1. [ANON.]. Diogene conteur ou les lunetes de verité. Suives de la

bibliotéque naturéle & d’un recueil de contes & de poësies. [N.p., n.p.],

1764.

8vo, pp. x, 236; woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces; separate title for

Bibliotéque naturéle; red edges; slightly stained, else a very good copy in

contemporary calf, spine gilt, rubbed.

£550

First edition, rare, of this curious contemporary satire of Jean-Jacques

Rousseau, variously portraying him as the ancient Cynic philosopher

Diogenes and as the arrogant crow of the fables, full of self-puffery, who

has swindled his cheese from ‘Jean le beau conteur’ i.e. Jean de la

Fontaine. Diogenes was a common trope of the enlightenment,

frequently and derisively associated with Rousseau, who was later known

to Kant as the ‘refined Diogenes’. The author of this attack occupies the

bildungsroman form of Rousseau’s L’Emile (1762) to spoof its views on

education. The narrator receives a pair of magical lunetes de verité from

a mysterious white-haired philosopher, which enable him to reveal the

true nature of his fellow citizens; at first they appear to be perfectly

civilized, but they are in fact vain, miserly, cruel and ambitious. The

book’s ‘moral’ tales, poems and fables constitute a more direct and

vicious attack on Rousseau and his philosophy with their grotesqueries of

humans and animals alike.

Not in COPAC. Besides a handful of copies in French libraries, OCLC

lists Ottawa, Augsburg, Freiburg, McGill and Texas only.

Not in Conlon. See Louisa Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment (2010),

pp. 94-105.

ROUSSEAU ATTACKED

2. BARON, Robert. Mirza. A Tragedie, really acted in Persia, in the last

Age. Illustrated with historicall Annotations. London: Printed for Humphrey

Moseley … [1655?].

8vo., pp. [16], 264; some pen trials to title page, damp-staining to upper left

corner throughout; otherwise a good copy in nineteenth-century half red

morocco and marbled boards; marbled endpapers.

£850

First edition of Baron’s last literary endeavour, a violent revenge tragedy

influenced by Jonson’s Catiline, mostly in verse, packed with political intrigue,

murders ‘and Seraglio’s too’, all fitting subjects for its exotic setting.

Mirza is a virtuous prince whose father, the murderous King Abbas, attempts

to assassinate him but relents just as Mirza is being throttled. Alive, but in the

palace dungeons, Mirza plots his revenge. Discovering that his daughter,

Fatima, is now the favourite of her grandfather Abbas’s immense seraglio,

Mirza calls her to his cell and strangles her. After Mirza takes his own life, the

grieving Abbas relents of his wickedness before dying.

Besides its colourfully incestuous and bloodthirsty plot, Mirza is fascinating for

the author’s mask of historical authenticity: it is a tragedy ‘really acted in

Persia’ – its source being the letters written from Persia by the diplomat

Dodmore Cotton, also the source for John Denham’s similar tragedy, The

Sophy (1641). The historical ‘truth’ of the play is supported by over two

hundred pages of annotations, by which Baron offers the ‘Key to Every Lock’.

Mirza was meant to be ‘read and carefully digested’ and is, ‘by the standards of

its day, an exceptionally long and elaborate play’ (Birchwood, Staging Islam in

England).

EMBASSY TO MEHMED IV

3. BURBURY, John. A Relation of a Journey of the Right Honourable my

Lord Henry Howard, from London to Vienna, and thence to Constantinople;

in the Company of his excellency Count Lesley, Knight of the Order of the

Golden Fleece … London, Printed for T. Collins and I. Ford … and S.

Hickman … 1671.

12mo, pp. [8], 225, [25, advertisements], wanting the blanks A1, A6 and M6;

edge of title-page browned, else a very good, crisp copy, in contemporary calf,

some restoration to spine, modern label, new pastedowns; contemporary

ownership inscription and shelfmarks of the antiquary Daniel Fleming;

booklabels of G. J. Arvanitidis and Henry Blackmer II.

£5750

First and only edition of this account of a special embassy to the court of

Sultan Mehmed IV, undertaken in 1664-5 by Walter Leslie, the Scottish-born

Ambassador Extraordinary of the Holy Roman Empire. In his party was

Henry Howard, later sixth Duke of Norfolk, along with the author, Howard’s

secretary John Burbury, and Henry’s brother Edward.

‘It has been stated that, on account of the dedication [in verse, addressed to

‘His Majestie’, i.e. Charles I], this piece must have been published before

1649, but as it was not entered in the Stationers’ Register until 1655, and as the

Thomason copy is dated 5th May [1655], that is doubtless the date of

publication’ (Pforzheimer).

Pforzheimer 43; Birchwood, p. 74; Greg, II, 744.

Burbury is a lively narrator, with an eye for social commentary and incidental

detail. There is much on the Ottoman possessions in Europe, from Buda (in

ruins, the great library ‘being almost consum’d by Moths, Dust and Rats’)

down the Danube to Novi Sad and Belgrade, and then overland to Sofia,

Adrianople (where they met with the Grand Vizier and exchanged feasts and

gifts) and Constantinople. In general Burbury is rather dismissive of his

Turkish hosts, and while ‘The Janizaries lookt like stout fellows’ and had

excellent muskets, the horses are loose-necked, the houses mean, their

discipline lax and punishments harsh, and their music ‘the worst in the World

… like Tom a Bedlam, only a little sweetened with a Portugal like Mimikry’.

‘But I cannot omit the cleanliness of the Turks, who as they had occasion to

urine … afterwards wash’d their Hands, as they do still before and after their

eating’.

Howard had been schooled on the Continent during the Commonwealth,

becoming de facto head of a royalist, Catholic family at the age of 14. He

returned to England after the Restoration, inheriting his grandfather’s great

library and collection of art, including the Arundel marbles, which John

Evelyn persuaded him to give to Oxford University. ‘Evelyn thought Howard

had great abilities and a smooth tongue, but little judgement … Like his

grandfather, he travelled widely, visiting Vienna and Constantinople in 1665,

and going at some point to India’ (Oxford DNB). He played only a minor

role in the present embassy, though he was later dispatched to Morocco in a

similar capacity.

Atabey 165; Blackmer 236 (this copy); Wing B 5611.

4. COTTEAU, Edmond. Promenade dans l’Inde et à Ceylan. Paris: E. Plon

et Cie, 1880.

12mo in alternating 12s and 6s (171 x 107mm), pp. [4 (half-title, imprint on

verso, title, blank)], 432, [2 (errata, blank)]; wood-engraved publisher’s device

on title, folding lithographic map by L. Sonnet, printed by Imprimerie

Becquet, with routes added by hand in red; scattered light spotting, heavier on

flyleaves and half-title, short, marginal tears on flyleaf and half-title, short,

skillfully-repaired tear on map; contemporary French hard-grained roan

backed cloth, spine gilt in compartments, lettered directly in gilt in one, others

paneled with gilt and blind rules, boards with borders of blind rules enclosing

blind panel, textured endleaves, all edges gilt, green silk marker; extremities

very lightly rubbed and bumped, otherwise a very good copy; provenance:

Helene Morrell, 8 April 1900 (inscription on flyleaf).

£200

First edition. The journalist and travel writer Cotteau (1833-1896) was a

member of the Société de Géographie de Paris and the Club Alpin Français,

and travelled extensively through the Americas, Russia, India, and East Asia.

He published a number of successful works based on his journeys, including

Six mille lieues en soixante jours (Auxerres: 1877), an account of his travels in

North America, and Promenade autour de l’Amérique du Sud (Paris: 1878),

which were reissued together as Promenades dans les deux Amériques, 1876-

1877 in 1880. The present work was also published in 1880, and is an

account of Cotteau’s journey to Sri Lanka and then through the Indian

subcontinent, between October 1878 and February 1879.

Cotteau explains in the first chapter that, ‘[j]’ai toujours eu le désir de visiter les

contrées de l’extrême Orient. L’Inde surtout, avec son immense population,

ses monuments si vantés, sa nature si différente de celle de nos climats

TRAVELS THROUGH SRI LANKA AND THE

INDIAN SUBCONTINENT IN 1878-1879

tempérés, exerçait sur moi une véritable attraction. Les relations des

voyageurs, leurs descriptions enthousiastes contribuaient à m’entretenir dans

les mêmes idées’ (p. 1). Despite this fascination, the expenses, anticipated

time required, and the difficulties of such an expedition had always deterred

Cotteau; however, the reports of the Prince of Wales’ visit to India in 1875-

1876, during which he traversed the Subcontinent within a relatively short

space of time, and the increasing number of steamer routes which were not

only faster but also cheaper, convinced the writer to undertake his expedition.

Starting in Sri Lanka, Cotteau criss-crossed the Subcontinent from North to

South, from Mysore to the Himalayas, working across from Calcutta to

Lucknow, Delhi, and Lahore, and then south-west to Bombay.

Asia continued to fascinate Cotteau, and his later travels are described in De

Paris au Japon à travers la Sibérie (Paris: 1883), Un touriste dans l’Extrême-

Orient: Japon, Chine, Indo-Chine et Tonkin (Paris: 1884), and En Océanie

(Paris: 1888), an account of his circumnavigation of the globe in 365 days in

1884-1885.

5. [CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY.] Album of exterior and interior

photographs of Cambridge Colleges. 1870s.

Album of fifty-eight albumen prints, mostly 6 x 7⅞ inches (15.24 x 20 cm.)

with three larger approx. 8¼ x 10½ inches (20.9 x 26.67 cm.), some minor

fading but images clear and crisp, mostly mounted one per page on rectos and

versos, two bookplates for Clifton Waller Barrett (one loosely laid in) each

with later manuscript additions ascribing former ownership to William

Winfield; black morocco lined with blue silk, somewhat rubbed, ruled gilt,

small paper label titled ‘Oxford’ to spine, all edges gilt, 4to., 10¾ x 14 inches

(27.3 x 35.5 cm.).

£1750

A good survey of Cambridge University buildings from an early date, including

one view of the site at Trinity Hall in circa 1872 where rundown buildings on

the east side of the Porter’s or smaller court had been demolished, later to be

replaced by those designed by Alfred Waterhouse. Other subjects include

Newnham College, interiors of the Wren Library, Peterhouse College, King’s

College including the Chapel and a good series of views of and from the

bridges along the Cam. Although there is no indication of the photographer’s

identity it seems likely to be that of one of the earlier professionals in the city,

possibly W. Nicholls, who advertised that he already had over 200 views of the

colleges by 1865 or Hills & Saunders who established their Cambridge base in

1869.

Clifton Waller Barrett was the grandson of Kate Waller, Virginia’s first female

physician. He became a shipping magnate, author, bibliophile, and creator of

the Barrett Library of American Literature at the University of Virginia.

Manuscript notes on the bookplates state that the photographs were taken for

William Winfield and later given to Robert Winfield Rennie, who married

Barrett’s daughter, Katie.

6. DREYER, Georges, Lieutenant Colonel, R.A.M.C. A Simple

Procedure for Testing the Effects of ‘Oxygen Want’ on Flying Men.

[?London: Air Medical Research Committee], [1918].

8vo (249 x 158mm), pp. 4; diagram and mathematical formulae in the

text; original blue printed wrappers; extremely lightly creased and

marked, generally a very good copy; provenance: number ‘21’ stamped

on upper wrapper (to identify document recipient?).

£150

First edition. Pathologist Georges Dreyer (1873-1934), born into a

Danish Navy family, studied natural sciences in Denmark, Germany

and England with a ‘passionate precision of technique and a loathing of

slipshod thought [that] characterized all his work’; was appointed to the

chair of pathology at Oxford at the age of only 34 (the first of a number

of posts and honours he would accumulate over the years); and

naturalized and elected a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1912.

‘During the First World War he […] was commissioned in the Royal

Army Medical Corps […] [and] instituted, in 1915, the standards

laboratory at Oxford which for the next thirty years provided this

country and the dominions with scientifically standardized reagents for

serological diagnosis. Later came investigations on the quantitative

estimation of tuberculin, on variations in the virulence of the tubercle

bacillus, and on the preparation and use of immunizing reagents against

tuberculosis’ (ODNB).

THE FIRST PLAN OF THE STANDARD SCIENTIFIC OXYGEN TESTING

APPARATUS FOR AIRMEN IN WORLD WAR I

This article describes Dreyer’s plans for testing ‘the effects of “oxygen want”

on flying men whether for selection or for the purpose of testing staleness,

flying fatigue or other symptoms’ through a ‘procedure that eliminates other

complicating effects of a decreased atmospheric pressure on the organism’

(p. 1), specifically with an apparatus first presented here in a diagram. It was

reprinted, with the other Air Medical Research Committee papers, in the 1920

volume The Medical Problems of Flying, published by the Medical Research

Council, which noted that Dreyer ‘was afforded facilities [in France] for the

perfection of an oxygen apparatus devised by himself, which eventually came

into general use’ (p. 3). This article forms a significant element of Dreyer’s

‘war work on the oxygen supply to aircrews and on the diagnosis of enteric

fever, [for which] he was appointed CBE in 1919’, and elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society in 1921 (ODNB).

This first separate edition is rare, and we can only trace one example in

COPAC (Leeds University Library).

7. [ENGINEERING STUDIES.] Urban and estuary bridges, a large bridge

component awaiting placement at St. Alban’s, the architecture of goods yards,

a level crossing and the aftermath of a railway accident, 1906–1932.

11 photographs (4 platinum prints and 7 collodion printing-out paper prints),

ranging from approximately 8½ x 10¼ inches (21.8 x 26.3 cm.) to 9⅜ x 11¼

inches (9x 23.8 x 28.7 cm.); all numbered, titled and dated in negatives except

one with manuscript number, title and date in ink in bottom left corner; two

with pencil printing annotations to verso, one with previous owner’s ink stamp

to verso, overall good.

£650

A fine group of railway photographs, by an unidentified photographer. One

photograph taken the day after the Peterborough train crash depicts the site

where a Midland Great Northern Joint Railway Companies train crashed into

a brake van and through the stop into a house at 40 mph. The house’s

residents – a railway worker named Cole and his family – escaped without

significant injuries. No doubt the publicity and hearsay surrounding this even

drew in enthusiastic ‘trainspotters’, including this unidentified photographer.

The photographer visited Sharpness on at least two occasions: one view shows

the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal alongside the Severn, with the swinging

section of the Severn Railway Bridge over the canal in the open position.

Other views show the Bridge in dramatic perspective. The other photographs

depict railway yards, crossings and bridges, including the junction at Bow,

where the North London Railway and the Great Eastern Railway separate –

taken in the same year as the last steam locomotive was built at Bow (1906).

Incidental or possibly even annoying, to the photographer at the time, but now

of more interest, is the animated shopping street viewed below the splendid

Lipton’s advertisement painted on the side of the railway bridge at

ENGLISH RAILWAYS IN THE AGE OF COAL Southend-on-Sea (overlaid with a warning sign advising persons not to stand

up on vehicles as they pass under the bridge) and the multiple posters on the

hoardings in the foreground of the Barnoldswick level crossing.

The uniform numbering and dating system in the negatives suggest they are

the product of one studio or that the series was created by a single amateur

focussed on railways and industry. The titles are: ‘No 2 Sharpness Jan 1906’;

‘59 Bow Mar 1906’; ‘83 Dewsbury Apr 1906’; ‘62 Sharpness July 1908’; ‘63

Sharpness July 1908’; ‘75 Barnoldswick June 1913’; ‘25 St. Albans Apr 1914’;

‘42 Luton June 1914’; ‘7 Southend on Sea Jan 10 1922’; ‘64 Peterborough

Aug 15 1922’; and ‘54 Peterborough June 22 1932’.

8. [ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE AND GARDEN HISTORY.] DIXON,

Charles (photographer). St. Anne’s Hill, near Chertsey on Thames, Surrey,

1908–1910? and Holland House, Kensington, circa 1880.

Album of sixty-eight collodion printing-out-paper prints, each around 5½ x 7½

inches (14 x 19 cm.), mounted one per page with some on facing pages, pencil

captions to mounts in two separate hands, mounts somewhat bowed, brittle at

corners with two small pieces detached, two sections separately titled in ink “I

St. Anne’s Hill, Nr Chertsey-on-Thames, Surrey’ (51 photographs) and ‘II

Holland House Kensington’ (17 photographs) with additional notes in pencil

expanding on the title for section I ‘Photos taken, about 30 years since, by Mr

Dixon, Head Gardener, at Holland House, South Kensington. Sir Albert

Rollit obtained duplicates from Mr. Dixon 1910.’, ownership inscription on

front free end, ‘Albert L. Rollit St. Anne’s Hill, Nr Chertsey-on-Thames,

Surrey’ dated ‘1910’ with additional dates ‘1908’ and ‘1921’ in pencil; full red

roan, front cover almost detached, all edges gilt, 4to.

£900

Fine images of various aspects of the garden design, specimen trees and

shrubs, the duck pond, garden buildings including ‘Farm Cottage’, ‘Summer

House’ (both designed by Charles James Fox), ‘Temple on the Hill’, ‘Nun’s

Well’, ‘Head Gardener’s Cottage’, The Golden Grove pub at the foot of the

hill and thirty-four splendid interior photographs, these perfectly showcasing

the richness and flamboyance of the owner’s taste in interior decoration and in

his collections of art and antiques in the house and the conservatories.

The second section, on Holland House, is prints made also circa 1910 from

earlier negatives. In less detail it shows the exterior of the house, five interiors

and copies of eight portraits.

Charles James Fox MP (1749–1806), the third son of Henry Fox, later Lord

Holland, married Elizabeth Armistead in secret in 1795 and they lived at St

Ann's Hill House. The property passed to Lord Holland in 1842. Sir Albert

Kaye Rollit (1842–1922) owned St. Ann’s Hill in the 1910s. He was a British

politician, lawyer (president of the Law Society), businessman and politician,

Mayor of Hull and Conservative MP for South Islington. In 1892 he put

forward a private member’s bill in favour of women’s suffrage, which failed

narrowly. He was also awarded an honorary degree from the Victoria

University of Manchester in February 1902, in connection with the jubilee

celebrations of the establishment of the University and was elected a Fellow of

the Royal Horticultural Society in the same year. Charles Dixon, the head

gardener, plantsman and Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society, is here also

credited as the photographer.

In the 1930s the 18th-century house was demolished and the architect

Raymond McGrath was commissioned to build a new modern house (1936–7)

on the same site, known as St Ann’s Court.

WITH OVER 50 YEARS (1775-1827) UNCUT, IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS

9. GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE (The): or, Trader’s monthly Intelligencer

… Number I. [–CIII, and Supplements, New Series I–XXVIII, and indexes]

… London, Printed for R. Newton [and others] … 1731[–1849].

175 annual or biannual vols, wanting the volume for Jan-July 1809 and a few

single issues 1846-8, but with the ‘Extraordinary’ issue of verse following July

1735 and a few individual issues 1850-1866, plus the List of Plates (1813) and

the five General Index volumes (1818-21); with an unusually full complement

of engraved and woodcut plates (several thousand in total, including the hand-

coloured woodcut plates in 1752-5); vols 1-44 in contemporary half-vellum

and marbled boards (four vols in contemporary calf); vols 45-97 in original

parts, uncut, mostly preserving the original blue paper wrappers, the general

title and preface bound at the front, bound in annual or biannual volumes

(brown boards, paper spine, often with printed labels, spines and joints mostly

rather worn), except 49 (1779) in half calf and 1801-1804 in blue boards; vols

98 (1828:1) to 103 (1833:2) in contemporary half-calf; New Series Vol 1

(1834:1) to 25 (1846:1) in contemporary half morocco; New Series July 1846

to December 1849 loose in original printed wrappers; the Index volumes

uncut in original boards.

£8500

An extremely good set of the first ‘magazine’ so called, an innovative

periodical of news, commentary, poetry, and reviews launched and edited by

Edward Cave under the pseudonym ‘Sylvanus Urban’. It was the most

popular and enduring journal of the eighteenth century – Benjamin Franklin’s

General Magazine took the periodical as its pattern ten years later – and its

circulation grew from an estimated 250 copies of the first printing of the first

issue to 9000 copies by 1734. Having advertised for his school in the

magazine, Samuel Johnson achieved his first literary employment here,

submitting some verse and a biography in 1738. He then became a long-term

contributor, bringing particular renown to the Magazine with his parliamentary

reports, stylised as the ‘Debates’ of the Senate of Lilliput, which he wrote

entirely in 171-44, bringing circulation to some 15,000. Among other

highlights, the Magazine features some outstanding maps of America, and an

early printing of the Declaration of Independence (in August 1776).

Illustrative plates were slowly included as the Magazine grew more successful,

the first being a frontispiece to the annual volume for 1735; from 1747 there

was an least one plate per issue, and the illustrative content would eventually

encompass maps, travel, architecture, military history, science and technology,

natural history (with a series of hand-coloured woodcuts in the 1750s) etc. etc.

So frequently were copies of the Magazine raided for their plates that when

Samuel Ayscough produced his General Index to the first fifty-six Volumes in

1789, working from file copies, he listed no more than half the actual number

of illustrations featured. The present copy lacks no more than eight plates in

the whole of the eighteenth century.

The early numbers were reprinted as many as nine times to meet unexpected

demand, as were for example the numbers issued during the Jacobite rebellion

in 1745. In addition to these early re-impressions and re-printings, there have

been counterfeits, many subsequent reprints, facsimile reprints and new

editions through the 18th and 19th centuries, with the result than many library

sets contain very mixed contents. Not only is the present set free from

facsimiles, but it includes some 50 years’ worth of monthly issues entirely

uncut and bound preserving the original printed wrappers – a vast resource of

bibliographical information containing advertisements for recently published

works, auctions, subscriptions, medicines etc. Numbers I-II are in their third

printing, Numbers III-V in their second, both these reprints issued in July

1731. From number IX the name changed to The Gentleman’s Magazine: or,

Monthly Intelligencer.

Provenance: substantially from the same source (a few lacunae supplied), with

ownership inscriptions, and occasional annotations, in the early volumes of

‘[Arthur] Charlet Esq’, later volumes with that of his heir Richard Bourne

Charlett, of Elmley Castle, Worcester, from c. 1789 until his death in 1822.

See Todd, W. B. ‘Bibliographical account of The Gentleman’s Magazine,

1731-1754’, in: Studies in Bibliography 18 pp. 81-109 (1965).

10. GILLES, Pierre. The Antiquities of Constantinople. With a Description

of its Situation, the Conveniencies of its Port, its Publick Buildings, the

Statuary, Sculpture, Architecture, and other Curiosities of that City … In Four

Books … Now Translated into English, and Enlarged with an Ancient

Description of the Wards of that City, as they stood in the Reigns of Arcadius

and Honorius. With Pancirolus’s Notes thereupon. To which is Added a

Large Explanatory Index. By John Ball. London: [William Bowyer] ‘for the

benefit of the translator’, 1729.

2 parts in one volume, 8vo (196 x 120mm), pp. i: [16 (translator’s dedication,

translator’s preface, contents)], 1-295, [9 (index)]; ii: [1]-6, [1 (blank)];

engraved frontispiece by J. Tinney after Angeloni, engraved title by Tinney, 11

engraved views, plates, maps, and plans, by Tinney after Grelot, et al., 3

folding, one engraved tailpiece, and wood-engraved head- and tailpieces and

initials; occasional light spotting or scorch-marks, lightly browned, light

offsetting from frontispiece on title; contemporary British calf gilt, borders

with borders of double gilt-rules, spine gilt in compartments, all edges

speckled red; extremities rubbed and scuffed, splitting on joints, otherwise a

very good, crisp copy; provenance: German Pole (d. 1765, ownership

signature on title; presumably by descent to his nephew:) – [Edward

Sacheverell Pole (1717-1780); presumably by descent to his son:] –

Sacheverell Pole, Radbourne Hall, Derby (1769-1813, engraved armorial

bookplate on upper pastedown).

£1800

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION OF ‘ONE OF THE MOST COMPLETE

AND ACCURATE EARLY ACCOUNTS OF

BYZANTINE AND OTTOMAN CONSTANTINOPLE’

First English (and first illustrated) edition, one of 1,000 copies on demy paper.

Ball’s work is a translation of two works by the French classical scholar,

antiquarian, and natural historian Pierre Gilles (c. 1489-1555), who visited

Constantinople in 1544-1547 and 1550, and also undertook explorations and

surveys of the coasts of the Mediterranean and Adriatic. Gilles published two

works on Turkey; the first was his account of the topography of Istanbul,

which was first published as De topographia constantinopoleos, et de illius

antiquitatibus at Lyon in 1561, and was issued in a second edition at Leiden in

1632. The second was his account of the Thracian Bosphorus, De bosphoro

thracio, which was also published at Lyon in 1561 and then issued in a second

edition at Leiden in 1632.

Together, these were ‘among the earliest works to describe Constantinople

and the Thracian Bosphorus. They provided authentic and reliable sources of

information for early travellers; Coryate carried copies of both works with him.

Gilles accompanied d’Aramon’s embassy to the Porte in 1547; he was charged

with searching for Greek manuscripts and antiquities on behalf of Francis I.

During his travels he met André Thevet […] and they toured Asia Minor

together. Gilles’ books are not journals of his travels but accounts of the

antiquities and archaeology of the places he visited. He died at Rome in 1555,

and his works on Constantinople were edited and published posthumously by

his nephew Antoine Gilles’ (Blackmer 684). Koç notes that Gilles’ work

contains ‘one of the most complete and accurate early accounts of Byzantine

and Ottoman Constantinople’, and adds that, ‘[a]mong other achievements, he

rediscovered the vast 6th-century Basilica Cistern built by Justinian […] The

cistern, whose area is around 9,800 square metres, is supported by 336 marble

columns and remains one of the city’s most extraordinary sights’ (16).

This translation of the two titles was the work of John Ball, an alumnus of

Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who explains in his preface that his translation

will provide a record of historical Constantinople, since it is ‘not now to be

compar’d with it self, as it stood in its antient glory. The Turks have such an

aversion to all that is curious in learning, or magnificent in architecture, or

valuable in antiquity, that they have made it a piece of merit, for above 200

years, to demolish, and efface every thing of that kind; so that this account of

the antiquities given us by Gyllius, is not only the best, but indeed the only

collective history of them’ (p. [8]). The appendix to the first part (pp. 285-295)

is a translation of ‘a valuable passage, relating to the statues of Constantinople,

demolished by the Romans’ (p. [10]), which was taken from a manuscript of

the second book of Nicetas Choniates in the Bodleian Library and brought to

the author’s attention as the book was going to press. The Bowyer Ledgers

records that the work was printed by William Bowyer in an edition of 1,000

copies on demy paper, 56 on royal paper, and 4 on writing royal paper (1455).

Atabey 498; Blackmer 688; Cox I, pp. 222-223; ESTC T88595; Koç 16a;

Weber II, 679.

11. GORDON, George Hamilton, 4th Earl of ABERDEEN. An Inquiry

into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture; with An Historical View

of the Rise and Progress of the Art in Greece. London: Thomas Davison for

John Murray, 1822.

8vo (192 x 116mm), pp. [4 (title, imprint, ‘Advertisement’, blank)], 217, [1

(blank)]; Roman and Greek types; very occasional light spotting, heavier on

title, bound without final blank P6; 19th-century British half calf over marbled

boards, spine gilt in compartments, gilt morocco lettering-piece in one, others

with central flower tools enclosed by leafy sprays, lettered directly with the date

at the foot of the spine, grey-green endpapers, all edges sprinkled red;

endpapers and flyleaves slightly spotted, extremities lightly rubbed and

bumped, spine slightly darkened, otherwise a very good copy; provenance:

early pencil marking and one annotation (slightly cropped) – Chichester

Samuel Parkinson-Fortesque, 1st Baron Carlingford and 2nd Baron Clermont

(1823-1898, his bookplate as Baron Carlingford).

£675

AN ASSOCIATION COPY, FROM THE LIBRARY OF A GOVERNMENTAL

COLLEAGUE OF ‘ATHENIAN ABERDEEN’

First separate edition. The scholar and politician Gordon (1784-1860) was

educated at Harrow School and St John’s College, Cambridge, and succeeded

to the earldom of Aberdeen in 1801. He undertook a Grand tour through

Europe to the Levant in 1802-1804, travelling to Constantinople with William

Drummond, who would replace Lord Elgin as the British ambassador. On

his return, he was elected to the Society of Dilettanti and the Society of

Antiquaries in 1805 (becoming president of the latter in 1811, remaining in

office until 1846), became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1808, and was

appointed a Trustee of the British Museum in 1812. Indeed, such was his

fame as an antiquarian that Byron, his cousin, described him as ‘the travelled

Thane, Athenian Aberdeen’ (English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (London:

1809), p. 39).

In 1808 Aberdeen acquired Argyll House, off Oxford Street, London, and

undertook major alterations with the assistance of his friend and collaborator,

the architect and antiquarian William Wilkins. An Inquiry into the Principles

of Beauty in Grecian Architecture was first published in 1812 as an

introduction to Wilkins’ translation of The Civil Architecture of Vitruvius

(London: 1812-1817), which was dedicated to Aberdeen. It was then revised

and reprinted in this edition – as the ‘Advertisement’ states, ‘[v]arious

additions and corrections have […] been made, in the hope of rendering the

whole less imperfect’ – which was reprinted in 1860 by John Weale.

Aberdeen embarked upon a distinguished political career in 1806, when he

was returned to Parliament as a representative Scottish peer, and he was

Wellington’s Foreign Secretary (1828-1830), Peel’s Colonial Secretary (1834-

1835), and Peel’s Foreign Secretary (1841-1846), before taking power as Prime

Minister in 1852, leading of a coalition which held power until 1855. This

copy was previously in the library of Aberdeen’s political associate, the

politician and antiquarian Chichester Parkinson Fortesque, who was educated

at Christ Church, Oxford, had travelled through Greece and Albania in

1846-1847, and moved in artistic and scholarly circles, counting Lear, Millais,

Ruskin, Monckton Milnes, and Watts amongst his friends. In 1847 he was

elected Member of Parliament for Co. Louth, and served as a junior Lord of

the Treasury in Aberdeen’s administration between 1854 and 1855. His later

political career saw him hold the positions of Under Secretary of State for the

Colonies, Chief Secretary for Ireland, President of the Board of Trade, Lord

Privy Seal, and Lord President of Council, before he left Parliament in 1885,

at the end of Gladstone’s second administration.

Blackmer 708; BAL 1251.

12. HILL, Rowland. Village Dialogues, between Farmer Littleworth and

Thomas Newman, Rev. Messrs. Lovegood Dolittle and Others. The second

Edition, with Corrections and Additions. [Entered at Stationer’s Hall].

London: Printed for T. Williams, Stationer’s Court, Ludgate Street, 1801.

12mo, pp. 126, [6, ads]; a good copy in contemporary quarter sheep and

marbled boards, worn, spine defective, manuscript paper label to front board

reading ‘Village Dialogues’; early ownership inscriptions of ‘Mary May’ and

‘Ann May’ of Upwell, Norfolk, one dated 1811; with Francis Jackson’s ‘Relics

of Charles Lamb’ bookplate.

£425

Second edition of Rowland Hill’s pious dialogues, possibly Charles Lamb’s

copy.

The book takes the form of a series of conversations about religious matters,

loosely structured around the departure, religious conversion, and return of

the prodigal Henry Lovegood.

The slightly worn appearance of this copy is typical of Lamb’s books, though it

is apparently somewhat above the standard of the rest of his library, which

Henry Crabb Robinson described to as ‘the finest collection of shabby books I

ever saw; such a number of first-rate works of genius, but filthy copies, which a

delicate man would really hesitate touching’. Describing the thought and care

that Lamb put into building his library, the bibliographer William Carew

Hazlitt concluded that ‘The history of Lamb’s books is more humanly

interesting than the history of the Huth or Grenville library’.

On Lamb’s death, his books were inherited by the publisher Edward Moxon,

who left them in situ with Lamb’s sister, Mary (who Charles had lived with and

cared for ever since she stabbed their mother to death in a bout of insanity).

‘RELICS OF CHARLES LAMB’ When Mary herself died in 1847, Moxon sent sixty of the best books to

America for sale, reportedly destroying the rest. However, sometime after

Moxon’s death, a number of Lamb’s books were purchased at ‘Edward

Moxon’s sale’ by one Francis Jackson, ‘Citizen, Merchant and Ship Owner of

London’, who inserted bookplates describing them as ‘Relics of Charles

Lamb’. Some 116 such books apparently bought by Jackson from Moxon’s

sale, later passed to his eccentric grandson Richard Charles Jackson. At least

one we have traced, Owen’s Book of Fairs (1778) (Christies, The Halsted B.

Vander Poel Collection of English Literature, 3 March, 2004, lot 107) seems

to contain annotations in Lamb’s hand.

13. IBN WAHSHIYYA, Abū Bakr Ahmad and Joseph von HAMMER-

PURGSTALL, translator. Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters

Explained; With an Account of the Egyptian Priests, their Classes, Initiation,

and Sacrifices, in the Arabic Language by Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahshih.

London: Printed by W. Bulmer and Co. …; and sold by G. and W. Nicol,

1806.

4to (204 x 158mm), pp. [2 (title, blank)], xxi (translator’s preface), [1 (blank)],

[2 (section title, blank)], 54 (author’s preface, English text), [2 (blank l.)], 136

(from rear, Arabic text); numerous hieroglyphic characters in the text; very

occasional very light foxing; later half calf gilt over marbled boards, boards

with gilt rules, spine divided into 6 compartments by ornamental gilt rules and

raised bands, gilt red morocco lettering piece in one, central gilt masonic

symbols in others, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled; extremities lightly

ribbed and bumped with very small surface losses, overall a very good copy;

provenance: engraved emblematic masonic bookplate by W. Phillips Barrett,

1900, with motto ‘deus meumque jus’ and Scottish Rite rank ‘Supreme

Council 33’ on front pastedown (cancelled with ink rules).

£1250

First edition. Attributed to the Iraqui scholar Ibn Waḥshiyya al-Nabaṭī (the

alchemist and Egyptologist, and one of the first to decipher Egyptian

hieroglyphs) around the turn of the 10th century, the Kitab Shauq Al-

Mustaham fi Ma'irfat Rumuz Al-Aqlam, a treatise on 93 ancient alphabets and

hieroglyphs, had been known and used by Western scholars – including

Athanasius Kircher for his work on hieroglyphics – in its Latin incarnation in

the early modern period. However, it then became one of the earliest Arabic

texts to be translated into a modern European language with this edition.

Austrian orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, who, in the service of the

British Empire during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, found the manuscript

at Cairo in 1800/01, translated it likely during his stay at London and Oxford a

HIEROGLYPHS AND ORIENTALISM – FROM A MASONIC LIBRARY few years later, and published it after his employment as Secretary to the

Imperial Legation in Constantinople (1802 to 1804). Prior to the publication

of Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained Hammer-

Purgstall had only published an encyclopaedic overview over oriental sciences

translated from seven Arabic, Persian and Turkish sources, but he would later

gain much fame as defender of the Viennese libraries against plundering by

the Napoleonic troops, and as father of the study of oriental poetry and culture

in the German lands.

Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained presents the

English translation of (pseudo-)Washiyya’s text together with the Arabic

version, appropriately bound into the ‘back’ of the book and, like the English

text, progressing towards the centre. Perhaps especially noteworthy as a

premise for the eighteenth-century development of the occult sciences and

societies are the ‘The alphabet of Hermes’, alphabets attributed to ancient

figures such as Plato, Pythagoras, Socrates and Aristotle, and alphabets related

to cabbalistic, secret or magical practices.

14. KER, William, editor. Un recueil tiré des autheurs François, tant en

prose qu’en vers, pour l’utilité de la jeunesse qui desire de s’avancer dans la

langue Françoise. A Edinbourg, chez Monsieur Baskett & Compagnie, 1727.

8vo, pp. [ii], iv, [2], ix-xvi, 396, [2]; title in red and black; occasional light

marginal foxing, a few quires lightly browned, short closed tear to lower

margin of X3; a very good copy in contemporary calf, ‘Ms C E’ stamped in gilt

to covers, spine gilt in compartments with red lettering-piece (chipped), gilt

board edges, red and gilt floral endpapers (gilt mostly worn away); a little

rubbed and marked, corners slightly bumped; ownership inscription ‘Robt.

Laurie 24th Jany 1764’ to front free endpaper.

£200

LEARNING FRENCH IN SCOTLAND

The provenance of this book alone shows its popularity with occult circles: the

bookplate (relating to the highest rank (33°) in the Scottish Rite) marks it to

have been part of a Masonic library, and it also formed part of the Peabody

Library in 1883. The work was among the holdings of the royal library at

Vienna, the library of orientalist William Marsden, and that of William Butler

Yeats, who was a member of the Theosophical Society and the Order of the

Golden Dawn from 1888/1890.

Bibliotheca Arabica 431; Gay 1748; Ibrahim-Hilmy I, 15; Pratt, Ancient

Egypt, p. 301; Zenker, Bibliotheca Orientalis I, 799.

See also details to front cover.

First edition of an uncommon anthology of French literature chosen ‘pour la

commodité de ceux qui etudient le François’, with an extensive list of Scottish

subscribers. Apart from prose (Aesop, Telemaque, extracts from Fontenelle)

and verse (Le Lutrin, fables of de la Motte), there are a number of plays

including Le Medecin Malgré Lui, Le Cid, and Tartuffe. This was Ker’s first

publication, a product of the growing vogue for French in Scotland at the time,

and was followed by two grammars of the language in 1729 and 1734, and a

second anthology in 1737.

ESTC T128244. See The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland Vol. 2,

p. 215-216.

15. JOHN OF SALISBURY. Policraticus, sive de nugis curialium, et vestigiis

philosophorum, libri octo. Accedit huic editioni eiusdem Metalogicus. Cum

indice copiosissimo. Leiden, Joannes Maire, 1639.

8vo, pp. [xvi], 931, [1]; title in red and black with engraved device, initials; a

very few light marks; a very good copy in 17th-century dark brown calf, blind

fillet border with small corner fleurons to covers, blind filleting to spine, red

edges; joints a little worn and slightly cracked at head, two small holes at foot

of spine; ownership inscriptions of ‘Phil. Whitefoot’ and ‘Christopher Baret

Anno 1647’ to front free endpaper, manuscript notes in 17th-century hand to

rear free endpaper.

£600

Attractive Maire edition of the two principal works of the twelfth-century

scholar, diplomat and bishop of Chartres, John of Salisbury, both completed

by 1159 and dedicated to Thomas Becket. The Policraticus was first

published c.1480, and the Metalogicon in 1610 (in an incomplete and faulty

Paris edition).

‘On the Policraticus (‘The statesman’) more than on any other of his works ...

rests John’s reputation as a humanist scholar. It was very widely read later in

the middle ages ... In eight books John explores the opposition between the

pursuit of philosophy and the habits of courtly life. The Policraticus seems to

be at once a work of political theory, a manual of government, a mirror of

princes, a moralizing critique of life at court; and also an encyclopaedia of

letters and learning, a storehouse of exempla and historiae, and a didactic

philosophical and ethical treatise. It recommends to lax, epicurean courtiers a

wide programme of education in letters, philosophy, and law. Although it is

certainly fat, the work is not in fact as loosely organized as it first appears:

ON POLITICAL THEORY AND EDUCATION John seems to have started upon it when, in disgrace with the king, he

meditated on the theme of fortune (book 7). Then he wrote a ‘mirror of

princes’ (book 4), and then the books on courtiers. Finally in the summer of

1159 he expanded these essays, and bound them all together in eight books.’

(Oxford DNB). ‘The Metalogicon was written to defend the study of all the

seven liberal arts from becoming streamlined and narrowly career-orientated.

The work is the fruit of John’s years of study during which he had learned the

value of a broad education in which the powerful weapons of dialectic are

mastered, but kept under control by a firm grounding in grammar and the

other liberal arts.’ (Ibid.).

Brunet III, 547.

16. LIVY. T. Livii Patavini Romanae historiae principis decades tres, cum

dimidia, partim Caelii Secundi Curionis industria, partim collatione meliorum

codicum iterum diligenter emendatae. Eiusdem Caelii S. C. praefatio,

summam continens de mensuris, ponderibus, reque nummaria Romanorum

et Graecorum ... Basel, Johann Herwagen, 1555.

Folio, pp. [xvi], 829, [292]; engraved device to title and last page, engraved

initials; small closed tear to lower margin of title, a little worm tracking to blank

lower margins of quire a, short tears to p. 521-24 with loss of a few letters; else

a very good copy in contemporary (Dutch?) blind-stamped vellum, red edges,

rebacked with gilt lettering-piece laid down; some marks and a little soiling;

some neat near contemporary marginal annotations, Dover College Library

bookplate to front pastedown.

£500

Handsome folio edition of Livy’s immense history of Rome edited by the

Basel-based Italian humanist and grammarian Celio Secondo Curione (1503-

69) and issued by the press of the eminent Basel printer Herwagen (1497-

c.1558), publisher of Luther, partner in the Froben publishing house, and

friend of Erasmus. The critical apparatus to Livy’s text here includes extensive

notes compiled by the Swiss humanist Heinrich Glarean (1488-1563) and his

tabular chronology of Roman history, beginning with ‘Troia Capta’.

Adams L1343; BM STC German, p. 521; VD16 L 2098.

17. [LONDON.] Otto giorni a Londra e nei dintorni, guida pratica illustrata,

contenente i cataloghi ufficiali della Galleria Nazionale, del Museo Britannico e

della Torre di Londra, ecc. ecc. Edizione Sonzogno. Milan, Edoardo Sonzogno,

May 1862.

8vo, pp. 125, [3, including index], with 4 plates; half-title; some light foxing at

beginning and end, a little creasing to corners; a very good copy in the original

printed wrappers (dated June 1862); slightly stained, small hole (repaired) to lower

cover.

£450

Scarce illustrated guide to London published to coincide with the 1862

International Exhibition to help the Italian tourist get the most out of their visit to

the English capital. Sonzogno’s guide begins with some entertaining general

comments, including a remark on how quiet Londoners are among all the city’s

hustle and bustle – the visitor might think himself in a city of deaf mutes, the

writer claims. There follows praise for the politeness of the policemen, words of

warning against thieves, advice on money matters and transport (including cabs

and omnibuses), details of accommodation to fit different budgets, remarks on

the food (roast beef, boiled vegetables, and Chester cheese), and handy phrases

and vocabulary for dining out (including the essential ‘Give me some beer’).

There are nice descriptions of, for example, the British Museum, Houses of

Parliament, Tower of London, Thames Tunnel, Tussauds museum, Windsor,

Hampton Court, and Crystal Palace, and a wealth of recommendations for

palaces, churches, parks and gardens, docks and bridges, and theatres to visit. In

spite of the Otto giorni of the title, the guide suggests a programme of visits for 10

days in the capital, regretting that on Sunday the only thing to be done is do like

the English: go to church and stroll in the parks. This charming guide concludes

with a table of projected expenses for the trip (for first and second class travellers)

and blank pages for a week’s worth of notes.

We have been unable to trace any copies on OCLC. SBN records copies in six

Italian libraries.

FOR THE ITALIAN VISITOR TO LONDON

18. [OXFORD.] DAY, George P. (photographer). Views of the city and

University colleges, [1874].

Album of twenty-five albumen prints, each around 6½ x 4½ inches (16.5 x

11.4 cm.), mounted one per page on rectos only, the subjects neatly identified

with purple ink manuscript titles on the mounts, a little foxing to endpapers

and one or two mounts not affecting images, small label of ‘Hills & Saunders,

Oxford & Cambridge’ to inside front cover, yellow endpapers, brown

morocco, extremities rubbed and some damp-staining to back cover, ruled

and initialed in gilt ‘R. K. L. 1874.’ on front cover, all edges gilt, sm. 4to.

£750

Opening with a panoramic view of the city taken from Magdalen Tower, the

album continues with a good selection of views of the Colleges including

interiors of the Divinity School and the Dining Hall and Cathedral of Christ

Church, and a pair of views of Broad Walk in summer and winter.

An attractive souvenir of the University from the period just before

commercial view photography really took hold, therefore exhibiting a higher

quality of finish and attention to detail than one might expect of an average

tourist album from the later decades of the 19th century.

It is thought that George P. Day was in partnership with William Henry

Wheeler from 1866–1871 at 106 High Street (Wheeler & Day). He opened

his own studio at 95 High Street in 1875. Other prints from at least some of

the same negatives have been identified as the work of Day from another

album with the photographer’s label.

19. PLATO. La disciplina civile di Platone divisa in quatro parti, et riformata

da Troilo Lancetta Benacense. Venice, Guerigli, 1643.

Folio, pp. [viii], 334, [38]; with large engraved arms of the dedicatee, Emperor

Frederick III to the title, running titles, printed shoulder notes, woodcut

initials, head- and tail-pieces; a very good, clean, attractive and unsophisticated

copy in strictly contemporary, perhaps original limp vellum; a few smudges

and a scuff on the surface; two engraved ex libris (Nicolao de Nobili, Gelardi)

on the front pastedown, ownership inscription on the half-title.

£600

Very rare first edition (3 copies in the US, 1 in the UK) of this translation of

Plato’s political writings in the Republic and Laws by Troilo Lancetta, a

humanist and student of the scientist and philosopher Cesare Cremonini.

In an interesting variation on the theme of the Renaissance genre of the

Mirror of Princes, Lancetta translates the work in which Plato emphasizes the

importance of civic virtue (a ruler should aim for the common good) together

with personal virtue (the notion of the ‘just man’) in the make-up of a good –

indeed ideal - ruler. Particularly poignant, in the mid-seventeenth-century, is

the passage in Book V, in which Plato asserts that until rulers have the nature

of philosophers or philosophers become the rulers, there can be no civic

peace or happiness. Lancetta dedicated his translation to the Holy Roman

Emperor Ferdinand III Absburg, then implicated in the political complexities

of the Thirty years War. The year after he received this dedication, Ferdinand

III gave to all rulers of German states the momentous right to conduct their

own foreign policy (ius belli ac pacis), in an attempt to secure allies in the

negotiations with France and Sweden.

Rare. Outside Europe, OCLC finds 3 copies in the US (Berkeley, Penn State,

Lincoln Nebraska) and one in the UK (BL).

‘THESE PANCAKES TASTE MORISH’‘to Transpeciate, Van gestalte veranderen’ – Sewel’s lexicon bristles with

modern terms, such as ‘the Royal Society’ and ‘Deism’, as well as the earliest

appearance in print of the term ‘morish’: ‘these pancakes taste Morish, Deeze

pannekoeken smaaken naar meêr’.

Alston, XIII, 95; Kennedy 2841; Wing S 2825. N. E. Osselton, The Dumb

Linguists: a Study of the earliest English and Dutch Dictionaries, 1973.

20. SEWEL, William. A New Dictionary English and Dutch, wherein the

Words are rightly interpreted, and their various significations exactly noted.

Enriched with many elegant Phrases and select Proverbs: and for help to the

English, the Particles de and het placed before the Dutch Nouns. Whereunto

is added a small Treatise concerning the Dutch Pronunciation; and the right

Use of the Dutch Particles de, die, deeze, and het, dat, dit. Nieuw

Woordenboek der Engelsche en Nederduytsche Taale [etc.] … t’Amsterdam,

by de Weduwe van Steven Swart … 1691.

4to, pp. [8], 728, [24], 431, [1], 72, with an additional engraved title-page

(‘English and Low-Dutch Dictionary. Neder-Duytsch en Engelsch

Woordenboek’) depicting the lexicographer at work, by Jan Luyken; title-page

printed in red and black; a little dusty, engraved title-page remounted, else a

good copy in contemporary stiff vellum, new endpapers.

£600

First edition. Sewel’s New Dictionary was the second Dutch–English

dictionary, following that of Hexham (1647). ‘Sewel is more precise than

Hexham … and generally distinguishes more meanings’ (Osselton), as well as

providing definitions for political, legal and ecclesiastical terms neglected by

his predecessor: ‘Tory’, ‘Appenage’, ‘Lollards’. ‘All of this is quite remarkable

for a man who spent only ten months in England, some twenty years before

…’.

The English component is largely based on the English–Latin dictionaries of

Coles and Robertson, but is complemented by Sewel’s own work as a

translator (he contributed the Dutch version of Hydrotaphia, and probably of

Religio Medici, to the first Amsterdam edition of the Works of Thomas

Browne, and later translated Boyle, Burnet, Congreve and Penn). As well as

words and phrases duly taken from Browne – ‘Ossuary, een Beenhuysje’,

21. SMART, James Francis. The Steam Packet. A Poem. In two Parts.

With other detached poetical Pieces, moral, sentimental, and humorous …

Albion Press: Printed by Wansbrough and Saunders … Bristol. Sold by the

Author at his Residence, Chepstow; and by the principal Booksellers in

London, Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, Hereford, Monmouth, Newport, Ross,

and Chepstow. 1823.

Large 12mo, pp. [16], [9]-100, with a folding lithographic frontispiece of the

steam-packet in Bristol harbour, and a list of subscribers; a fine copy uncut in

the original boards, remains of printed paper label to spine; small stain to front

board, spine chipped; bookplate of J. O. Edwards.

£975

First and only edition. The extraordinary first poem is written in praise of the

steam packet The Duke of Beaufort, which sailed between Bristol and

Chepstow. Smart is a lyrical exponent of steam technology, announcing his

intention ‘To write of furnaces and flues / Vast iron boilers, valves, and screws’

(though he modestly claims that he couldn’t do his subject justice, even if his

pen ‘had … the power of steam’). Despite these protestations, there is

something steam-powered about Smart’s verse which forges forward in

propulsive iambics. The poem is far from grimly mechanical however, one

charming section describes a shipboard party to which various guests

contribute songs. The other poems collected here include an elegy for a dove,

a verse ‘Advertisement for a Wife’, and a sympathetic piece about a girl’s

reluctance to go to school.

THE BRISTOL STEAM PACKET: ‘VAST IRON BOILERS, VALVES, AND SCREWS’ The subscribers chiefly belong to the respectable society of Chepstow and

Bristol; notable among their number is the ship’s namesake, the Duke of

Beaufort himself (who ordered twenty copies).

Jackson, Annals, p. 497; Johnson, Provincial Poetry, 836.

EMBLEMS WITH DUTCH QUATRAINS SUPPLIED IN MANUSCRIPT

22. VEEN, Otto van. Amoris divini emblemata, studio et aere Othonis

VaenI concinnata. Antwerp, ex officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1660.

4to, pp. 127, [1]; with 60 engraved emblems, engraved vignette to title; very

light marginal foxing, very light damp stain to fore-edge margin p. 41-52; a very

good copy in contemporary vellum, title inked to spine; bookplates of Bob

Luza and Buijnsters-Smets and bookseller’s ticket of S. Emmering to front

endpapers.

£2750

A handsome copy of the 1660 edition of van Veen’s emblem book on divine

love, first published in 1615, this copy with apparently unpublished four-line

stanzas in Dutch neatly added in manuscript, in the late seventeenth century,

beneath each of the 60 engraved emblems. The Flemish painter and

humanist van Veen (also known as Vaenius, 1556-1629) is famous for his

emblem books and as the teacher of Peter Paul Rubens. He conceived the

Amoris divini emblemata as a spiritual counterpart to his book of secular love

emblems, the Amorum emblemata of 1608, and its subsequent influence

makes it the starting point of an important tradition in religious emblem

books. Each emblem here has a Latin caption and quotations, a Spanish

tercet by the conceptist poet Alonso de Ledesma, and octaves in Dutch and

Latin by van Veen and Carolus Hatronius.

According to a neatly inscribed note in Dutch on the front flyleaf, the

handwritten Dutch quatrains which considerably enhance this copy were

composed by Catharina Potteij, daughter of Hermanus Potteij, and Maria

Thielenus of Middelburg, whose dates are given as 1651-1718.

Landwehr 838; Praz p. 526.

Our recent lists:

Love

Russian Literature

Politics

Winter Miscellany

Continental Books

Seven Deadly Sins

Christopher Hogwood: ABCD

Cover images: Ancient Alphabets, item no. 13