| 633C |
Hall, Joseph. (1574-1656)
The Works Of Joseph Hall Doctor in Diuinitie, and Deane of Worcester.
With a Table newly added to the whole Worke.
London: Printed for Thomas Pavier, Miles
Flesher, and John Haviland, 1625
$1,700
Folio, 12.75 x 8 in. Fourth collected edition of the works. A6 (lacking
the initial blank A1), B-Z6, Aa-Rr6, A6, B4, Ss-Zz6, Aaa-Zzz6, Aaaa-Mmmm6,
Gggg-Kkkk6 (Gggg1 cancelled and removed), Llll-Mmmm8, Tttt-Zzzz6,
Aaaaa-Hhhhh6, Iiiii8, Kkkkk-Zzzzz6, Aaaaaa-Cccccc6 (lacking final
blank). This copy is bound in modern quarter calf and marbled paper
boards, with a spine label. It is crisp and clean with only one or
two insignificant paper repairs.
“Thomas Fuller’s swift assessment of Joseph Hall’s
immense production — ‘not unhappy at controversies, more
happy at comments, very good in his characters, better in his sermons,
best of all in his meditations’ — suggests something of
his range and versatility, and also of his service to the Church of
England in its most embattled period. The son of a formidably pious
mother who, as he recalled, was ‘oft’ afflicted with a ‘wounded
spirit,’ Hall was also a product of Emmanuel College, Cambridge,
a fertile seedbed of dissent, and therefore he might have been expected
to turn into a Puritan. Instead, he became an adornment of the Jacobean
church, and in the course of a long and active life wrote so many
works in verse and prose that the British Museum Catalogue of Printed
Books requires six double-column pages just to list their titles.”
(Baker)
STC 12635; ESTCS 92830.
|
|
| 694C |
Heinsius, Daniel. (1580-1655)
Danielis Heinsii Poemata Latina et Græca.
Amsterdam: Ex Officina Janssonii, 1649
SOLD
Duodecimo, 3 x 5 in. *6, A-Z12, Aa-Dd12,
Ee&Ff6 (Ff5& Ff6 blank). This copy is in very good condition.
It is bound in full contemporary German parchment with yapp edges
and the edges of the text stained sprinkled red. The binding is in
excellent condition.
“Daniel Heinsius, one of the most famous scholars of the Dutch
Renaissance, was born at Ghent on the ninth of June 1580. The troubles
of the Spanish war drove his parents to settle first at Veere in Zeeland,
then in England, next at Ryswick and lastly at Flushing. In 1594,
being already remarkable for his attainments, he was sent to the University
of Franeker to perfect himself in Greek under Henricus Schotanus.
He stayed at Franeker half a year, and then settled at Leiden for
the remaining sixty years of his life. There he studied under Joseph
Scaliger, and there he found Marnix de St. Aldegonde, Janus Douza,
Paulus Merula and others, and was soon taken into the society of these
celebrated men as their equal. His proficiency in the classic languages
won the praise of all the best scholars of Europe, and offers were
made to him, but in vain, to accept honorable positions outside Holland.
He soon rose in dignity at the University of Leiden. In 1602 he was
made professor of Latin, in 1605 professor of Greek, and at the death
of Merula in 1607 he succeeded that illustrious scholar as librarian
to the University. The remainder of his life is recorded in a list
of his productions. He died at the Hague on the twenty-fifth of February
1655. The Dutch poetry of Heinsius is of the school of Roemer Visscher,
but attains no very high excellence. It was, however, greatly admired
by Martin Opitz, who was the pupil of Heinsius, and who, in translating
the poetry of the latter, introduced the German public to the use
of the rhyming alexandrine.” (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Rahir 2013.
|
|
| 710C |
Herbert, George. (1593-1633),
and Christopher Harvey. (1597-1663) The Temple. Sacred Poems, And
private Ejaculations. By Mr. George Herbert, late Oratour of the University
of Cambridge. The Eighth Edition, with an Alphabeticall Table for
ready finding out chief places. Psal. 29. In his Temple doth every
man speak of his honour.
[bound with] The Synagogue, Or, The Shadow Of The Temple. Sacred Poems,
And Private Ejaculations; In imitation of Mr. George Herbert. Plin.
Sec. lib. I. Ep. 5. Stultissimum credo ad imitandum non optima quæque
proponere. I do esteem’t a folly not the least To imitate examples
not the best. The third Edition, corrected and enlarged.
London: Printed by R.N. for Philemon Stephens, at the Gilded Lyon
in S. Pauls Church-yard, 1660
London: Printed for Philemon Stephens, at the guilded Lion in Pauls
Church-yard, 1657
SOLD
Duodecimo, 5.5 x 3.2 in. Eighth edition/Third
edition. [*]6, A-I12, K6; A-C12. This copy is in good condition internally,
in later boards, which have been recently rebacked.
“By far the most important labor of these closing years was the
completion, revision, and arrangement for the 164 poems (in some 140
different stanzaic patterns) that in 1633 were published as The Temple.
Herbert’s final disposition of these famous lyrics, as Walton
tells the story, was itself a votive gesture. Although long plagued
by failing health, he himself had made no plans for publication. At
last, as he lay dying he handed them to Edmund Duncon, an associate
of Ferrar’s at Little Gidding. ‘Sir,’ he told his visitor,
‘I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and
tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts
that have passed betwixt God and my soul before I could subject mine
to the will of Jesus my Master, in whose service I have now found
perfect freedom. Desire him to read it; and then, if he can think
it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be
made public, if not, let him burn it, for I and it are less than the
least of God’s mercies.’ A few weeks later (1 March 1633)
he was dead at thirty-nine.” (Baker)
Wing H-1519/Wing H-1047.
|
|
| 881A |
Hierocles, of Alexandria.
(fl. 430) Commento Di Ierocle Filosofo Sopra i versi di Pitagora,
Detti d’Oro, Volgarmente tradotto da Dardi Bembo. Nel quale con
singolar dottrina s’insegna ciò, che conuiene effercitarsi
dall’huomo Ciuile per viuere Moralmente. Et per poter, ascendendo
alla cognitione delle cose Celesti, far acquisto della somiglianza
Diuina. Aggiuntoui la Tauola delle cose in esso contenute. Al Santissimo
Padre, & Signor Nostro Clemente VIII. Pont. Massimo. Con Licenza,
Et Privilegio.
Venice: Appresso Barezzi, Libraro alla Madonna, 1604
$400
Quarto, 8.75 x 6 in. †4, ††4, A-Y4.
The title page is dirty and spotted but the contents are quite clean,
with one worm trail in the gutter toward the end of the text. The
text is printed in a large clear Roman type face. The binding is full
contemporary Italian limp vellum. There is a hole in the vellum in
the center of the spine, and the vellum is dirty, otherwise, the binding
serves its purpose.
“[Hierocles of Alexandria], a neo Platonist, who lived at Alexandria
about the middle of the fifth century, and enjoyed a very great reputation.
He is commonly considered to be the author of a commentary on the
golden verses of Pythagoras, which is still extant, and in which the
author endeavors to give an intelligible account of the philosophy
of Pythagoras. The verses of Pythagoras form the basis, but the commentator
endeavors to give a succinct view of the whole philosophy of Pythagoras,
whence his work is of some importance to us, and may serve as a guide
in the study of the Pythagorean philosophy.” (Lempriere)
This Italian translation was prepared by Dardi Bembo.
|
|
| 402C |
Hortensius, Lambertus.
(1500 or 1501-1574) Histoire Des Anabatistes Ou Relation curieuse
de leur doctrine, Regne & Revolutions, tant en Allemagne, Hollande,
qu’Angleterre, ou il êt traité de plusieurs sectes
de Mennonites, Kouakres, & autres qui en sont provenus. Le tout
enrichi de figures en taille douce.
Paris: Chez Charles Clouzier, 1695
$900
Duodecimo, 6.25 x 3.75 in. First French edition. [¶]2, A4, A-G12,
H4 (H4 blank and present). Pages 169-173 wrongly numbered 617-621.
In this copy, the first two preliminary leaves consist of an added
engraved title, and a typographical title with an engraved vignette.
A1 is the same typographical title, without the vignette, because
not enough room was left to accommodate it. It may be that A1 was
meant to be canceled. This work contains an added engraved title and
seventeen full-paged engraved plates of various martyrdoms in the
text. This copy is bound in full modern calfskin. It was resewn at
the time this binding was achieved, but the edges of the leaves were
not trimmed. The engraved armorial bookplate of Algernon Capell, Earl
of Essex, Viscount Maldon & Baron Capell of Hadham is pasted on
the verso of the first title; it is dated 1701.
Algernon was the grandson of Lord Arthur Capel of Hadham, who was
executed for his loyalty to Charles I in 1649. Their title was restored
with Charles II, and passed from the aforementioned Lord Capel, to
his son Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex (1631-1683), and on to the present
Algernon by means of his uncle Henry (d. 1696).
This work was first published in Latin under the title Tumultuum Anabaptistarum
liber unus, in 1548. The French translation is thought to have been
prepared by the Jesuit writer Father Francois Catrou (1659-1737),
who also made many of his own additions to the text.
Although this work is not sympathetic to the different Protestant
sects that are profiled, it is difficult to read without feeling the
unjust treatment that these people received at the hands of their
leaders. The illustrations alone, depicting people being burned, decapitated,
run out of doors naked, their houses on fire, and so on, certainly
show a frightening pattern of persecution against what could only
have been an Anabaptist minority. Activities of Mennonites, Quakers,
and others are followed in Germany, Holland, and England. Catrou,
the Jesuit translator and contributor to Hortensius’s original
text, produced subsequent editions of this work in 1699, 1700, 1702,
and 1705.
Not in Sommervogel.
|
|
| 606C |
Hobbes, Thomas. (1588-1679)
Leviathan, Or The Matter, Forme, & Power Of A Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall
and Civill.
London: Printed for Andrew Ckooke [sic], at the Green Dragon in St.
Paul’s Church-yard, 1651
$7,800
Folio, 11.5 x 7.5 in. Second edition,
with the bear device on the typographical title page. [ ]1 (engraved
frontispiece), A4, [ ]1 (folding table), B-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Ddd4. 396
pages. The famous engraved frontispiece is bound before the title.
The folding table is also present. This is a lovely copy, bound in
full contemporary speckled calfskin. The book has been recently rebacked,
and the corners have been expertly repaired.
“In 1651, two years after the king’s execution, came the
much less cool and much more famous [than De Cive] Leviathan. All
three books were developments of the same central ideas. Some malicious
contemporaries said that Hobbes’ absolutist doctrine could be
used to justify a Cromwell as well as a Stuart, and doubtless it could,
though hardly in 1640 or even 1651. That the real menace was much
larger than any immediate problem Hobbes’ best critics in his
own time discerned, whatever their partial misconceptions of the man
and his thought. The apostle of absolute sovereignty, and of an absolute
law of duty, may be called not only a father of both the laissez-faire
and the totalitarian state but, in a still deeper and broader way,
an author and symbol of the disintegrating individualism which has
been as much as anything the definition of the modern world.”
(Bush)
The Printing and the Mind of Man catalogue states that “Hobbes
of Malmesbury is a unique figure in the history of English political
thought. His defense of absolutism, unpopular from the day it was
published to the present, is based on expediency. The individual (except
to save his life) should always submit to the State, because any government
is better than the anarchy of the natural state. Though his ideas
have never appealed to proponents of the individual rights of man
or to the modern totalitarians with their mystical vision. […]
Hobbes’s speculation has stimulated philosophers from Spinoza
to John Stuart Mill.” Hobbes rightly claimed himself to be the
father of political science; his critical analysis of the “covenant
of consent” and “the terror of some Power” isolates
the power structures that would eventually become the targets of revolutionaries
worldwide.
Wing H-2247; MacDonald and Hargreaves, #43; Pforzheimer 491 (first
edition); PMM 139.
|
|
| 210C |
Huarte de San Juan,
Juan. (1535-1600) Examen de Ingenios: or, the Tryal of Wits. Discovering
The great Difference of Wits among Men, and what Sort of Learning
suits best with each Genius. Published Originally in Spanish by Doctor
Juan Huartes. And made English from the most Correct Edition by Mr.
Bellamy. Useful for all Fathers, Masters, Tutors, &c.
London: Printed for Richard Sare, at Grays-Inn-Gate
in Holborn, 1698
$950
Octavo, 4.5 x 7.5 in. First edition of this translation. A4, a-b8,
B-Z8, Aa-Ii8, Kk4. This copy has been recently rebacked but retains
its original boards. Internally it is in fine condition with but a
single paper flaw in the margin of b7 that does not affect the text.
Juan de Dios Huarte was a Spanish physician and philosopher whose
principal work was entitled Examen de Ingenios para las Scienzias.
“First written in Spanish (Baeza, 1575) this book was translated
into seven languages and reissued seventy times before 1700 and again
translated direct from the Spanish by Edward Bellamy as late as 1698
as The Tryal of Wits. Discovering the great difference of wits among
men, and what sort of learning suits best with each genius (London,
Sare), Huarte set out to show ‘cleerely and distinctly’
how according to a man’s ‘temperature’ derived from
‘the three qualities, hot, moist, and drie, proceed all the difference
of mens wits what that nature is which maketh a man able for one science,
and uncapable of another; how many differences of wittes there are
found in mankind; what Arts or Sciences does answer each in particular;
[and] by what tokens this may be known, which is the thing that most
importeth.’” (Macalpine)
This fascinating work is an early and extensive treatment of the nature
of intelligence. Its chapter titles include: “I. What Wit is,
and what Differences of it are ordinarily observed among Men; II.
The Differences amongst men unqualified for Sciences; III. The child
who has neither Wit nor Ability requisite to the intended Science,
cannot prove a great Proficient, though he have the best Masters,
many Books, and should labour at it all the Days of his Life; IV.
Nature only qualifies a Man for Learning; V. What Power the Temperament
has to make a Man Wise and good Natur’d; VI. What Part of the
Body ought to be well Temper’d, that the Child may be Witty;
VII. That the Vegetative, Sensitive, and Rational Soul are knowing,
without being directed by Teachers, when they meet with a Temperament
agreeable to their Operations; VIII. From these three Qualities alone,
Heat, Moisture, and Driness, proceed all the Differences of Wit observ’d
among Men; IX. Some Doubts and Arguments against the Doctrin of the
last Chapter, with their Answers; X. Each Difference of Wit is appropriated
to the Science with which it most particularly agrees, removing what
is Repugnant or Contrary to it; XI. That Eloquence and Politeness
of Speech are not to be found in Men of great Understanding; XII.
That the Theory of Divinity belongs to the Understanding, and Preaching
(which is the Practic) to the Imagination; XIII. That the Theory of
the Laws pertains to the Memory; Pleading Causes and Judging them
(which is the Practic) to the Understanding; and Governing of a Commonwealth
to the Imagination; XIV. That the Theory of Physic belongs part to
the Memory, and part to the Understanding; and the Practic to the
Imagination; XV. To what Difference of the Wit the Art-Military belongs,
and by what Marks the Man may be known that has it; XVI. To what Difference
of Ability the Office of a King belongs, and what Marks he ought to
have, that has this kind of Wit; XVII. In what manner Parents may
beget Wise Children, and of a Wit fit for Learning. Article I, by
what Marks the Degrees of Heat and Driness are to be discover’d
in each Man; Art. II. What Women ought to Marry with what Men, to
have Children; Art III. What Considerations to be used to get Boys,
and not Girls; Art. IV. What is to be observ’d that the Children
may prove Witty and Wise; Art. V. Rules to be observ’d to preserve
Wit in Children after they are born.”
Wing H-3205; Heltzel 795; Graesse Vol.
3, p. 381; Hunter and MacAlpine, p. 46.
|
|
| 557A |
Julius Solinus, Gaius.
(3rd century A.D.) C. Ivlii Solini PolyhistWr, vel, Rerum Toto Orbe
Memorabilivm Thesavrvs, a I. Iacobo Grassero Basil. Poëta Cæsareo,
Ex manuscriptis, aliisq; optimis Codicibus emendatus: & historiis
similibus, aut dissimilibus illustratus. Cvm Indice Rervm mirabilium,
atque memorabilium.
Paris: Apud Ioann. Libert, via Diui Joannis Lateranensis; è
regione Auditorij Regij, 1621
$325
Small octavo, 4.5 x 3 in. a8, ¶8, A-Z8, Aa8. This book is bound
in full contemporary vellum, with ties removed. The binding is in
very good condition. A very neat ownership inscription appears on
the front free endpaper, “Ex Bibliothecâ Jenkestana 1797.”
A later library’s blind stamp is on the title page.
“Gaius Julius Solinus, who probably lived between the middle
and the end of the third century (his dating varies from the beginning
of the third to the end of the fourth century), was concerned with
geography, though not in the modern sense of the term. His work is
entitled Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium but in the Middle Ages, when
it was widely read, it was also known as Polyhistor, to emphasize
the great number of curiosities that were collected there.
“The work is a careful compilation from many literary sources,
chiefly Pliny the Elder but also Pomponius Mela and Suetonius, along
with various other geographical treatises that are no longer extant.
Solinus noted down all the unusual things he came across when reading
these works, about peoples and their customs, animals, and plants;
he sometimes also made large mistakes. The resulting book, written
with a degree of elegance, well represents the qualities and limitations
of the intellectual class in this period, which was devoted chiefly
to works of varied learning rather than of precise theoretical engagement.
“The work opens with a full treatment of Rome and Roman history
from the kings to the principate of Augustus. The area examined is
then extended to Italy, and then to Greece and the Black Sea, Germany,
Gaul, Britain, and Spain; this counterclockwise tour ends with Africa,
Arabia, Asia Minor, India, and the Kingdom of the Parthians, in accordance
with a systematic geographical plan that is one of the most characteristic
features of the work. Reference has already been made to the considerable
success Solinus’s work had in the Middle Ages, when it was also
read and studied as a summary of the excessively vast Naturalis Historia
of Pliny the Elder. It did not, however, altogether replace it, with
the result that it enjoyed, so to speak, a success parallel to that
of its more illustrious predecessor.” (Conte)
Graesse VI, 432.
|
|
| 718C |
Latin Bible, Manuscript.
(Thirteenth Century) Medieval Bible Manuscript. Old and New Testaments,
in Latin.
Italy [Bologna?]: circa 1250-1300
$80,000
Quarto-sized parchment leaves, 9.5 x 6 in.
443 leaves, arranged as follows: 18 gatherings of ten leaves (the
last leaf of the ninth gathering, between Ruth and Kings, was blank
and removed), 1 gathering of six (the sixth leaf itself, between Job
and the Psalms, was blank and removed), 1 gathering of twelve, 7 gatherings
of ten, 1 gathering of twelve, 8 gatherings of ten, 1 gathering of
twelve, 4 gatherings of ten, 1 gathering of twelve, plus one leaf.
The text is written within a frame of plummet rulings in a small,
neat gothic bookhand, in brown ink. Prick marks are still visible
at top, foot, and fore edge margins here and there throughout. Marginal
chapter number and initial cues left for the rubricator have not always
been trimmed away at fore margins; catchwords appear at the foot on
the verso of the last leaf of each gathering; headline cues for the
rubricator at the top verso corner of each leaf have not always been
trimmed away; numerous slightly post-contemporary notes and corrections
appear in Job and the New Testament. The rubricator has added chapter
initials and numbers in red and blue, a few with pen flourishes extending
into the margins. Other chapter, versal or book initials have been
supplied in a fifteenth-century Lombardic hand.
The first and last leaves are somewhat darkened. A faint dampstain
appears in the lower blank margin throughout, with occasional small
losses to the parchment, never affecting the text. The last leaf is
a singlet, and has been hinged onto the gathering just preceding it.
A portion of the blank fore margin of leaf 52 has been cut away with
no loss of text. The last five leaves have two small wormholes. The
binding is full eighteenth century sheepskin over boards, a bit rubbed
but intact and preserved in a custom-made box.
This manuscript was formerly in the collection of the great collector
and Biblical scholar Leander van Ess (1772-1847), with his printed
label with the number “61” pasted on the front pastedown.
Van Ess sold this and many other manuscript volumes to Sir Thomas
Phillipps (1792-1872) in 1824. Many other volumes from Van Ess’s
collection went to the Union Theological Seminary in New York. This
manuscript remained “Phillipps MS 446” until June 6, 1910,
when it was sold at Sotheby’s as lot 105 to the London bookseller
Tregaskis. Its next appearance was in Alan G. Thomas’s catalogue
13, number 41, in 1963.
“The arrangement and publishing of the Bible was the most enduring
monument of the scribes and illuminators of Paris in the early thirteenth
century. This deserves some attention. It has a major place in the
history of manuscripts. The way that the Latin Bible was redesigned
and promoted from the Paris schools was one of the most phenomenal
success in the history of book production. The Bible is not an easy
book to publish: a very diverse collection of ancient historical and
literary texts sanctioned by divine authority and forming a vast and
complex record of the Word of God. Of course, the Bible has been central
to Christianity from the beginning. With a very few distinguished
exceptions Bible manuscripts had been made up of several separate
volumes, usually enormous in size, which were intended as vast monuments
to be displayed on a lectern or altar in a church or in the refectory
of a monastery.
“Twelfth-century students of the Bible text (and naturally there
were many) would make use of those twenty or so distinct volumes which
made up a glossed Bible. Fundamentally, however, they regarded the
Scriptures as a collection of separate texts, which could be read
in any order. […]
“Some time in Paris in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century
all this began to change. This is really very significant. The Bible
was now put into a single volume. The order and names of the biblical
books were standardized, the prologues ascribed to Saint Jerome were
inserted systematically, and the text was checked for accuracy as
far as possible. For the first time the text was meticulously divided
up into the numbered chapters which are still in use today.
“More important in the history of publishing are the changes
to the physical appearance of the book. Scribes used the thinnest
silky vellum. The pages became extremely small. They employed headings
at the top of each page, little red and blue initials throughout the
text to mark the beginning of each chapter, and the text was now written
in black ink in a microscopic script in two columns. The effect was
dramatic. The new type of Bible was an absolute bestseller. These
tiny manuscripts were evidently sold in vast numbers in the thirteenth
century. Bibles were produced in such huge quantities between about
1240 and 1280 that copies served the needs of all the rest of the
Middle Ages: fourteenth and fifteenth century Bibles are remarkably
rare because the ubiquitous thirteenth century copies must still have
been easily available.
“The Bible design masterminded in the early thirteenth century
has so fundamentally entered the subconsciousness of all of us that,
even now, seven hundred years later, Bibles still look the same. Choose
a traditional printed Bible from a good bookshop today. Look at its
physical layout. It is on tissue-thin paper, very like the ‘uterine’
vellum of the thirteenth century. It is probably octavo in size, like
almost every thirteenth century copy. It has the same order of biblical
books, headings, the same division into chapters (with verses, not
introduced until the sixteenth century) and—many centuries after
this layout has been dropped from most other texts—it is in minute
writing in two narrow columns. Look at the binding and the colored
edges. The chances are that the cover will look like leather and be
black or red or blue. It is hardly possible to find another object
which was so new in 1200 and which is still made with so little modification
today.” (De Hamel)
The order of the books in our manuscript, and of course its overall
look and organization, are just as described above, just as in the
Paris Bibles, which became popular as the Bible exemplar throughout
Europe within a very short time of its appearance around 1230. The
model of the Paris Bible also underlies the choice of prologues, but
with some variations and a significant number of additions. Whereas
the typical Paris Bible has 64 prologues, this Manuscript has 98.
The differences are as follows: our Manuscript omits the prologue
for 2 Chronicles altogether, and adds extra prologues for Job, Proverbs,
Jeremiah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah,
Malachi, Maccabees, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Acts, Catholic Epistles,
1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Apocalypse, and in
the following cases our manuscript replaces the usual Paris Bible
prologues with others: Hosea, Habakkuk, and Romans. (See N.R. Ker,
Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, Vol. I, Oxford, 1969, pp.
96-97.)
|
|
| 701A |
Le Vayer de Boutigny,
Rolland. (fl. 1666) The Famous Romance Of Tarsis and Zelie. Digested
into Ten Books. VVritten Originally in French, By the Acute Pen of
a Person of Honour. Done into English by Charles Williams, Gent.
London: Printed for Nathanael Ponder at the Peacock in the Poultry,
1685
SOLD
Folio, 12 x 7.6 in. First edition in English, originally printed in
French in 1666. [p]4, B-Z4, Aa-Tt4, Uu1. The striking engraved frontispiece
of the Valley of Tempe by John Sturt is bound opposite the title;
it is slightly smaller than the rest of the book. The title is printed
in red and black. This copy is lightly browned throughout, with a
little worming, in its original sheepskin binding, which has not been
repaired. The book is still holding together well, although it is
worn.
This is the first English edition of a French prose romance with a
Greek setting, relating the adventures of the brothers Telamon and
Tarsis, shepherds of the Valley of Tempe, and their love for the sisters
Philiste and Zelie. The translator’s dedication to the Earl of
Berkeley, one of the governors of the Levant Company, refers to Berkeley’s
‘obliging Favours to my self, and several Worthy Friends both
at home and abroad,’ and is dated from London. No further information
is available about the translator Charles Williams.
Wing L-1797.
|
|
| 619C |
Linacre, Thomas. (1460-1524)
Thomæ Linacri Britanni De Emendata Strvctvra Latini Sermonis
Libri Sex. Emendatiores. Index copiosissimus in eosdem.
[bound with II.] Rudimenta gra[m]matices Thomæ Linacri, ex Anglico
sermone in Latinum versa, interprete Georgio Buchanano Scoto.
I: Paris: Ex officina Roberti Stephani typographi Regij, 1550
II: Paris: Ex officina Roberti Stephani, Typographi Regij, 1550 [1553]
$2,500
Octavo, 6.5 x 4.2 in. I: a-z8, A-E8 (including
blank E7); II: A-G8, H4 (including blank H4). This copy is a bit browned,
but largely in its original condition, with the exception of the binding.
It has not been washed or trimmed, and retains all of its original
blanks. Two sixteenth century English signatures appear on the verso
of the last blank. The binding is full modern red pigskin.
The De Emendata Structura Latini “is chiefly a series of grammatical
remarks, relating to distinctions in the Latin language now generally
known. It must have been highly valuable, and produced a considerable
effect in England, where nothing of that superior criticism had been
attempted. In order to judge of its proper merit, it should be compared
with the antecedent works of Valla and Perotti. Every rule is supported
by authorities; and Linacre, I observe, is far more cautious than
Valla in asserting what is not good Latin, contenting himself, for
the most part, with showing what is. It has been remarked that, though
Linacre formed his own style on the model of Quintilian, he took most
of his authorities from Cicero. This treatise, the first fruits of
English erudition, was well received, and frequently printed on the
Continent. Melanchthon recommended its use in the schools of Germany.”
(Hallam)
I: Adams L-691; Shaaber L-188 (De Emendata);
II: Adams L-705; Shaaber L-221 (Rudimenta Grammatices).
|
|
|
