Spring Miscellany

Part 1 A-L

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1

A tasty parody of magic, astrology, alchemy, divination.

714J Abbé Henri Montfaucon de Villars 

  Comte de Gabalis, ou entretiens sur les sciences secrètes. renouvellé & augmenté d’une lettre sur ce sujet 

        Bound with

 La suite du comte de Gabalis, ou nouveaux entretiens sur les sciences secretes, touchant la nouvelle philosophie. ouvrage posthume.

Cologne: Pierre Marteau, [ca. 1691 and ca. 1703.]*(False imprint, probably printed in the Netherlands. Previously published in Paris in 1670 and 1671 by Claude Barbin.)                                                                      .                                                                               Price$ 950.

Octavo 144×78 mm. Signatures: A-K^6;. Bound in Contemporary quarter calfskin.

“This work caused a great stir as soon as it appeared. Because of the satyrs directed against the monks, the jokes about the loves of sylphs with incubus demons, the way in which Gabalis interpreted Adam’s first sin and recounted the misfortune of Noah was made a eunuch by Cham while he slept, the mysteries of the Rose-Croix were profaned, the secrets of the Kabbalah were ridiculed, the Abbé Villars was deprived of the right to preach and his book was condemned. life of its author, assassinated a few years later, in broad daylight, on the road to Lyon, at the age of 38

Montfaucon de Villars is especially famous for his work The Count of Gabalis, or Interviews on the Secret Sciences (1670) where he gives a tasty parody of magic, astrology, alchemy, divination and what he calls “the Holy Cabal”, which is none other than the doctrine of Paracelsus on elementary spirits, so called because they populate the four elements:

“The air is full of an innumerable multitude of peoples [the sylphs] of human figure, a little proud in appearance, but docile indeed: great lovers of science, subtle, unofficial to the wise, and enemies of the fools and the ignorant their wives and their daughters are male beauties, such as one depicts the Amazons … Know that the seas and the rivers are inhabited as well as the air* the ancient Sages named this species of people waving or nymphs … The earth is filled almost to the center of gnomes, people of small stature, guardians of treasures, mines and precious stones… As for Salamanders, flaming inhabitants of the region of fire, they serve philosophers …”(p. 169–171).

The work, witness and actor of the vogue of rationalism and libertinism, aims both to discredit the “secret sciences” and to ruin belief in the Devil, because all the actions usually attributed to the Devil (possession, oracles of the pagans, pacts with Satan, sorcerer’s sabbath, etc.) are here related to the harmless action of sylphs, gnomes, nymphs or salamanders, and the book hammers down the idea that the Devil has no power in this world.

This book, written, full of irony and charm in its form of half-philosophical half-burlesque dialogues, met with popular success. His call to a certain marvelous completely renewed this genre. Its influence was lastingly exercised in literature, and it is clearly one of the springs of the discredit of magic, astrology and alchemy in France at the end of the 17th Century.

“This short novel of 1670 gave the literary world a lasting gift: the doctrine of Elementary Spirits (Gnomes, Nymphs or Undines, Sylphs, and Salamanders) and their relations with humans from Adam’s time to the present. Written as conversations between an all-knowing “Cabalistic” Count and a naïve narrator, it is full of amusing and outrageous claims, such as that all the great ones of the past were born from inter-species intercourse. Scholars suspect that Villars satirized contemporary credulity and the rise of Paracelsian beliefs in court circles. Esotericists, on the other hand, see his humor as a cover for secret doctrines and occult truths about the intermediate realms and their denizens”

© Anathema Publishing 2023

•           Philippe Sellier, “The invention of a marvelous: The Count of Gabalis (1670)”, in A. Becq, Ch. Porset and A. Mothu (ed.), Amicitia scriptor. Literature, history of ideas, philosophy. Mixtures offered to Robert Mauzi, Champion, Paris, 1998, p. 53–62.

References: Caillet [III,nº 7707:  – only cites the 1691 reissue “This is the edition of Pierre Marteau, with the sphere, of which some copies are undated”], Guaita [1904: Small anonymous edition “with the sphere” very rare]; Wolfstieg (n°42465) 

2

“Method and System of the Studies of the Society of Jesus”

     776J. Claudio Acquaviva (1541-16150

Ratio Atqve Institvtio Stvdiorvm Societatis Iesv Avctoritate Septimæ Congregationis Generalis aucta.

Antwerpiæ: Apud Ioannem Mevrsivm 1635. Price $1,500

Octavo 15 x 10 cm. Signatures A-N⁸. Later edition* Bound in original limp vellum, with title in hand on spine “RATIO Stud” 

“The term “Ratio Studiorum” is commonly used to designate the educational system of the Jesuits; it is an abbreviation of the official title, i.e. “Method and System of the Studies of the Society of Jesus”. The Constitutions of the Society from the beginning enumerated among the primary objects of the Society: teaching catechism to children and the ignorant, instructing youth in schools and colleges, and lecturing on philosophy and theology in the universities. Education occupied so prominent a place that the Society could rightly be styled a teaching order. Even during the lifetime of the founder, St. Ignatius, colleges were opened in various countries, at Messina, Palermo, Naples, Gandia, Salamanca, Alcalà, Valladolid, Lisbon, Billom, and Vienna; many more were added soon after his death, foremost among them being Ingolstadt, Cologne, Munich, Prague, Innsbruck, Douai, Bruges, Antwerp, Liège, and others. In the fourth part of the Constitutions general directions had been laid down concerning studies, but there was yet no definite, detailed, and universal system of education, the plans of study drawn up by Fathers Nadal, Ledesma, and others being only private works. With the increase of the number of colleges the want of a uniform system was felt more and more. During the generalate of Claudius Acquaviva (1581-1614), the educational methods of the Society were finally formulated. In 1584 six experienced schoolmen, selected from different nationalities and provinces, were called to Rome, where for a year they studied pedagogical works, examined regulations of colleges and universities, and weighed the observations and suggestions made by prominent Jesuit educators. The report drawn up by this committee was sent to the various provinces in 1586 to be examined by at least five experienced men in every province. The remarks, censures, and suggestions of these men were utilized in the drawing up of a second plan, which, after careful revision, was printed in 1591 as the “Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum”. Reports on the practical working of this plan were again sent to Rome, and in 1599 the final plan appeared, the “Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Jesu”, usually quoted as “Ratio Studiorum”. Every possible effort had been made to produce a practical system of education; theory and practice alike had been consulted, suggestions solicited from every part of the Catholic world, and all advisable modifications adopted. The Ratio Studiorum must be looked upon as the work not of individuals, but of the whole Society.” (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12654a.htm) Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Ratio Studiorum.

 DeBacker-Sommervogel [S.J.] vol.I, col.488 .

3

508J Anon  (The traditional attribution to Thomas à Kempis is disputed) Thomas, à Kempis, 1380-1471, attributed name.

The following of Christ. Writen in Latine by Thomas of Kempis Canon regular of the order of St. Augustin. Translated into English and in this last edition, reviewed compared with several former editions. Together with the authors life

London: Printed for M.T. 1686.              Price $1,100

Duodecimo; 10.5 x6 cm. A¹²a¹² B-U¹²X^{9(10-12 presumed Blank)} Bound in original full gilt blue calf, a very very lovely copy. 

After the Bible, The Imitation of Christ is the all-time favorite book of Catholics throughout the world.  à Kempis or whoever the ‘author was’ presents a path to The Imitation of Christ based on a focus on the interior life and withdrawal from the world. The Imitation of Christ first issued in 1418, Thomas entered Mount St. Agnes in 1406. He was not ordained a priest, however, until almost a decade later. He became a prolific copyist and writer. Thomas received Holy Orders in 1413 and was made sub-prior of the monastery in 1429.

Thomas à Kempis provided specific instructions for imitating Christ. His book is perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work after the Bible. The approach taken by Kempis is characterized by its emphasis on the interior life and withdrawal from the world, as opposed to an active imitation of Christ (including outward preaching) by other friars.  The book places a high level of emphasis on the devotion to the Eucharist as key element of spiritual life

Kempis’s 1441 autograph manuscript of The Imitation of Christ is available in the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels (shelfmark: MS 5455-61)

Wing T953A , ESTC listing : Copies – N.America  2 copies :Harvard University University of California, Los Angeles, William Andrews Clark  

4

547Ja.  Saint Athanasius,  Patriarch of Alexandria, 295-373. Theophylactus de Achrida,; 1055-1126. Richardus de Sancto Victore,; 1110-1173. Ambrogio Traversari 1386-1439. Cristoforo Persona; 1416-1485. Angelo Poliziano; 1454-1494. Nicolas Béraud; 1473-1550. Desiderius Erasmus; 1496-1536

 Bound with

547Jb.  Basilius Caesariensis. 330–379 Jacques Lefèvre D’Etaples. c. 1450–1536.

Basilii Magni Caesariensium in Cappadocia Antistitis sanctissimi opera plane diuina, variis e locis sedulo collecta: & accuratio[n]e ac impe[n]sis Iodici Badii Ascensii recognita & coimpressa, quorum index proxima pandetur charta.

 Parisiis: Joanne Paruo [i.e., Jean Petit] , [1519]. 

      [bound with] 

 Paris: Venundantur eidem Ascensio [i.e., Badius Ascensius, 1520].                  Price $5,000

Two Folios bound together; leaf size: 32 x 22 cm.  Signatures: ad. I) a-z⁸,&⁸,A-H⁸,I⁶,K⁸, aaa-ggg⁶,hhh⁴,iii⁶(iii⁶ is blank & present)  ad. II)A¹⁰, a-x⁸, y⁶, z⁴  Both are first editions of quite influential books. 

Bound in Alum-tawed pigskin, elaborately tooled in blind over wooden boards with metal and leather clasps; one clasp perished. Binding with one corner tip broken off; small hole in leather on rear board; dust-soiled. Inside, some early marginalia and underlining in red; narrow arc of old, light water staining to fore-edges of one part. Pages generally very clean. This is a pleasing copy of two substantial books edited and assembled by very notable scholars contemporary to the publications of the works.

St. Athanasius’s text was translated into Latin by three noted Renaissance scholars, and edited by Nicholas Beraldus, and has the added prestige of apparatus by Erasmus. The title-page is printed within a four-piece woodcut border, with the title in red and black, and the page bears the famous Petit printer’s device. The St. Basil is from Badius Ascensius’s press and he acted as the editor, the translators having been Johannes Argyropoulos, Georgius Trapezuntius, and others(see above and below ). The title-page uses the same four-part woodcut title-page border as found on the St. Athanasius, bound in at the front, which makes much sense given the familial relationship between Ascensius and Petit. 

Moreau II Nr. 2242m; P. Renouard, Bibliographie des impres (Paris, I908)s II, I46

Athanasius was the greatest champion of Catholic belief of Incarnation that the Church has ever known and in his lifetime earned the characteristic title of “Father of Orthodoxy”, by which he has been distinguished ever since. “Athanasius the Apostolic, was the 20th bishop of Alexandria (as Athanasius I). His intermittent episcopacy spanned 45 years (c. 8 June 328 – _2 May 373), of which over  encompassed five exiles, when he was replaced on the order of four different Roman emperors. Athanasius was a Christian theologian, a Church Father, the chief defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism, and a noted Coptic Christian (Egyptian) leader of the fourth century. Athanasius’ earliest work, Against the Heathen – _On the Incarnation (written before 319), bears traces of Origenist Alexandrian thought (such as repeatedly quoting Plato and using a definition from Aristotle’s Organon) but in an orthodox way. Athanasius was also familiar with the theories of various philosophical schools, and with the developments of Neo-Platonism. Ultimately, Athanasius would modify the philosophical thought of the School of Alexandria away from the Origenist principles such as the “entirely allegorical interpretation of the text”. Still, in later works, Athanasius quotes Homer more than once (Hist. Ar. 68, Orat. iv. 29). Athanasius was not a speculative theologian. As he stated in his First Letters to Serapion, he held on to “the tradition, teaching, and faith proclaimed by the  apostles and guarded by the fathers.” He held that not only was the Son of God consubstantial with the Father, but so was the Holy Spirit, which had a great deal of influence in the development of later doctrines regarding the Trinity. 

Athanasius’ “Letter Concerning the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea” (De Decretis), is an important historical as well as theological account of the proceedings of that council, and another letter from 367 is the first known listing of all those books now accepted as the New Testament.

Moreau II Nr. 2242m; P. Renouard, Bibliographie des impres (Paris, I908)s II, I46

Basil the Great is sapientissimus, potentissimus, sanctissimus, piissimus. 

This volume includes the following works: the Hexameron, translated by Argyro- pulos for Sixtus IV; Adversus Eunomium, translated by George of Trebizond at the re- quest of Cardinal Bessarion and sent by him to Eugenius IV; Gregory Nazianzen’s funeral oration on Basil the Great in the translation of Raphael Volaterranus; a large selection of Basil’s sermons and several letters, also translated by Volaterranus; and, finally, the De institutis monarchorum, RuEinus’ trans]ation, adaptation, and fusion of Basil’s two monastic rules, the Regulaefusius tractatae and Regulae brevius tractatae. Texts in Migne, P.G. XXIX, XXX, XXXI and F. Boulenger, Gre’goire de NazEanze. Dis- coursfunebres en l’honneur de sonfrere Ce’saire et de Basile de Cesarete (Paris, I908), pp. S8-23I. Argyropulos’ Hexameron was sent to Badius from Rome by Lefevre (fol. Ir and Badius’ preface: ‘Nuper autem divi Basilii vere magni monumenta aeterna cedro dignissima ab urbe Roma ad nos usque perlata, hinc ad negocia sua profecturus, prelo nostro commisit’). It and the translations of Volaterranus had been printed in Rome by Mazochius in September and December 1515 (Panzer, nº, 255, no. 92 and 256 no. 9S); in June 1508 Matthias Schurer printed Basilfi Oratio de invidia, Nic. Perotfo interprete in Strasbourg (Panzer, VI, 42, no. I3I); the letters on reading the pagan classics and on the solitary life were well known; but Badius’ is the first printing of so important a collection of Basil’s works. 

BL STC France (16th cent.); Ind Aur III, 311; Wierda, 2006,; p. 210, nr. 40 p. 42; Moreau 1511-1520: 2246; Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du 16. sie_̀cle … Bade-438/

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595J  R.B. (Anon)

Extraordinary adventures, revolutions & events. Being An Account of divers Stupendious Accidents, Strange Deliverances; Signal Mutations in the Fortunes of several famous Men; and Changes of Government in many Countries. With other Observable Passages in divers Kingdoms, States and Provinces throughout the World. Enlivened with pictures, for their better illustration. By R. B.

London : printed for Nath. Crouch, at the Bell over-against Grocers-Alley, in the Poultry, near Cheapside, 1704.         Price  $1,200

Duodecimo;  14  x. 8.5 cm signatures:  A-H¹². Type changes to a smaller typeface, p. 183-187. Publisher’s ads [5] p. at end.  With woodcut frontice piece and three full page woodcuts. The third edition. R. B. = R. Burton, i.e. the pseudonym of Nathaniel Crouch.  With an additional engraved title page. this copy is bound in full modern calf.

“The entertaining and useful works of that almost universal and popular historiographer, Robert Burton, who published in the latter end of the last and beginning of the present Century, being out of print and very scarce, it would be doing to the public, and especially to young persons, a real service, if they were all reprinted and preserved from oblivion.” *

An interesting development in this book is that Crouch has included rather coarse bibliographic attributions after each passage, i.e. “Heylins Cosmog. pag. 626”

It is curious that, although Crouch was in the trade, the first of his books with the pseudonym of “R. B.” was issued by a brother publisher.”* 

*Book-lore: A Magazine Devoted to Old Time Literature, Volume 1 London Elliot Stock, 1885

Misfortunes, magic tricks, scientific discoveries, natural oddities, miraculous recoveries abound. This is a dense book with small type and every page holds a few detailed tales of mankind.  This book is a fun and entertaining gossipy collection of Extraordinary Adventures, Revolutions and events &c. It covers the explorations of Columbus, Pizarro, Almagro, and other Spaniards, as well as the establishment of the English Empire in America. Explorers and merchant adventurers, missionaries taken prisoners, ship wrecks, murders followed by almost ethnographic descriptions of governments and kingdoms.  

English Short Title Catalog, T71200. 

Copies in North America:   Indiana University, Princeton, McMaster U,   U. of North Carolina,  U. of Texas at Austin,  U. of Toronto.

6

767J Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Sylva Sylvarum or A Naturall Historie in ten centuries written by the Right Honourable FRANCIS LO Verulam ViscountSt. ALBAN – published after the Autors death by WILLIAM RAWLEY Doctor in Divinitie, one of his Majesties Chaplaines. Hereunto is now added an Alphabeticall Table of the principall things contained in the whole work.

London:  Printed by John Haviland for William Lee and are to be sold by Iohn Williams., 1635

                                                                                                                            Price $ 2,900

Folio 26.5 x 18cm. Signatures: A-Z^6, Aa-Bb6, Cc⁴, a-g^4.. This copy is bound in early quarter calf expertly rebacked .  Book plate of Abel Smith Woodhall Park Binding tight and firm.  A good clean copy of an early edition. The engraved title page and portrait of Bacon dated to 1631 and 1631 respectively are both present in this volume.  

“The new method [Bacon’s big plan, the Instauratio Magna] is valueless, because inapplicable, unless it be supplied with materials duly collected and presented—in fact, unless there be formed a competent natural history of the Phenomena Universi. A short introductory sketch of the requisites of such a natural history, which, according to Bacon, is essential, necessary, the basis totius negotii, is given in the tract Parasceve, appended to the Novum Organum. The principal works intended to form portions of the history, and either published by himself or left in manuscript, are historia Ventorum, Historia Vitae et Mortis, Historia Densi et Rari, and the extensive collection of facts and observations entitled Sylva Sylvarum […] “Nature thus presented itself to Bacon’s mind as a huge congeries of phenomena, the manifestations of some simple and primitive qualities, which were hid from us by the complexity of the things themselves. The world was a vast labyrinth, amid the windings of which we require some clue or thread whereby we may track our way to knowledge and thence to power. This thread, the filum labyrinthi, is the new method of induction. But, as has been frequently pointed out, the new method could not be applied until facts had been observed and collected. This is an indispensable preliminary. ‘Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much, and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature; beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.’ The proposition that our knowledge of nature necessarily begins with observation and experience, is common to Bacon and many contemporary reformers of science, but he laid peculiar stress upon it, and gave it a new meaning. What he really meant by observation was a competent natural history or collection of facts. ‘The firm foundation of a purer natural philosophy are laid in natural history.’ ‘First of all we must prepare a  natural and experimental history, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all.” (EB) This book is ‘the foundation of all,’ consisting of all of Bacon’s empirical experiments along with his utopian fable, The New Atlantis.

GIBSON 174.; Portrait of Bacon (listed 1) and Engrave title dated 1631; STC 1172.

7

689J Bacon, Francis 1561-1626

Resvscitatio Or, bringing into Pvblick Light Several Pieces Of The Works Civil, Historical, Philosophical, and Theological, Hitherto Sleeping Of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon Baron of Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban. In Two Parts. The Third Edition, According to the best Corrected Copies, Together With his Lordships Life. By William Rawley, Doctor in Divinity, His Lordships First and Last Chaplain. And lately his Majesties Chaplain in Ordinary.

           [bound with]

The Second Part of the Resuscitatio Or A Collection Of several pieces of the Works Of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, and Viscount of St. Albans. Some of them formerly Printed in smaller Volumes, and being almsot lost, are now Collected and put into Folio, with some of his other pieces, which never yet was published. Collected By William Rawley Doctor of Divinitye, his Lordships first and last Chaplain, and lately Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty.

(both titles) London: Printed by S.G.[i.e. Sarah Griffin] and B.G. [i.e. Bennet Griffin] for William Lee, and are to be sold at his Shop, at the sign of the Turks head in Fleetstreet over against Fetter Lane, 1671                                        Price $2,500

Folio  x. cm. Signatures: [unsigned]² B2 [π1 A² [π]¹, A-B⁴ C²; ²B-Z⁴ Aa-Kk⁴ Ll⁴(-Ll⁴); ³A-N⁴; X⁴ [B]1, ⁴A-D⁴; ⁵A-B⁴ C⁴(-C3,4) D-H² I1 K-M⁴ N1; ⁶A-C⁴ D² F-N² O1; ⁷a⁴ b1 A-L⁴ M² N⁴; ⁸A-G² H¹. Frontis. plate unsigned port of Bacon at age 66.  Plate bound at the end of ’The life of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon’ signed: W. Hollar fecit 1670.

Bound in contemporary calf Rebacked.

This is the first edition to include both parts. 

Includes: ’A preparatory to the history natural & experimental. … By a well-wisher to his Lordships writings’ with a separate title page (⁴A1r) bearing the imprint: London, printed by Sarah Griffing and Ben. Griffing, for William Lee at the Turks-head in Fleet-street, over against Fetter-Lane, 1670 and with separate pagination (Wing B317).

            Includes: ’Certain miscellany works of the Right Honourable, Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban’ (Wing B275) with a separate title page bearing the imprint: London, printed by T.J. for H.R. and are to be sold by Wil. Lee, At the Turks-Head in Fleet-street. M. DC. LXX. [1670]’ and with separate pagination and register.

            Includes: ’The natural and experimental history of winds, &c’ (Wing B306) with a separate title page bearing the imprint: London, printed for Anne Moseley, and Tho. Bassett at the George on Fleet-street, 1671 and with separate pagination and register.

Includes: ’A brief discourse touching the office of Lord Chancellor of England. Written by the learned John Selden …’ (Wing S2420) with a separate title page bearing the imprint: London, printed for William Lee at the Turks head in Fleetstreet, over against Fetter-lane end, 1671 and with separate pagination and register.

            The edition of ’A brief discourse touching the office of Lord Chancellor of England’ varies from copy to copy, containing the 1671 ed. (Wing S2420) or the 1672 ed. (Wing S2421).

            ’The life of the Right Honorable Francis Bacon … By William Rawley D.D.’, ’A collection of apophthegms new and old’, ’Several letters written by this honourable author, to Queen Elizabeth, King James, and divers lords, and others’, ’The apology of St. Francis Bacon Kt.’ (Wing B268), ’The translation of certain Psalms, into English verse’ and ’A charge given by the most eminent an learned St. Francis Bacon, Kt.’ each have separate dated title pages, with various imprints and dates and some have separate pagination and registers; for complete bibliographical information, see Gibson, R.W. Francis Bacon a bibliography of his works and od Baconia to the year 1750, no. 229.

Wing (CD-ROM, 1996),; B321& B317;  Gibson, R.W. Francis Bacon,; 229; ESTC (RLIN),; R037049 

8

 530J.  Thomas Beard, -1632. 

The theatre of Gods judgements: wherein is represented the admirable justice of God against all notorious sinners, great and small, specially [sic] against the most eminent persons in the world, whose exorbitant power had broke through the barres of divine and humane law. Collected out of sacred, ecclesiasticall, and pagan histories by two most reverend doctors in divinity, Thomas Beard of Huntington, and Tho. Taylor, the famous late preacher of Mary Aldermanbury in London. The incomparable use of this book for ministers and others is largely expressed in the preface. 

London: printed by S.I. [i.e. Susan Islip] & M.H. [i.e. Mary Hearne] and are to be sold by Richard Whitaker at the signe of the Kings Armes in St Pauls Churchyard,* MDCXLVIII. [1648].   [and]   London Printed by Richard Herne 1642.       Price $5,000 

  

Folio 25 ½ x 20cm.   Signatures:π¹, a² A² B-Z⁶  Aa-Gg⁶,Hh³ & Aaa- Mmm⁶,Ooo⁴

 (1)  This is A reissue of the same year (Wing B1565B; ESTC R226560) which has  an imprint reading in part: Printed by Susan Islip, and are to be sold by Mary Heron.  A variant Includes a reissue of Wing T570 (ESTC R23737), with the original title page: The second part of the theatre of Gods iudgments. … by … Dr Thomas Taylor, … London printed by Richard Herne. An. Dom. 1642.   There is very imperfect internet copy from the defectivein: Bodleian Library./.”/ Imperfect: p. 39-40, 107-108 of 2nd pt., all after p. 110 of 2nd pt. lacking. “Best copy available for photographing.  “ ?      

This copy has a wonderful pedigree, Graham Pollard, Arthuri B Evans and Sebastian Evans, with ownership inscriptions to front free end paper, along with penciled notations. This copy is bound in full contemporary calf recently rebacked.  

  Beard, as most biographical notes begin “is best known as Chromwell’s teacher,” as an ardent Puritan, that makes sense to a degree, yet I will argue that it is this book, The theater of Gods Judgment has as much influence, and is due more respect. This book is a Puritan Hammer, exhibiting all the forms of ‘Fire and brimstone” which the Puritan God imposed upon those who digressed from the righteous way.  Perhaps the narrative of Kit Marlowe’s death, which has now been extrapolated and adjectivally escalated to mythic proportions of social commentary is now the most discussed aspect of this book.  Yet Beard’s attack on the theater is not as specific as it might have been, he seems most concerned with Tertullian?.  Aside from this ‘though Beard does bring up quite a many examples of the social forces at play in the theater. 

Translated in large part from a French original, The Theatre of God’s Judgments, with its many instances of God’s spectacular (and often grimly appropriate) punishment of sinners, was his most successful and frequently reprinted work. 

Wing B1565B; ESTC R226560

Copies in N.America    

       NYPL & SMU only!   

  

9

746J Crashaw, Richard (1612-1649)

Steps To The Temple, The Delights Of The Muses, And Carmen Deo Nostro. By Ric. Crashaw, sometimes Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and late Fellow of St Peters Colledge in Cambridge.

     Bound With

Richardi Crashawi Poemata et epigrammata, quæ scripsit Latina & Græca, dum Aulæ Pemb. alumnus fuit, et Collegii Petrensis socius.

[London]: In the Savoy, Printed by T.N. for Henry Herringman at the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1670

   [ bound with ]

Cantabrigiae: Ex officina Joan Hayes, celeberrimæ academiæ typographi: 1670.                          Price $8,500

Octavo 16.5 x 10.5 cm. Signatures A-O⁸: A-F⁸ . This is the third edition (not the second, as the title states) of his “Steps to the Temple” (first 1646). 

The third edition of “The Delights of the Muses” (first edition 1648) 

The second edition of the posthumous “Carmen Deo Nostro…Sacred Poems” (first edition 1652)

    BOUND With 

 The First edition of the “ Poemata et Epigrammata”  (in this volume there are ten Latin poems  reprinted from the 1646 & 1648 editions of the “Steps to the Temple”    

  This copy is beautifully complete, including the engraved frontispiece, and the final blank, O⁸. This is a lovely copy in very good contemporary condition. The original dark brown sheepskin has been expertly rebacked. The leaves are strikingly clean and white throughout. With the bookplate of Graham Pollard.

Steps to the Temple is generally recognized as one of the most important collections of metaphysical verse produced in the Restoration period. Crashaw’s “Hymm to St. Teresa” provided the inspiration for Coleridge’s “Christabel.” Crashaw shows his admiration for Herbert, throughout his poems, there are also many echoes of Donne.

“Compared with one another, Crashaw represents more of Donne’s ecstasy, and Herbert more of his reason.” (The Donne Tradition, George Williamson)

This volume contains Crashaw’s best known poems: “The Weeper,” “The Divine Epigrams,” “In memory of the Vertuous and Learned Lady Madre de Teresa,” and the much anthologized “Wishes To His (Supposed) Mistresse.”

Wither to Prior #234; Wing C-6838.

         and 

Wither to Prior #236; Wing C6834;  Allison, A.F. Four metaphysical poets,; Crashaw [2]; Martin, L.C., Poems … of Crashaw,; 6

10

109f   Davies, Sir John (1569-1626)

The Original, Nature a Nosce teipsum

London: 1697: William Rogers, 1697.                            Price $3,000

Octavo18 x 12 cm, Signatures:  A⁸,b⁸,B-H⁸ .First Tate Edition Bound in full early calf ,recently expertly rebacked. it is a nice copy with spine label.  

 

Sir John Davies (not to be confused with John Davies of Hereford) was a man of affairs, and rose to a high position in the state.  His life, however, had not the same great beginning, and his was no smooth passage to fame.  Born in 1569, at Tisbury, he went to Winchester and Oxford (partly, it appears, resident at New college, partly at Queen’s college), and, like the majority of young men of the time, came, in 1587, to study law in London.  But he quarrelled with the friend to whom he had dedicated his poem Orchestra, Richard Martin, and, entering the hall, armed with a dagger, he broke his cudgel over Martin’s head, who was eating dinner at the barristers’ table. In consequence of this outrage on the benchers, he was disbarred. He returned to Oxford in 1598, three years after he had been called, and wrote his great poem Nosce Teipsum Lord Mountjoy, afterwards earl of Devonshire, approved of it so highly that he advised Davies to publish it, with a dedicatory poem to the Queen. This, Davies was not slow to do.

The poem appeared the year after his expulsion from the bar and added largely to his growing reputation as a poet. The Hymns to Astroea appeared in the same year, and Davies’s services were in request to write words for “entertainments” offered to her majesty A Dialogue between a Gentleman Usher and a Poet, A contention betwixt a Wife, a Widdow and a Maide and A Lottery, are the names of those that are extant.  A Lottery gained the Queen’s acknowledgment, and, through the influence of lord Ellesmere, Davies, after a formal apology to the benchers and to Richard Martin, was reinstated at the bar in 1601.

 His career now began. He was among those who went with lord Hunsdon to escort king James to the English throne, and James was sufficiently impressed with him to appoint him solicitor-general for Ireland, under lord Mountjoy, then lord deputy. In December, 1603, on his arrival in Dublin, he was knighted, and, some years later, he married the daughter of lord Audley One of his children was the famous countess of Huntingdon. His work in Ireland, where he remained until 1619, was distinguished, and how deeply he was interested in Irish affairs may be gathered from his Discourse of the true reasons why Ireland has never been intirely subdued till the beginning of His Majesty’s reign In 1619, he resumed his seat in the House of Commons as member for Newcastle under Lyme, to which he had been elected in 1614, and, just before he could assume the office of chief justice, to which he had been appointed in 1626, he died suddenly of an apoplexy.

Orchestra or a Poeme on Dauncing was written before June, 1594, although it was not published until 1596.  The poem is in the form of a dialogue between Penelope and one of her suitors, and consists of 131 stanzas of seven lines, each riming ababbcc In the dedicatory sonnet to “his very friend MA Richard Martin,” which, in spite of the reconciliation, was omitted from the edition of 1622, Davies describes the poem as “this suddaine, rash half-capreol of my wit,” and reminds Martin how it was written in fifteen days.  The fact is worthy of attention because it shows the writer’s ability and mastery over his material.  The poem bears no sign of haste in the making Gallant and gay, it flows with transparent clearness to its conclusion, and the verse has the happy ease which marks all the work of Davies, and makes it comparable with the music of Mozart.

His next work Nosce Teipsum possesses the same fluidity of thought and diction, which is the more remarkable as the poem is deeply philosophical.  The sub-title explains the subject: “This oracle expounded in two elegies 1 Of Human knowledge 2 Of the Soule of Man and the immortalitie thereof”. The first edition was published in 1599, the second, “newly corrected and amended,” in 1602, the third in 1608, and, of course, the poem was included in the collected edition which Davies himself made of his poems in 1622

“Wouldst thou be crowned the Monarch of a little world? command thyself,” wrote Francis Quarles, who was certainly well-acquainted with Nosce Teipsum, in the second century of his Enchiridion, and that sentence gives the gist of the first part of the poem on Humane Knowledge.  Davies then passes on to examine the nature of the soul, its attributes and its connection with the body; and, having defined with exactness what he means by the soul, proceeds to prove its immortality by means of arguments for and against his proposition Proof in such a matter is not possible; but a personal answer to the great question, so sincerely thought and so lucidly expressed as is this answer of Davies, will always have its value. Nor is Nosce Teipsum a treatise which ingenuity has fashioned into verse and which more properly would be expressed in plain prose. Davies does not, as it were, embroider his theme with verse, but uses verse, and its beauties of line and metaphor, to make his meaning more clear, and, thereby, gallantly justifies the employment of his medium This mastery of his is enviously complete; but, perhaps, it is most conspicuous in the Hymns to Astroea which were first published in 1599 As the title-page announces, they are written “in Acrosticke verse” They are twenty-six in number: each poem is of three stanzas (two of five lines, one of six lines), and each line begins with a different letter of the name Elizabetha Regina Yet, in spite of this fantastic formality, not a line is forced, and one or two of the poems, notably hymn V

To the Lark

Earley, cheerfule, mounting Larke,
Light’s gentle usher, Morning’s clark,
are exquisite songs                                                                               

    Wing D-405 Langland to Wither #67

11

828P. Donne, John (1573-1631)

Poems, by J.D. VVith elegies on the authors death

London: Printed by M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, and are to be sold at his shop in St Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street, 1639.

                                                                                                              Price: $18,500.

Octavo: 13.5 x 9.1 cm..Signatures:  A-Z⁸, Aa-Dd⁸. With the engraved frontispiece portrait. THIRD EDITION. (first ed. 1633) This copy is bound in its original binding of sprinkled calf, ruled in blind, with a discreet repair to the front joint and foot of the spine. The text is in fine condition and is complete with the portrait of Donne –now rarely encountered- by William Marshall, apparently after a lost miniature by Hillyard, showing Donne as a rakish young man of eighteen, with long hair and an earring in his right ear. Beneath the portrait is a poem by Izaak Walton. With the contemporary signature of Cordelia Sandford on the title page and the early signature, “Charles Mackenzie”, on leaf A5.

“The poetry of Donne represents a sharp break with that written by his predecessors and most of his contemporaries. Much Elizabethan verse is decorative and flowery in its quality. Its images adorn; its meter is mellifluous. Image harmonizes with image, and line swells almost predictably into line. Donne’s poetry, on the other hand, is written very largely in conceits— concentrated images that involve an element of dramatic contrast, of strain, or of intellectual difficulty. Most of the traditional ‘flowers of rhetoric’ disappear completely. For instance, in his love poetry one never encounters bleeding hearts, cheeks like roses, lips like cherries, teeth like pearls, or Cupid shooting arrows of love. 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 not only displays his own ingenuity; he 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.

“Donne’s rhythms are colloquial and various. He likes to twist and distort not only ideas, but also metrical patterns and grammar itself. In the satires, which Renaissance writers understood to be ‘harsh’ and ‘crabbed’ as a genre, Donne’s distortions often threaten to choke off the stream of expression entirely. But in the lyrics (both those which are worldly and those which are religious in theme), as in the elegies and sonnets, the verse never fails of a complex and memorable melody. Donne had an unusual gift, rather like that of a modern poet, T.S. Eliot, for striking off phrases that ring in the mind like a silver coin. They are two masters of the colloquial style, removed alike from the dignified, weighty manner of Milton and the sugared sweetness of the Elizabethans.

“Donne and his followers are known to literary history as the ‘metaphysical school’ of poets. Strictly speaking, this is a misnomer; there was no organized group of poets who imitated Donne, and if there had been, they would not have called themselves ‘metaphysical’ poets. That term was invented by Dryden and Dr. Johnson. But the influence of Donne’s poetic style was widely felt, especially by men whose taste was formed before 1660. George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, and Abraham Cowley are only the best known of those on whom Donne’s influence is recognizable. The great change of taste that took place in 1660 threw Donne and the ‘conceited’ style out of fashion; during the 18th and 19th centuries both he and his followers were rarely read and still more rarely appreciated. Finally, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, three new 

editions of Donne appeared, of which Sir H.J.C. Grierson’s, published in 1912, was quickly accepted as standard. By clarifying and purifying the often-garbled text, Grierson did a great deal to make Donne’s poetry more available to the modern reader. Almost at once it started to exert an influence on modern poetic practice, the modern poets being hungry for a ‘tough’ style that would free them form the worn-out rhetoric of the late 19th century romanticism. And Donne’s status among the English poets quickly climbed from that of a curiosity to that of an acknowledged master.

“No more than a couple of the poems on which Donne’s modern reputation is built were published during his lifetime, though most of them were widely circulated through court and literary circles in handwritten copies. There were practical reasons for this halfway state of affairs. Many of the poems would have constituted black marks on Donne’s reputation as an earnest and godly divine; and because they were difficult and allusive, only a few people wanted to read them. Thus Donne was known, outside the relatively limited circles that had access to manuscript-collections, primarily as a preacher and devotional writer. But in these capacities he was tremendously productive and influential.” (The Norton Anthology of English Literature, fourth edition).

STC 7047; Keynes 80; Pforzheimer 297

12

                             753J Dunns Scotus, (c.1265-1308)

753J Dunns Scotus, (c.1265-1308) [Ed: Thomas Penketh and Bartholomaeus Bellatus]

Quaestiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi. Ed: Thomas Penketh and Bartholomaeus Bellatus. (part 4).

[SAmaritanus ille piissim9~Spoliatu vides homine· ratrociter sauciatu…]

Venice : Johannes de Colonia and (1476? before 3 Oct. 1477) 

                                                                                                                        Price: $16,000

Folio, 28 x 20 cm. Signatures: a-g¹⁰ h-i⁸ k-o¹⁰ p-q⁸ r-z¹⁰ 98. 240 leaves. Bound in later yet old vellum recently re-backed, the first few leaves are dusty and slightly stained, but the remaining 235 leaves are very clean, this is a large margined copy with about 30 pages with scattered tiny annotations in two hands (further investigation pending on these) This book is a Dunns Scotus’s commentary on book of the book four of Lombards sentences, the Sententiarum libri quattuor (usually referred to as the Sentences). Scotus’s commentary was written in the Thirteenth Century and survives in many medieval manuscript copies. Its popularity resulted in it also being produced in numerous printed editions in the latter half of the Fifteenth Century, including this one. This book is only part four of the work. The other three parts of this edition were produced separately.

John Duns Scotus , was a Franciscan friar. He was born in Duns, in the Scottish borders, and studied and taught at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Paris. He was famed for his lectures on Peter Lombard’s Sentences.

The theologian Peter Lombard (c.1100-c.1160-64) wrote his book of ‘sentences’ in about 1150. Arranged in four parts, it discusses all aspects of theological doctrine systematically in a long series of questions. His text was later divided into chapters, referred to as distinctiones. It became an important text of scholastic* theology, incessantly studied and read throughout the later Middle Ages: discussion (or ‘disputation’) of the Sentences was an integral part of the medieval theological University curriculum.

In Lombards Book four, The Doctrine of Signs, the sacraments are the main subject of Book 4, taking up forty-two of its fifty Distinctions: Baptism is treated in Distinctions 2–6, confirmation in 7, the Eucharist in 8–13, penance in 14–22, extreme unction in 23, sacred orders in 24 and 25, and marriage in 26–42 In particular, penance and marriage (with regard to which the Lombard’s consensual theory was to prove extremelyinfluential) receive extensive discussion. The Book concludes with eight Distinctions on the last things – the resurrection of the body, purgation, hell, the last judgement, and eternity.

“The first question raised in the Prologue to John Duns Scotus’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard is “Whether it is Necessary for Man in His Present State To Be Supernaturally inspired with some doctrine.” Scotus’s answer is “Yes,” but onlyafter a lenthy discussion ofseveral impor- tant epistemological issues connected to understanding and faith.” [Mann, William E.(1992) “Duns Scotus, Demonstration, and Doctrine,” Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers: Vol. 9: Iss. 4 , Article 2.]

Duns Scotus’s commentary was based upon his University lectures; but there is controversity around this because no manuscripts exist at Oxford, which has manuscript evidence for lectures on the other three books.

Goff D379; HC 6416*; C 2124 (I); Pell 4451; CIBN D-256; Hillard 753; Girard 174; Lefèvre 163; Parguez 392; Péligry 314; Richard 199; Castan(Besançon) 401; Polain(B) 1353 (II,III); IDL 1638; IBE 2197; IGI 3598; IBP 1993; SI 1398; Sajó-Soltész 1211; IBPort 619; Martín Abad D-76; Mendes 442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447; Madsen 1459 (IV); Lőkkös(Cat BPU) 175; Voull(Trier) 1862 (II); Voull(B) 3747 (III), 3751 (I), 3752 (II); Ohly-Sack 1052; Sack(Freiburg) 1300; Walsh 1693, 1694; Oates 1721 (IV)

Libraries which have other volumes but no vol IV : 

Emory University, Woodruff Library (III), Johns Hopkins (I-III),Walters Library (I, II) SMU (II),

UCLA (I),Uof Minnesota (II).

13

777J Desiderius Erasmus 1466/7-1536

Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami De CONTEMPTU MUNDI.

Lugduni Batavorum, ex officina Ioannis Maire, 1641                                  Price $1,200

Duodecimo 13 x 7 cm. Signatures: A-D¹² E⁶(E⁶ blank), Bound in paper wraper, with release mark from MNtCA by MH-AH 1991 with the bookpate of the Andover Harvard Theological Library.

“His misgivings found expression in one of his first works, De Contemptu Mundi (On disdaining the World, written in the 1490s, published 1521). Ostensibly a praise of monastic life, it began by recommending seclusion and withdrawal from the world but ended in a lament about the decline of monasticism and a warning to postulants not to take the vows rashly. Erasmus himself discovered that he was constitutionally and psychologically unsuited to the monastic life. He would have preferred to go to university. In 1495 he saw a chance to realize this goal when Bishop Hendrik of Bergen sent him to the Collège de Montaigu in Paris and promised him financial support. It is uncertain how much, if any, theological training Erasmus received during his brief stay at the college. In any case, he did not find the Parisian brand of theology to his liking, declaring that scholasticism “repelled him” (CWE 4: 408).When the promised financial support did not materialize, Erasmus left the college, then renowned for its strict discipline and harsh living conditions, and supported himself by tutoring well-to-do young men.”  

  (Erika Rummel and Eric MacPhail, “Desiderius Erasmus”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/erasmus/&gt;.)

Van der Haeghen, Bibl. Erasmiana,; 1, 65; Short title catalogue Netherlands,; 840238592

14

The Letters of Marsilio Ficino represent an essential core of his thought and influence as a chief architect of the Platonic and Hermetic revival, the philosophical and revelatory center of the new learning that was revamping religious vision and humanistic enquiry Italian Renaissance. THIS IS A HIGHLY ANNOTATED COPY

525J Marsilio Ficino 1433-1499

Epistolae Marsilii Ficini Florentini.

[Nuremberg] : Per Antonium Koberger impræsse,  1497
Price $30,000
Imprint from colophon. 


Chancery quarto 15 x 10cm. . Signatures: π¹⁰,A-Z⁸ a-g⁸ h⁴(lacking blank leaf h⁴⁾; Errors in folation: D² signed C²; G² unsigned, G⁴and G⁵ signed G³ and G⁴. Final leaf blank and wanting. Colophon reads: Marsilii Ficini Florentini eloquentissimi viri epistolae familiares per Antonium Koberger impraesse anno incarnate deitatis Mccccxcviixxiiii Februarii finiunt foeliciter./ Place of publication suggested by ISTC.
This copy is bound in seventh century, full vellum. With filled initial spaces, printed guide letters, foliation, without catchwords, The first initial letter is Illuminiated with colours on gilt background with tendrils and an arabesque on margin, red and blue initial letters. There is quite a bit of contemporary  marginalia and underlining. There is an ownership  note from the XVII century handwritten on title-front. Restoration on foot of spine, some damp staining. This copy is better than most of the copies that I have seen in person or online.

                   Paul Oskar Kristeller makes clear below that the Letters of Marsilio Ficino represent an essential core of his thought and influence as a chief architect of the Platonic and Hermetic revival, the philosophical and revelatory center of the new learning that was revamping religious vision and humanistic enquiry Italian Renaissance.

Excerpt from Paul Oskar Kristeller Preface to volume 1 of the Letters of Ficino:   
 “The Letters occupy in fact a very important place in Ficino’s work. As historical documents, they give us a vivid picture of his personal relations with his friends and pupils, and of his own literary and scholarly activities. As pieces of literature, edited and collected by himself, the letters take their place among other correspondences of the time and are a monument of humanistic scholarship and literature. Finally, the letters are conscious vehicles of moral and philosophical teaching and often reach the dimensions of a short treatise. 

Ficino began to collect his letters in the 1470’s, gradually arranged them in twelve books, had them circulated in numerous manuscript copies, and finally had them printed in 1495. The first book contains letters written between 1457 and 1476, and its manuscript tradition is especially rich and complicated. These letters derive great interest from the time of their composition, for they were written at the same time as some of the commentaries on Plato and as the Platonic Theology, Ficino’s chief philosophical work. The correspondents include many persons of great significance: Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici, and members of other prominent Florentine families, allied or hostile to the Medici at different times: Albizzi and Pazzi, Soderini and Rucellai, Salviati and Bandini, Del Nero, Benci and Canigiani, Niccolini, Martelli and Minerbetti. There are two cardinals, Francesco Piccolomini, the later Pius III, a famous patron and bibliophile, and Bessarion, the great defender of Platonism. There is Bernardo Bembo, Venetian patrician and ambassador, Giovanni Antonio Campano, bishop and humanist. Francesco Marescalchi in Ferrara, and Giovanni Aurelio Augurelli from Rimini. There are the friends of Ficino’s youth, Michele Mercati and Antonio Morali called Serafico, and his favourite friend, Giovanni Cavalcanti. There are philosophers and physicians, and there are numerous scholars, of different generations, who occupy a more or less prominent place in the annals of literature: Matteo Palmieri and Donato Acciaiuoli, Benedetto Accolti, Bartolomeo Scala and Niccolò Michelozzi, all connected with the chancery, Cristoforo Landino, Bartolomeo della Fonte and Angelo Poliziano, Francesco da Castiglione, perhaps Ficino’s teacher of Greek, and Antonio degli Agli, bishop of Fiesole and Volterra, Jacopo Bracciolini the son of Poggio, and Carlo Marsuppini, the son of the humanist chancellor of the same name, Benedetto Colucci and Lorenzo Lippi, Domenico Galletti and Francesco Tedaldi, Antonio Calderini and Andrea Cambini, Cherubino Quarquagli and Baccio Ugolini, known for their vernacular verse, and a number of Latin poets: Peregrino Agli, Alessandro Braccesi, Amerigo Corsini, Naldo Naldi and Antonio Pelotti.

ISTC,; if00155000; GW; 9874; Goff; F-155; IGI,; 3864; BM 15th cent.,; II, 443; BSB-Ink,; F-120 Walsh 

Locations :
Boston Public Library,Harvard Library, Countway Library of Medicine (2)
Bryn Mawr ,Claremont Colleges, College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Cornell Free Library of Philadelphia, Library of Congress,  Columbia University, The Morgan Library,Pennsylvania State Univ, Sacramento Public, Smithsonian Institution, Stanford Univ.,Newberry Library, Univ. of California, Univ. of Chicago 
Univ. of Florida, Univ. of Kansas, Univ. of Michigan, Univ. of North Carolina Library, Yale University, University of Toronto.

¹Marsilio Ficino as a Man of Letters and the Glosses Attributed to Him in the Caetani Codex of Dante, Paul Oskar Kristeller. Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 36, No. 1 (Spring, 1983), pp. 1-47 

15

THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY BOOK WRITTEN IN THE COLONIES!

637J. Franck, Richard. (1624-1680?) 

A philosophical treatise of the original and production of things writ in America in a time of solitudes by R. Franck.

London : Printed by John Gain, and are to be sold by S. Tidmarsh at the King’s Head in Cornhill: and S. Smith at the Prince’s Arms in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1687.  (But arguments have been made—most lucidly by Worthington Ford that it might be Boston. or Cambridge)                                          

                                                                                         Price $5,700

Octavo,16 ½ x 10 ½ cm. Signatures: A-M8 N2. Only edition.  This copy is bound in modern quarter calf. 

This is a mysterious book! Who was the printer ?  perhaps  Benjamin Harris, who, having been recently liberated from gaol, may have “borrowed” John Gain’s identity as a safe, obscure, respectable unbrella under which to resume publishing.  Ford, writing in The Boston Book Market 1679-1700, examines the history of the publication of The New England Primer, and not incidentally considers Franck’s book: 

“Who was this “Master John Gaine” who thus holds the first claim to the title New England Primer? He must have been a member of the Stationers’ Company, for he is styled “master,” and presumably was a bookseller but without a known place of business. His name does not appear in the Term Catalogues, and it occurs in the Stationers’ Registers so infrequently as to suggest an unenterprising publisher. […] In 1687 he issued R. Franck’s Phylosophical Treatise of the originall and Produccon of things. Writ in America in a Time of Solitude. On the titlepage of that work [Gain] is a printer. With this second venture pertaining to America [Gain] disappears. […] In 1683 Benjamin Harris had been out of prison a year or more, and his situation would lead him to print over his own name as an advertisement of his reentry into the field. […] Later, when safe in New England, it may be imagined that Harris may have seen the possibilities attached to such a title, and deliberately made Gaine’s still-born proposition his own—an early instance of a pirate publisher on American soil.”

Franck, was a captain in Cromwell’s army during the Battle of Dunbar and other Scots campaigns, lived for a few years in America in the 1680s, during which time he composed his Philosophical Treatise, a strange, euphuistic meditation on God, Mosaic Creation, and the wonders of nature—especially fish and fishing. Franck’s book is now regarded as the first work of philosophy written in North America, though it is a confusing, unfocused text complicated by grossly ornamental language—”the vaporings of a disordered mind,” Charles E. Goodspeed said in his 1943 monograph on Franck. Goodspeed regards Franck as an enigma, and though he researched him deeply, Goodspeed was unable to pinpoint the exact years Franck was in the Colonies, or even where he lived. The most compelling passage relating to America occurs on p. 75, where the Franck asserts:

“The Americans can tell you that Trees grew naturally where the Native Indians never had a being; and were it not for Europes agriculture, and industry; her florid Fields, and flourishing Pasture, would soon feel the fatal stroke of disorder; so become Forrests, and barren Desarts, fit only for bestial and savage inhabitants.”

On p. 34 Franck implies that he actually battled with Native Americans.

And on page 112, Franck, an avocational angler (who is better known for his piscatory Northern Memoirs, published at London in 1694), refers to a fish called the American snite, a term on which the OED is silent.

The imprint of A Philosophical Treatise is London: John Gain, 1687, but arguments have been made—most lucidly by Worthington Ford—that the book might have been printed in Boston, by none other than Benjamin Harris, who, having been recently liberated from gaol, may have “borrowed” John Gain’s identity as a safe, obscure, respectable unbrella under which to resume publishing. 

During the late 1680s colonial printers often closely mirrored London imprints, and visual evidence suggests that A Philosophical Treatise could indeed be a Boston printing, especially the layout of the title page. But more rigorous typographic examination must be performed to support this assertion. Richard Franck, for his part, probably returned to England in the early 1690s, but at some point may have journeyed back to America. Cotton Mather, in his diaries, remarks:

“There is an old Man in the Town, who was a Souldier in the Army of my admirable Cromwel, and actually present in the Battel of Dunbar; he is now come to eighty-eight; an honest Man, and in great Penury. I must releeve him, and look after him.”

Wing F2065; ESTC R20723; Sabin 25467; Alden-Landis 687/65; Barrett, Wendell, ed., Cotton Mather, the Puritan Priest, New York: Dodd; Mead, 1891, p. 244; Ford, Worthington Chauncey, The Boston Book Market, 1679-1700, Boston: Club of Odd Volumes, 1917, pp. 29-33; Goodspeed, Charles E., “Richard Franck,” Bookmen’s Holiday: Notes and Studies Written and Gathered in Tribute to Harry Miller Lydenberg, New York: NYPL, pp. 151-187.

16

557j. Baptistae Fulgosi. 1453-1504

Gutenberg, Columbus and a few other important 15th century guys

A note on Gutenberg, with the comment “a divine invention, and one quite apt for displaying human stupidity” (trans.)

557j. Baptistae Fulgosi. 1453-1504

De Dictis Factisq[ue] Memorabilibus collectanæ Camillo Gilino latina facta.

Milan, Giacomo Ferrari, 22 Juin 1509.                            Price $3,500

Imprint from colophon; which reads: Iacobus Ferrarius Mediolani. x k[a]l[endas] Iulias a redemptione Christiana anno M.D. VIIII. impressit.                                                           Price.    $ 3,500

Folio 31×21,5 cm.  Signatures: A⁶ a-x⁸ y⁶ z⁸ aa-ff⁸ gg⁶ hh⁸ ii⁶ kk⁸ ll-mm⁶ nn-rr⁸ ss⁶ tt⁸ uu⁶.  Editio princeps, a Latin translation of the Italian manuscript original, which was never printed. This copy is bound in full contemporary vellum.

There are comments on Francisco Pico dela Mirandola; Ludovico Sforza, Savonarola, Petrus Sermone-tus and Cardinal Riario among others. There is also a note on Gutenberg, (in the 12th chapter of book VIII signature LLii. Page 294) the comment:

“a divine invention, and one quite apt for displaying human stupidity” (trans.)

This is also one of the early books, recording the discovery of America. 

On sig. LL2 the discovery by Columbus of a way to the Indies, shorter than any known before, is recorded, Fulgosi states that this new way was much easier, shorter, and better than the long and dangerous voyage round the Cape and through the Indian Ocean, by which, Vasco de Gama had sought the same regions. This, constitutes an interesting and very early notice of the two most important voyages in the annals of geographical discovery.

EDIT 16 CNCE 19894 JCB Lib. cat., pre-1675,; 1:49; Alden, J.E. European Americana,; 509/6; BM STC Italian, 1465-1600,; 281Thacher,; II, p. 100 (Miscellanea); Adams,; F1148; Isaac,; 13634; BM STC Italian, 1465-1600,; p. 281; NUC pre-1956Sabin; 26140; JCB; I, 49; Harrisse Additions; no. 34. Libreria Otto Lange. Catalogue No. 48. CATALOGUE OF BOOKS DEALING WITH NORTH AMERICA. Books published before 1551. (1925)

17

559J Halfpenny, John . () 

The gentleman’s jockey, and approved farrier, instructing in the natures, causes, and cures of all diseases incident to horses, with an exact and easie method of breeding, buying, dieting, and otherwise ordering all sorts of horses, as well for common and ordinary use, as the heats and course. With divers other curiosities collected by the long practice, experience and pains of J.H. Esquire, Matthew Hodson, Mr. Holled, Mr. Willis, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Holden, Thomas Empson, Mr. Roper, Mr. Medcalf, and Nathaniel Shaw.

London : Printed for Marcy Browning, near the Royal Exchange, 1681. (the only book printed by Marcy Browning in the ESTC).

                                                                                                              PRICE $1,900

Octavo, 15 x 8.5 cm. Signatures: A-S⁶ T³ ²A³ (Final quire signed T³ A³ with A³ comprising index, possibly meant to be bound as part of the preliminaries) Seventh edition, most likely a pirated edition, Quite rare bound in full contemporary sheep, professional restored, a very good complete copy.

Halfpenny, seems to have authored only one book, this. In this useful hand book as the title promises, method of running, breeding, buying, dieting, and medicating , curing horses. Extremely practical there are 279    “Approved Receipts”. I find the section (chapter?) on How to order, feed, and keep any Horse for Pleasure, Hunting or Travel, particularly interesting for example.

                  “Nor would I have you to distract your mind with any doubt or amazement, because I prescribe you five severe times of feeding in one day, as if it should either overcharge you, or over feed your Horse….”p63

“All editions are rare. There are several variants of the 7th edition also published in 1681. Oddly the UCLA copy on EEBO, which is also dated 1681, has a very similar but clearly diferent plate from the usual one and may be a pirated version (printed by Marcy Browning, and claiming to be the 7th edition), however this same plate appears in the 9th edition as well. Henry Twyford did not produce his 7th edition until 1683 and used the same plate as in this 1681 printing. His last printing was in 1687, the 8th edition. Pagination error: 267 given as ‘297’.” Niall Kenny TA&MU

Wing H283F NO US copy. see above in red

18

  George Herbert (1593-1633) & Christopher Harvey;

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. . price $ 4,500

Duodecimo , Signatures: π⁶ [*⁶](-[*1]) ,A- I¹² K⁶; ²A-C¹², A-B¹²,C⁶ {tricky but complete] Nineth edition of the first book, the second title is a Fifth edition. There were no editions published between 1709 -1799. This copy is bound in 20th century vellum over boards a nice copy.

From The Church Militant

Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,
Ready to pass to the American strand.
When height of malice and prodigious lusts, Impudent sinning, witchcrafts, and distrusts
The marks of future bane—shall fill our cup
Unto the brim, and make our measure up ;
When Seine shall swallow Tiber, and the Thames, By letting in them both, pollutes her streams When Italy of us shall have her will,
And all her calendar of sins fulfil.
Whereby one may foretell what sins next year Shall both in France and England domineer Then shall Religion to America flee ;
They have their times of Gospel even as we. My God, Thou dost prepare for them a way, By carrying first their gold from them away ; For gold and grace did never yet agree ; Religion always sides with poverty.

The text of the Temple includes the pattern poems, “The Altar,” and “Easter Wings” 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’

¶” As the Anglican merges with the greater poet, so the ‘quaint’ writer merges with the metaphysical Herbert had his share of the age’s passion for anagrams and the like, which Addison was to condemn as ‘false wit’ But the poet who could shape a poem in the physical likeness of ‘The Altar’ or ‘Easter Wings’ had, even more than most of his fellows, a functional sense of meter and rhythm. The technical experimentalist and master was, we remember, a skilled and devoted musician. The movement of his verse, taut or relaxed, can suggest all his fluctuating moods, from self-will or weakness to joyful surrender and assured strength. He moves from this world to the world of the spirit ‘As from one room t’another,’ or dwells simultaneously in both, and it is in keeping with that habit of mind, and with metaphysical origins in general, that many of his poems should be allegorical anecdotes, transfigured emblems. Apart from some of his fine dramatic openings, Herbert does not attempt the high pitch of Donne’s ‘Divine Poems’ . His great effects are all the greater for rising out of a homely, colloquial quietness of tone; and peace brings quiet endings- ‘So I did sit and eat;’ ‘And I reply’d, My Lord’ Though the friend and admirer of Donne (and of Bacon), Herbert did not cultivate scholastic or scientific imagery; mature and everyday life, the Bible and the liturgy were his chief sources The highest truth, as he said more than once, must be plainly dressed In spite of his classical learning and his Latin and Greek verse, he avoided the common surface classicism of the time Of the elements of a deeper classicism, if we care to use that name, he had muscular density, precision, deceptive simplicity, and a dynamic sense of form At times his structure may be a winding stair, but it is all built of seasoned timber” (D Bush, English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, pages 137-138).

Wing (2nd ed.), H1521, &, Wing H-1049; Palmer IV, 12.

hen, Bibl. Erasmiana,; 1, 65; Short title catalogue Netherlands,; 840238592

19

697J Hooker (1554- 1600) 

The works of Mr. Richard Hooker, (that learned and judicious divine) in eight books of ecclesiastical polity, compleated out of his own manuscrips [sic]; never before published. With an account of his life and death. Dedicated to the Kings most excellent Majesty, Charles IId. by whose royal father (near his martyrdom) the former five books (then onely extant) were commended to his dear children, as an excellent means to satisfie private scruples, and settle the publick peace of this church and kingdom.

London : printed by Thomas Newcomb for Andrew Crook, at the Green-Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1666.                                                             $3,000

Folio 34 x22 cm. Signatures: π², A⁴(-A⁴),*² a-d⁴e² A-Z^4, Aa-Yy ⁴Zz²,Aaa-Zzz⁴ ,Aaaa-Iiii⁴. [First leaf of text signed B instead of A] COMPLETE. Bound in original full calf, a very crisp and clean copy. With frontis. portrait (plate) of the author signed “Guil. Faithorne sculp:” and additional engraved title page (plate) “Of the lawes of ecclesiastical politie”.

This edition. is edited by John Gauden; the account of the life of Richard Hooker is by Izaak Walton. Cf. DNB. Includes: Travers, Walter. A supplication made to the councel by Master Walter Travers.  This  work offers a carefully phrased reply to the general principles of Puritanism. Book one of the work draws heavily upon the legal thought of Thomas Aquinas to distinguish seven different forms of law; based upon his Aristotelian belief that humans are naturally inclined to live in society. The work influenced not only Anglican thought, but also wider theology, political theory and English prose.

Richard Hooker Of Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie is Hooker’s best-known work, with the first four books being published in 1594. The fifth was published in 1597. while the final three were published posthumously. this Volume is the 1666  Edition and the ONLY One to contain ALL EIGHT LAWS! Of Lawes has been characterized as “Probably the first great work of philosophy and theology to be written in English” The book is far more than a negative rebuttal of the Puritan claims: it is (here McAdoo quotes John S. Marshall) ‘ a continuous and coherent whole presenting a philosophy and theology congenial to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and the traditional aspects of the Elizabethan Settlement.

Hooker’s monumental Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity “formed the basis of Locke’s Treatise of Civil Government and can thus be considered the first statement of the principles behind the Constitution of England” (PMM 104). “Hooker’s work represents not only a solid compendium of philosophical ideas in support of ecclesiastical and secular hierarchy, but a reasoned proposal for an open and tolerant society based on mutual love and respect. The work is recognized as a monument of English prose styleâ ¦ it represents the high-water mark of a prose that is at once lucid and elegant, formally balanced and yet forceful and flowing” (Ruoff, 217). The influence of Hooker’s work, both directly and indirectly through the considerable influence of Locke’s Two Treatises, extends as well to the foundation of American constitutionalism. “Madison and the other framers made frequent reference to Calvin, Richard Hooker, and the New England divines in their political writings, and were vitally aware of the long history of compacts in America” (Lutz & Warren, A Covenanted People, 64).    

 Wing, H2631; Hill #23.

20

344G    Izquierdo, Sebastián1601-1681. Ignatius,; of Loyola, Saint,; 1491-1556.

Praxis exercitiorum spiritualium P.N.S. Ignatti. Auctore P. Sebastiano Izquierdo Alcarazense Societatis Jesu.

Romae : Typis Ioannis Francisci Buagni. 1695                     Price $3,000 

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 as here 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.

The first section begins with an exercise on the First Principle and Foundation which is followed by sections on the five steps of the Examen, Universal and personal sin, Venial sin, On death, Universal judgement, Hell, Christ’s kingdom, Election, The Passion and the love of God. These images are points of departures and give the current 21st century reader a precious example 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 Deadly Sins. Most interesting of these might be the sword marked ‘Vengeance’ it is hanging over the man’s head, the Idleness (Aecida) 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 a methodology to access knowledge, conceived as a single science. In this work, he assimilated Aristotelian and Baconian logic, and he expressed some original ideas on mathematics and logic that have earned their author a reputation as an outstanding mathematician.  Not just like his Spanish contemporaries John Caramuel or Tomás Vicente Tosca , but also significant foreign mathematicians as Athanasius Kircher , Gaspar Knittel or Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , the latter, in particular, cited with, his Disputatio of Combinatione, in Combinatorial Art (1666).

Sommervogel, Vol. IV, col. 701 (#4); Landwehr:Romantic 412.; Praz,p.382

21

Heavily annotated copy of a 1497 Juvenal by a German (Rhenish scholar ca 1511)

670J. JUVENAL. (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) with the commentary of Domitius Calderinus, Georgius Valla and Antonius Mancinellus.

IVVENALIS Anton.Manci. Domici(us) Geor. Val. Argumenta Satyrarum Iuuenalis per Antonium Mancinellum. Príma docet Satyræ caufas: formaq libelli:Qui fimulant curios fatyra patuere Secunda.Ex Vrb: umbrítíí digreffum Tertia narrat.Quarta quidem crifpinu odit:caluuq neroné:Ganeo quæ tolerat parafitus Quinta notauit,Sexta hæc infidas mulieres pandit abundeSeptíma demonftrat Romam nil ferre poctísNobilis Octaua propria uirtute uocatur.Turpia qui tollerant Nona carpuntur  auariCura hominum Decima rerüq; libido notáturArguit Vndecima uates conuiuia lautaBiffena arguitur fatyra captator auarus.Tertia poft decimam folatur damna dolentesIn decima quarta dant parua exempla parétes;Numina diuerfa ægypti penultima monstratVitíma militiæ fœlicis præmia narrat.

[Colophon:] Nurnberge impressum est hoc Iuuenalis opus cum tribus commentis per Antonium Koberger, MCCCXCVII die vero vi Dece[m]bris. [1497]

                                                                                                                               Price $31,000

Folio 30.8 x 21.5 cm. Signatures: A8a–z8&6. This copy is bound in its original * blind stamped half pigskin over wooden boards, lacking clasps.

This copy has been densely annotated by a German humanists circa 1511. This is an important edition with three commentaries from the end of the 15th century by great figures of Italian humanism and following the Venetian edition of Tacuio, 1494/1495-[ISTC ; ij00663000.] Mancinelli; Domizio Calderini and finally, the one by Giorgio Valla, which has a philological importance: reproducing the ancient scholia from a now lost manuscript.

Provenance: 1.German reader, early 1510s. 2. Transfer stamp ” Vend. ex bibl. acad. Rhen.” (“Sold by the Prussian Academy Library,” former library of the University of Bonn, the stamp “Bibliotheca Accademiae Borussicae Rhenanae”, was apparently used in the period 1818-1828. 3. 17th century owner (note on title page with reference to the in-12 Juvenal-Perse published in Amsterdam with Farnabius’ notes in 1631). 4. Marquis Giuseppe Terzi of Bergamo (1790-1819). It does not appear in the catalogs of the sales held in Paris between March 11 and 23, 1861.  5) Joseph Nève, lawyer and bibliophile from Brussels (1857-1940) 6). The book is later in the collection of Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Beaulieu (1905-1995) (ex-libris). 7). It is then in the collection of Jean Stefgen, Joinvillele Pont (1927-2017, bookplate).

This copy profusely annotated (up to satire 6) by a German reader in the first decade of the sixteenth century, as indicated by the diacritical sign above the u’s, its spelling Yason (for Jason), apoptegmata (without ‘h’).

  This incunabulum is  its interesting first binding, Rhenish, half pigskin stamped and bound over wooden boards.

.****Our German reader most likely annotated the work while it was still in quires and disbound, but maybe sewn indeed, some notes are deep in the inner margin. The work was probably annotated before being bound, which caused some minimal trimming of the outside marginal notes. ****

The sources used by the annotator display a strong knowledge in Rhenish humanism, around 1511. This reader was obviously educated in a circle close to the young Beatus Rhenanus and most likely Jakob Wimpfeling at the crossroads of classical and Christian culture. His reading is indeed a mixture of Italian philological and historical commentaries and works of northern humanism (Reisch, Erasmus). Several notes reveal the use of a series of editions published in Strasbourg in 1511: the Hymni heroici tres of Jean-François Pico de la Mirandole with the annotation of Beatus Rhenanus, the collection of ps. Bérose published by Grüninger (with a text

of pseudo Xénophon). Our anonymous reader reads Erasmus’ Adages in an edition by Schürer (c. 1511) and the Praise of Folly, the first editions of which also date from 1511 (Paris, Gilles de Gourmont and then M. Schürer). XXI v. 

The annotator also has recourse to contemporary Italian encyclopedias (Enneades by Sabellico, Commentarii by Volaterranus) to which he adds the reading of Reisch’s Margarita philosophica, the jewel of northern humanism (the editio princeps dates from 1504). The annotator refers to a passage of this work (Book VII, chapter VII) where Atlas is presented as the inventor of astronomy (note on f. CXIIIr: “Atlantem caeliferum fuisse negat Lucrecius. Lege, invenies in Margarita ex Plinio, li 7 ca 2” etc). These readings and references to the editions of 1511 make us think that the annotator plausibly followed a university course held in Strasbourg around 1511, always in  the close circles frequented by Beatus Rhenanus.

The humanist commentary here focuses on word radicals, lexicon,and context (the annotator mobilizes printed commentaries), with little interest in figures. He shows a predilection for natural history (Pliny and Solinus very much in demand) and Roman history in general (the annotator resorts as well to Suetonius as to modern commentaries such as Philippe Béroalde and Sabellico, whose Enneads he quotes several times, f. XXIV v for example).

This erudite reader sometimes commits approximations in his references: he confuses for example a title of. the pseudo-Xenophon with a collection of the pseudo-Beroses. A long quotation of a passage that he attributes to Philippo Beroaldus (the Elder) on f. XXVIIr comes in fact from the Annotationes centum and not from his commentary on Suetonius (see Anthony Grafton, “On the Scholarship of Politian”, Journal of the Warburg, 1977, p. 166). He recopies from memory (incorrectly) on f. VI a licentious epigram by Martial (book VI, 67) & notes in the margin, still on this verse but this time about eunuchs:  

      “Martialis / Cur tantium eunuchos uxor tua Caelia

       quaeris / Pannice vult futui (Caelia) non parere.”

The annotator also has recourse to the vast Latin poetic heritage: Ovid and Seneca on f. II (Vide Ovidium Transformationum… Vide Senecam in Agammemnone); Horace, Satire VI, I (on f. XVr). Also to some poets of late Latinity like Sidoine Apollinaire through an incunabula edition (1498) with commentary. He also gives some suggestions for corrections to the text: f. LIX r to the lemma “caldum”, he refers to the Attic Nights of Aulu Gelle: “emendatius caldus haud (…) quam calidum apud Gellium caldam saepeponitur li 19 ca 4″.Some other notes are:•A reference to the practice of hunts (venationes) in the circus under Domitian, with an anecdote of a certain Maevia descended the pointrine naked in the arena (f. V r). It reproduces  the words of an ancient scholiast of Juvenal: ” Alia indignatio in mulierum impudentiam quae temporibus Domitiani descendebant (?) in venationes et pugnas theatrales ” (words of the scholiast of Juvenal).on the title page, two references to Italian miscellanea from the end of the 15th century. 

•On the title page, two references to Italian miscellanea of the end of the 15th century: one to the freedom of poets toslander, which refers to Pietro Crinito’s De honestis disciplinis (lib. 20 ca. IX), and the other to a complicated passage ofJuvenal explained in chapter 33 of the Miscellanea of Ange Politien (Expositio hujus carminisJuvenalis scilicet occidit miseros Crambe repetita magistros in Miscellaneis ca. 33) This chapter of the Miscellanea explains the very graphic proverb Occidit miseros Crambe repetita magistros which appears in Juvenal’s Satire VII (v. 154), which can be translated literallyby “It is from this cabbage unceasingly re-served that unhappy masters die” to denounce the repetition to which masters are forced to do.

Hain,; 9711; CIBN,; J-368; IGI,; 5601; IBP,; 3322; Kotvan,; 743; Arnoult,; 938a; Zehnacker,; 1378; Goff,; J664; ISTC(online),; ij00664000; GW,; M15734; BM 15th cent.,; II, 443 (IB 7538); Oates,; 1048; Polain (B),; 2402; Pell Ms,;6928; Walsh,; 755; Proctor,; 2116 https://data.cerl.org/istc/ij00664000

22

748J. Juvenal and Persius. tr. Barton Holyday 1593-1661 

Juvenal and Persius, trans. Barten Holyday. (1593-1661) Decimus Junius Juvenalis, And Aulus Persius Flaccus Translated and Illustrated, As well with Sculpture as Notes. By Barten Holyday,D.D. and late Arch-Deacon of Oxon.

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

                                                                                        Price: $2,500

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 is impressive, 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 attackson public 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 2979; ESTC R12290;

23

845J Leigh’s Natural History 1700Leigh, Charles. 1662-1701?

The natural history of Lancashire, Cheshire, and the peak, in Derbyshire: with an account of the British, Phœnician, Armenian, Gr. and Rom. antiquities in those parts. By Charles Leigh, Doctor of Physick.

Oxford: Printed for the Author; and to be had at Mr. George West’s, and Mr. Henry Clement’s, Booksellers there; Mr. Edward Evet’s, at the Green-Dragon, in St. Paul’s Churchyard; and Mr. John Nicholson, at the King’s-Arms, in Little-Britain, London, 1700.                                                        Price $3,500

Folio, 8 3/5 x 13 3/5 in. First edition.Signatures:  π2, A2, a2, [a]1, b-c2, π5, ***2, B-Z2, Aa-Tt2, π6, A-Z2, Aa-Bb2, A-S2, [t]-[v]2, T-V2, π2, X-Z2, Aa-Oo2, Aaa-Ddd2. COMPLETE Overall, this is a really lovely copy. It is bound in nineteenth century quarter calf over decorated paper boards recently rebacked.  The illustrations in this book are magnificent. They consist of twenty-two full-paged engravings of fossils, caves, and other geological sites; a double-paged map with contemporary coloring; two pages of the arms of the subscribers; and a portrait of the author after Faithorne.

Leigh, remembered primarily as a naturalist and a Fellow of the Royal Society, was a physician by profession. He published several works, “the most important of which is a ‘Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire, and the Peak of Derbyshire’.” (Thomas)

The text of this volume is most intriguing; it is, all in one, a catalogue of antiquities, an archaeological survey, and a freak show. One of the author’s many goals is to demonstrate and prove, by producing artifacts and animals from far flung corners of the world, that a huge flood covered the whole earth and dislodged hippos from the home lands, planting them in the mud of Lancashire. The plates include ‘The devil’s arse,’ a woman with horns, Greek carved tablets, fossils, birds, skulls, and crustaceans.   ….twenty-two full-paged engravings of fossils, caves, physical anomalies, artifacts monstrous births, aberrant weather and other difficult to explain occurrences; a double-paged map with contemporary coloring; two pages of the arms of the subscribers; and a portrait of the author after Faithorne.

Leigh, remembered primarily as a naturalist and a Fellow of the Royal Society, was a physician by profession. He published several works, “the most important of which is a ‘Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire, and the Peak of Derbyshire’.” (Thomas) The text of this volume is most intriguing; it is, all in one, a catalogue of antiquities, an archaeological survey, and a freak show, medical book and classical history book.

One of the author’s many goals is to demonstrate and prove, by producing artifacts and animals from far flung corners of the world, that a huge flood covered the whole earth and dislodged hippos from the homelands, planting them in the mud of Lancashire.  His investigations   begin with a description of the weather and the physical environment (the temperature and pressure of air, the “principles” of mineral waters, soil and coal, minerals and metals) and performs experiments to demonstrate the properties of these various substances and their effects upon humans and animals.  He are also describes the  flora and fauna, with several long passages on trees and plants, and an entire chapter dedicated to marine biology and “Fossile Plants”.   With this evidence, Leigh ‘proves’ the historical reality of the “Universal Deluge” by producing artefacts in Lancashire that were never naturally occurring and therefore must have been swept to England in the Flood.

‘In Book II,  Leigh turns to a discussion of Physick, beginning with a description and comparison of variously textured solid substances, including shells, taken from “a man’s leg, a man’s stool, the bladder of a hog” and other surprising places. The rest of the second book concerns various ‘distempers’ including an account of a “The Pestilential Fever raging in Lancashire, in the years 1693, 94, 95, 96”. Leigh discusses the symptoms of each illness, provides case studies, offers medicinal cures, and posits causes, giving the reader a vivid and unadulterated understanding of the state of 17th century Medical arts.

Wing L975.

The Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 32 tells us,  LEIGH, CHARLES (1662-1701 ?), physician and naturalist, son of William Leigh of Singleton-in-the-Fylde, Lancashire, and great-grandson of William Leigh [q.v.], B.D., rector of Standish, was born at Singleton Grange in 1662. On 7 July 1679 he became a commoner of Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 24 May 1683. Wood records that he left Oxford in debt and went to Cambridge, to Jesus College, as is believed. He graduated M.A. and M.D. (1689) at Cambridge. He was on 13 May 1685 elected F.R.S. When Wood wrote his ‘Athenæ Oxonienses,’ Leigh was practising in London; but he lived at Manchester at a later date, and had an extensive practice throughout Lancashire.

leigh_126Some of his papers read before the Royal Society are printed in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ and he published the following separate works: 1. ‘Phthisologia Lancastriensis, cui accessit Tentamen Philosophicum de Mineralibus Aquis in eodem comitatu observatis,’ 1694, 8vo; reprinted at Geneva, 1736. 2. ‘Exercitationes quinque, de Aquis Mineralibus; Thermis Calidis; Morbis Acutis; Morbis Intermittentib.; Hydrope,’ 1697, 8vo. 3. ‘The Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire, and the Peak in Derbyshire; with an account of the British, Phoenic, Armenian, Gr. and Rom. Antiquities found in those parts,’ Oxford, 1700, fol. This contains a good portrait after Faithorne as frontispiece. He also wrote three pamphlets in 1698 in answer to R. Bolton on the ‘Heat of the Blood,’ and one in reply to John Colebatch on curing the bite of a viper. 

He married Dorothy, daughter of Edward Shuttleworth of Larbrick, Lancashire, with whom he received a moiety of the manor of Larbrick, afterwards surrendered in payment of a debt owing by Leigh to Serjeant Bretland. He left no issue. His widow died before 1717.

He is said to have died in 1701, but there is some doubt on this point, as Hearne, writing on 30 Oct. 1705 (MS. Diary, iv. 222), says : ‘I am told Dr. Leigh, who writ the “Natural History of Lancashire,” has divers things fit for the press, but that he will not let them see the light because his History has not taken well.’ But I feel it was well worth reading!

[Wood’s Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 643, iv. 609; Fish-wick’s Kirkham (Chetham Soc.), pp. 183, 189; Nicholson’s Engl. Hist. Libr. ed. 1776, p. 13; Earwaker’s Local Gleanings, 4to, i. 68; Ormerod’s Cheshire (Helsby), i. xxxiii; Dugdale’s Visitation of Lancashire (Chetham Soc.), p. 183; Malcolm’s Lives, 1815, 4to; Whitaker’s Whalley, 1818, p. 26; Gough’s Brit. Topogr.; Corresp. of K. Richardson of Bierley, p. 25; Raines’s Fellows of Manchester College (Chetham Soc.), i. 184; Derby Household Books (Chetham Soc.), p. 119; Thoresby’s Corresp. i. 390; J. E. Bailey’s MSS. in Chetham Library, Bundle No. 7.]

24

779G   Nicholas Ling    fl. ca. 1599      

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.              Price $3,900    

Duodecimo 14.5 x 8 cm [5 ¾  x 3 ¼ 4 inches,] A-O¹². Bound in ninteenth century full calf edges gilt Bound by Loyd a very lovely copy. Book plates of Herbert S. Leon and Arthur Thomas Fowler          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.”)

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- 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           

25

671J Titus Livius (59BC-AD17) , Marcus Antonius Sabellicus.(1436-1506); Johannes Andreae, and others

[Titi Livii Historiae romanae decades I, III-IV, cum Johannis Andreae Epistola et L. Flori Epitome decadum XIV. Praemittuntur M.A. Sabellici epistola et annotationes.].

Venice : (no printer) [Johannes Rubeus Vercellensis], 5 Nov. 1491

Imprint[Matteo Capcasa (di Codeca)], [Bernardinus Herasmius-                $12,000

Super-chancery folio: 33.5 x 22 cm. Signatures π⁶, a¹⁰ b⁶ c¹⁰ d-n⁸ aa-ii⁸ kk-ll⁶, A-G⁸ H¹⁰

 (π⁶, a¹,n⁸ blank and present)  Bound in sixteenth century vellum. This copy is profusely annotated,from beginning to end by a clear contemporaray hand  There seems to controversies over who printed this volume. Goff, CIBN, IGI, and Polain assigns it to [Matteo Capcasa (di Codeca)]: Sheppard notes that, although the types are indistinguishable, the layout suggests Rubeus rather than Capcasa as the printer. BMC and Hain suggest another 1493 edition.

Fifteenth century Humanists saw Livy’s work as a model of classical eloquence, and his emphasis on traditional Roman virtues and stoicism proved immensely influential on Renaissance humanism. Additionally, Livy’s emphasis on the power of human agency in historical events was praised as a rejection of fatalism and a sign of the Renaissance focus on individualism and human potential.

The text of Livius’ History survives in ten books referred to as Decade, but only three of the original fourteen were known in the late Middle Ages, with the first, third, and fourth books eventually circulating together. His work was highly influential in the Renaissance and was widely read during the 15th century, particularly in Italy. Several Italian humanists, such as Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini, made extensive use of Livy’s works in their own writings, and it is thought that Livy’s work played a significant role in shaping the humanist movement.

“The Renaissance was a time of intense revival; the population discovered that Livy’s work was being lost and large amounts of money changed hands in the rush to collect Livian manuscripts. The poet Beccadelli sold a country home for funding to purchase one manuscript copied by Poggio. Petrarch and Pope Nicholas V launched a search for the now missing books. Laurentius Valla published an amended text initiating the field of Livy scholarship. Dante speaks highly of him in his poetry, and Francis I of France commissioned extensive artwork treating Livian themes; Niccolò Machiavelli’s work on republics, the Discourses on Livy, is presented as a commentary on the History of Rome.”

Goff L245; Walsh 2421; Bod-inc L-123; H 10137*; ; GW M18491; Polain(B) 4529; IGI 5778; IBE 3530; Sheppard 4119; BSB-Ink L-193.

26

522J   Martin Luther 1483-1546.

            Drey Biechlin zü letst von dem Hochberümbtenn vnnd Ewangelischen Lerer Doctor Martin Luther aussgangenn. Nemlich von dem Deütschen Adel. der heiligē Mesz dem Babstumb zü Rom. 

 [Strasbourg] : [Matthias Schürer Erben], (1521-1522?).     Price $ 2,900

Quarto  20 x 15 cm. A-B ⁴ C ⁸ D-E ⁴ F ⁸ G-H ⁴ I ⁸ K-L⁴ M⁸ N-O⁴ P⁸ Q-R⁴ S⁶. Bound in modern 1/4 deer with some hair still on the leather., water stained throughout with paper damage in the lower margin, not affecting the text contemporary marginal notes red and capitals stroked in red. 

This is a wonderfully visible example of large bearer type on the reverse of the title page.

https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb11230143?page=2,

VD 16 L 3763; Luther WA 6: 282 M (and 351 O, 400 P) ;Benzing (Luther) 12; Benzing (Schürer Erben [1961])

End of 

The End of Part 1

A-L : April 1