NORRIS (Charles)
FIRST EDITION. Tall 8vo, 242 x 140 mms., pp. [v] vi - [vi blank], 84, including half-title, 40 unnumbered leaves of plates, including one folding plate and the title-page, bound in contemporary, probably original, green boards, paper label on front covers, calf spine; covers a bit soiled and worn, but the plates are in fine condition. The topographical artist and engraver Charles Norris (17791858) inherited enough wealth to live comfortably, marry, and have 13 children. His wife and eleven of his children predeceased him, and with his second wife he had three further children. The Oxford DNB records that "Norris taught himself to engrave, and in 1812 published Etchings of Tenby, which contained forty engravings both drawn and etched by himself. These accurate depictions of the medieval town remains were invaluable records of archaeological interest to scholars and historians." Many of Norris' original works are kept by Tenby Museum and Art Gallery.
JACKSON (William)
8vo (in 4s), 210 x 125 mms., pp. viii,39,14, [4],9,9, [1],17,22, [4],11,11, [1],24,28, [3],14,14, [2],230-296, with continuous registration, contemporary sheepskin, with binding fully restored; however, the text block is soiled, browned, spotted, inked, etc. on every leaf, with scribbles and names on the end-papers and title-page: a very unlovely copy. Huntington, Case Western
[DARRELL (William)]
8vo, 190 X 110, pp. [xxii], 584, contemporary panelled calf; front joint cracked, top and base of spine chipped, other general wear to binding; a fair copy. William Darrell (16511721) "entered the Society of Jesus on 7 September 1671. He entered the novice college at Watten in November 1672, and studied philosophy at the English College, Liège, from 1673 to 1675" (ODNB). He was a bit of a polemical author, but his most popular and enduring work, The Genleman Instructed, first published in 1702, was perfectly in tune with the climate of opinion and the received mores of the early 18th century. It is in this work when the student of 18th century literature will encounter the assertion that it was Hobbes's wit which contributed to his "atheism," and in the present work it is young Theomachus who "once intoxicated with Atheistical Wit.was soon bewitch'd with Atheisical Arguments." Small wonder that witty writers, however innocent, were considered dangeroous.
POPE (Alexander)
8 volumes. Small 8vo (in 4s), 156 x 92 mms., pp. [viii], 284; [ii] ii, 272; [iv], ii, 6] 7 - 282; [iv] v - [10], 11 - 351 [253 blank]; [viii], 9 - 286; [iv] v - xii, [13 - 16] 17 - 282; [iv] v - xiv, [16 - 18] 19 - 308 [308 blank]; [iv] v - xi, [12] 13 - 285 [286 blank], including half-titles, engraved portrait of Pope in volume 1, handsomely bound in full contemporary tree calf, gilt rules on covers, spines in gilt compartments against red background, with Prince of Wales's feathers in gilt on each spine; front joint volume 1 rubBed, corners very slightly rubbed, but a very good and attractive set., with a contemporary presentation on the top margin of each title-page, "The Gift of T. E. Nixon/ to/ A Carring." George IV (17621830) was created Prince of Wales a few days after his birth on 12 August 1762 and would have been 15 when this set was published, but the binding is probably not exactly contemporary and almost certainly has no tangible association with George IV as Prince of Wales. Given that there were reprints of Pope's works in their dozens in the 18th century, I think it is unlikely that this one has any particular textual interest, but I have never had a binding with featuring the feathers of rhe Prince of Wales on the spines.
BROWN (John)
FIRST EDITION. 4to, 263 x 188 mms., pp. 248 [249 - 250 adverts], title-page in red and black, contemporary calf, sympathetically rebacked with old red label preserved. Brown's argument is an elegant example of cultural primitivism: the simplicity and power to move of music has been corrupted by modern refinement and impositions: "The Poet's and Musician's Office cannot probably be again united in their full and general Power. For in their present refined State, either of their Arts separately considered, is of such Extent, that although they may incidentally meet in one Person, they cannot often be found together." Jaime Croy Cassler, in the entry on John Brown in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, claims that Brown's Dissertation "is remarkable for being one of the earliest systematic, self-contained treatises in English on the general history of music. In it Brown isolated 36 stages in musical history, from the early united of melody, dance and song and its perfection in Greek society to the separation and degeneration of those arts in the 18th century." Eddy 76.
FIRST EDITION. 3 volumes. 8vo, 178 x 110 mms. pp. [iii] - xix [xx blank], 261 [262 blank]; [ii], 250; [ii], 255 [256 blank], attractively bound in full contemporary calf, ornate gilt borders on covers, neatly rebaccked with spine richly and ornately gilt in compartments, black leather labels laid down, marbled edges and end-papers; lacks half-titles, some very slight flaws to binding but a very good to near fine set. John Johnson, the editor of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley (1823), records that "Never was a book projected and written with more guileless or more benevolent intentions, yet a host of prudes and hypocrites railed against it, as immoral and irreligious. Conscious of his pure intentions in composing the essay, he only smiled at the mistake of those rigid ladies who reviled the production as indecent and irreligious; and he exulted in the warm applause of several most accomplished and candid members of the sisterhood, who regarded and extolled it as an elegant and moral performance, that truly deserved, not the censure, but the thanks and the esteem of their society." In their article on William Hayley (1745-1820), the Oxford DNB notes that among his anonymously published works was his "Essay on Old Maids (3 vols., 1785) -- which, although deemed 'indelicate' (Bishop, 90) and affronting many, sold well". The DNB is silent on the connection between William Hayley and the dedicatee of this three-volume treatise: the pioneering woman poet and classical scholar Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), who, unmarried and, at this time, 68 years of age, was herself in the category under discussion.
FIRST EDITION OF THIS TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 8vo, 183 x 116 mms., [xii], 43 [44 blankl], bound in later vellum-backed boards, leather label, a very good copy. This 1723 edition of the poem Silk-Worms by Marco Girolomo Vida is not only the first edition of this translation into English; it is also the first edition of the first translation of this seminal Italian poem into the English language. The author of the translation is not given on the title-page, nor is it given in the ESTC entry on this printing, but he is John Rooke. That the translator is indeed John Rooke can be pieced together from a later book: Select Translations by "Mr. Rooke", whose main title-page is dated to 1726 (ESTC N21772), but the translation of Vida's Silk-Worms contained therein has a separate title-page dated 1725. The title of the 1723 volume on offer begins "Silk-Worms: A Poem.A Poem. In Two Books " and the title on the separate 1725 title-page begins similarly (with the only differences being the addition of a definite article and a period replacing the colon):"The Silk-Worms. A Poem. In Two Books ". The 1725 translation has a dedication, addressed to the eminent physician and natural philosopher Richard Mead, which is signed "John Rooke". The body of the 1725 version of the poem, too, is plainly the same work as that included in the 1723 volume, but it is equally plain to see that Rooke revised the opening of the piece sometime between 1723 and 1725. In 1723, Rooke's translation began, What curious Webs the well-fed Worms enclose, How from their Mouths the glossy Matter flows; What wondrous Arts adorn the reptile Race, Their Laws, their Labours, and their Lives to trace In 1725, Rooke altered the lines to include more complex rhythms, and more decorative diction: What well-wrought Webs the Reptile Race infold, How their rich Mouths emit the Silken Gold; How the sleek Worm her curious Toils contrives, Their Births, their Laws, their Labours, and their Lives The 1723 first edition on offer is ESTC T101574, which is Foxon S462. The ESTC locates no copies in Ivy League libraries of this first edition. According to ESTC, the only copies in North America are at the Huntington, McGill, St. Louis University, UCLA, University of California at Riverside, University of Illinois, and University of Minnesota. The ESTC also locates four holding libraries in the British Isles: the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, Oxford (which has two copies), and Leeds. No copies located on other continents. This is a somewhat rare book whose authorship has been overlooked.
Large 8vo, 225 x 122 mms., pp/ [3] - 146 [147 Note, 148 blank], including half-title, four full-page engraved places facing each of the four cantos, engraved tail-pieces, contemporary calf, gilt borders on covers, neatly rebackd with darker calf, gilt spine, black leather labels. A very good copy. Maria H. Motolieu published this translation of Jacques De Lille's poems in 1798, with attractive plates by Bartolezzi, which are also reproduced in this volume, She established herself as an able translator, and her The Enchanted Plants. Fables in Verse (1800) and The Festival of the Rose (1802) proved to be very popular.
8vo, 172 x 118, pp. 11 [12 blank], 46. [BOUND WITH (as usual):] Del Sale delle Acque Termali di Lucca trattato di Giuseppe Benvenuti. Dott di Med. Membro della Società Imperiale di Germania, e della Reale di Gottinga. Con una Lettera in cui si descrivono le Infermità nelle quali convengono le medesime Acque. In Lucca MDCCLVIII. Dalle Stampe di Giuseppe Salani [1758]. 8vo, pp. xiv [xv - xvi blank], 49 [50 blank, 51 drop-title, 52 blank], 53 -104, including index, contemporary vellum, red leather label; binding a little soiled but a very good copy. The works of the Italian physician Giuseppe Benvenuti (1723-1810) show a wide-ranging interest in various cures for various human afflictions, as in these volumes, which affirm the therapeutic powers of the thermal salty waters of Lucca in the north of Tuscany. Benvenuti was born in Lucca, and later practised there as a surgeon and physician. The thermal water at Bagni di Lucca has been considered one of the most important sources of well-being in the Tuscan spa complex; in fact, these waters flow naturally at particularly high temperatures, which are around 45° and 54°. In eighteenth-century Italy, Benvenuti attained a reputation as one of the primary experts on the health benefits and qualities of the various spa waters of the age, being awarded a prize for a later dissertation on waters in 1769 by the Academy of Ravenna, who duly elected him a member in recognition of his aqueous expertise. Benvenuti's work has been known to practitioners and historians in the British Isles, too, for centuries, with Robert Watt, a physician himself as well as tireless bibliographer, referring to Benvenuti as the "celebrated Italian physician" (Bibliotheca Britannica, 1824, 1:100-101). The number of copies present in these isles have remained few, however. For De Lucensium Thermarum Sale Tractatus (1758), COPAC traces three copies: British Library, Royal Society, and Wellcome. COPAC locates no editions from other years. For Del Sale delle Acque Termali (1758), COPAC traces three copies in the same libraries: British Library, Royal Society, and Wellcome. COPAC locates no editions from other years. Both works are also scarce in commerce. The family of Giacomo Puccin was for many years a musical dynasty that flourished in Lucca. Although I am not a great fan of all of Puccini's operas, I should record that that the sublimely healthful waters of Lucca might have played some part in keeping Puccini and his family healthy, enabling him to compose the operas that most opera houses can regularly depend upon to fill seats. Beauvais de Preau, Nuovo Dizionario Storico (1831), 1:425. Michaud, Biographie universelle (1870), 3:678. Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica, 1824, 1:100-101.
FIRST EDITION. 12mo (in 6s), 147 x 78 mms., pp. [xxxii]. 130, handsomely bound in later full green morocco, with gilt borders on covers, spine ornately gilt to a fleur-de-lys motif, gilt dentelles and turn-ins, marbled end-papers, with French bookseller's catalogue slip pasted to to top margin of front paste-down end-paper, with comment "Exemp. original très-rare, un peut court de marges." NO IMAGES YET FEB 2024 OCLC: Avec privilege du roi./ Contains only 4 books. In his L'art poétique (chant 3), Boileau ridiculed the author's choice of Childebrand as hero of this poem. Carel changed the title to Charle Martel ou Les Sarrazins chassez de France (1668) and extended the poem to 16 books in a later ed. (1679) under the new title. OCLC locates several copies with imprints dated 1668 and 1669 but only one copy of this 1667 imprint, in Harvard; but there is also a copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.
Small 8vo, 150 x 90 mms., foliated, [iv], 109, later 18th century sheepskin, gilt border on covers, sometime rebacked with old gilt spine laid down, possibly to remove another item bound with this one, blank rectangular leather label on front cover, faint 18th name, "Antony Caplan" on top margin of title-page; boards wormed at inner margins, severely in rear board. Wikipeida notes, "Herodian's Roman History is a collection of eight books covering the period from the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 A.D. to the beginning of Gordian III's reign in 238. It provides a first person account of one of the most politically diverse times of the Roman Empire. The first book describes the reign of Commodus from 180 to 192, and the second discusses the Year of the Five Emperors in 193. Book Three encompasses the reign of Septimius Severus from 193 to 211, while the fourth discusses the reign of Caracalla from 211 to 217. Book five is about the reign of Elagabalus from 218 through 222, and book six deals with the reign of Severus Alexander from 222 to 235. The seventh book recounts the reign of Maximinus Thrax from 235 to 238, and the final one describes the Year of the Six Emperors in 238. Most likely, Herodian is writing for an eastern audience, for he often explains different Roman customs and beliefs that would have seemed foreign to Easterners." The work was translated by Antonio Francini; see British Museum 102.645.
8vo, 172 x 106 mms., pp. [xvi], 278, engraved portrait frontispiece, large engraved vignette of a vessel on fire on the title page, folding engraved plate, contemporary calf, later reback, with morocco label; frontispiece and last leaf with neat marginal restorations, but a good copy. This is effectively the second edition, as the work was previously issued under the title 'The Syracusian Tyrant in 1661, a thinly disguised fictionalised life of Cromwell. Jason Mc Elligottin the Oxford DNB notes, "Perrinchief dedicated The Syracusan Tyrant with some Reflexions on the Practices of our Modern Usurpers (1661) to Thomas Wriothesley, earl of Southampton; this book was republished in 1676 as The Sicilian Tyrant. In both editions an engraving showed 'Tyrannus', in the form of Oliver Cromwell dressed in dubious antique armour, being crowned with a laurel wreath by 'Perfidia' and 'Crudelitas'." John K. Davies, "Tyrants Ancient and Modern: Richard Perrinchief's 'The Sicilian Tyrantor, or, The Life of Agathocles. (1661)" in Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement No. 128, CLASSICS "IN PRACTICE": STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF SCHOLARSHIP (2015), pp. 17-32.
2 volumes. Large 8vo, 207 x 120 mms., pp. [ii], x, 487 [488 - 498]; viii, 501 [502 - 512 index], contemporary calf, neatly rebacked, gilt spines, red morocco labels; boards a little worn, ex-library with shelf marks in white ink on spines and library stamp of Maynard Smith and Outran Smith Library on the lower margin of the front free end-paper in each volume. Goldsmith's Roman History was published in 1769. The Monthly Review, was rather hostile; after several pages, the reviewer concludes, "Upon the whole, this epitome cannot be perfectly understood by any but those who have read the histories from which it is extracted: it is indeed intended only as an outline, but as an outline it is very defective; it is sometimes broken, and sometimes distorted; yet, perhaps, after all, it is better for common readers to be content with the knowledge which it conveys, than to drudge through the other voluminous works of other writers for more."
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 188 x 122 mms., pp. 15 [16 blank, 17 - 20 Contents], 282, including list of subscribers. AND: LEAPOR: Poems upon Several Occasions. By the late Mrs. Leapor, of Brackley in Northamptonshire. The Second and Last Volume. London, Printed: and Sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick-Lane, 1751. FIRST EDITION. 8vo,188 x 122 mms., pp. xxxv [xxxvi blank], 324, including second list of subscribers. 2 volumes, uniformly bound in later, probably early 19th century half-calf, gilt rules and black leather labels on spines, marbled boards (rubbed); some spotting with some leaves foxed, lower margin of volume 2 closely trimmed by binder adversely affecting some catchwords and signature marks, bindings a little rubbed, but a good set. The acclaimed working-class poet Mary Leapor (1722-1746) served as a kitchen maid at Weston Hall, a few miles from where she was born in Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire, near the market town of Brackley; her parents discouraged her early attempts at writing poetry. Later she worked at Edgcote House but was dismissed from the post when she was 23. She died before any of her poems were printed. David Garrick is said to have written "Proposals for printing by subscription the poetical works, serious and humorous, of Mrs. Leapor," but his name does not appear among the 600 plus subscribers. The second volume was edited by Isaac Hawkins Browne and printed by Samuel Richardson. In Janet Todd's Dictionary of British and American Women Writers (1987), the literary historian Betty Rizzo writes that Mary Leapor's "history and writings attracted wide attention, and her pieces were much re-published, particularly in Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755); she was honoured by inclusion in Duncombe's Feminead (1754)" (pp. 192-3). Rizzo also reminds us that the great poet William Cowper in 1791 judged Leapor to be one of the two best "natural" poets he had encountered in his life. In the Oxford DNB, Stuart Gillespie concludes that "Leapor's verse, largely in the style of Pope, achieves a considerable range of feeling and forcefully displays an individual voice. After renewed interest in her work she is counted one of the leading women poets of her century." The provenance is apropos, as the "W. Dash" of the printed book-label is very likely the bookseller William Dash (b. 1799, d. circa 1883), who, with his father, the bookseller Thomas Dash, of Market-Place, Kettering, Northamptonshire, were major collectors and patrons of Northamptonshire history, and philanthropists of the region. Leapor is of course not only notable as an early woman poet but also as an early Northamptonshire celebrity, despite that celebrity arising largely after her death, as her poetry attained wide circulation. Thomas Dash included Mary Leapor's poetry in book catalogues he issued at Kettering in 1820 and 1824, the Leapor items being priced at two shillings each time. Thomas passed the business on to his son William in the early nineteenth century. Much later, in 1883, Puttick and Simpson auctioned the "Private Library" of the late William Dash of Kettering, in which sale this pair of volumes likely appeared, but I cannot be certain of this as I have not found a single extant copy of the 1883 catalogue. Noting the inclusion of numerous Northamptonshire books, the Dash sale and its catalogue were advertised in The Athenaeum (No. 2924, November 10, 1883, p. 586). The two volumes on offer are ESTC T127827 and ESTC T136743. These were the only two volumes of Leapor's work printed in the eighteenth century. They also formed the core textual matter used by Richard Greene and Ann Messenger, editors of The Works of Mary Leapor, published in 2003 by Oxford University Press. The acclaimed working-class poet Mary Leapor (1722-1746) served as a kitchen maid at Weston Hall, a few miles from where she was born in Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire, near the market town of Brackley; her parents discouraged her early attempts at writing poetry. Later she worked at Edgcote House but was dismissed from the post when she was 23. She died before any of her poems were printed. David Garrick is said to have written "Proposals for printing by subscription the poetical works, serious and humorous, of Mrs. Leapor," but his name does not appear among the 600 plus subscribers. The second volume was edited by Isaac Hawkins Browne and printed by Samuel Richardson. In Janet Todd's Dictionary of British and American Women Writers (1987), the literary historian Betty Rizzo writes that Mary Leapor's "history and writings attracted wide attention, and her pieces were much re-published, particularly in Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755); she was honoured by inclusion in Duncombe's Feminead (1754)" (pp. 192-3). Rizzo also reminds us that the great poet William Cowper in 1791 judged Leapor to be one of the two best "natural" poets he had encountered in his life. In the Oxford DNB, Stuart Gillespie concludes that "Leapor's verse, largely in the style of Pope, achieves a considerable range of feeling and forcefully displays an individual voice. After renewed interest in her work she is counted one of the leading women poets of her century." The two volumes on offer are ESTC T127827 and ESTC T136743. These were the only two volumes of Leapor's work printed in the eighteenth century. They also formed the core textual matter used by Richard Greene and Ann Messenger, editors of The Works of Mary Leapor, published in 2003 by Oxford University Press.
8VO (IN 4s), 200 x 117 mms., pp [ii], 50, early 19th century half calf, marbled boards, oval gilt emblem of Writers to the Signet on each cover, and their shelf label on the front paste-down end-paper; spine chipped and worn, ex-library William Pulteney (1729 - 1805) first published his views on the war with the American colonies in a pamphlet, The Present State of Affairs with America. Sympathetic to the American objection to taxation without representation, he denied that there was any parallel between America and the unrepresented parts of Britain. In the present pamphlet, he maintained that as the administration's liberal attempts to treat with America had been rejected, there was no option but to carry on with the war or to submit "to such further conditions of peace as France and the Congress may think proper to impose." Most issues of this pamphlet misprinted Dodsley as "Dodlsey"; the only copy I found of this issue is in the University of Glasgow Library.
FIRST EDITION. 12m0 (in 6s), 158 x 91 mms., pp, [iii] iv - xxii [xxiii - xxiv blank], 137 [138 blan, 139 -142 Contents], contemporary sheepksin, with spine restored; edges worn, but a good copy with With signature of Robert Harry Inglis (1786-1855), 2nd Baronet, to the front endpaper, which he dates to 1808, plus Inglis's small circular ownership ink-stamp on the verso of the title leaf. There are a few pencil marks in the text, and in a 19th century hand at the end of the text, "Stolen most impudently from the Aeropagitica [Milton] & dispensed unconcerned with the theft."
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 165 x 102 mms., pp. [xvi], 227 [228 blank], recent full calf, new end-papers; text browned ESTC S122159 (ten copies world-wide); Sweet & Maxwell I p. 498.3 According to the Oxford DNBN, John Brydall/Bridall (?1635 - 1705) "matriculated as a commoner in Queen's College, Oxford, on 15 July 1652, graduating BA on 28 June 1655. Four months earlier, on 22 February, he had enrolled as an inner barrister at Lincoln's Inn, being listed in the admission register there as the 'heir app[arent]' of his father (Lincoln's Inn, 270). He was called to the bar in 1662. Thirty years later Anthony Wood noted that Brydall, who was 'afterwards a common lawyer hath published several things of his profession' (Wood, Ath. Oxon., 2.786). Generally, the works ascribed to him reflect a very wide range of jurisprudential expertise, covering such topics as the laws and customs of London, the rights and privileges of the nobility and gentry, conveyancing, bastardy, and lunacy. They also indicate a strongly conservative and pro-monarchical frame of mind." See also Wolfgang Schmidgen, 'Illegitimacy and Social Observation: The Bastard in the Eighteenth-Century Novel," ELH, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 133-166: "John Brydall's Lex Spuriorum (1703), the first legal treatise devoted exclusively to the problem of illegitimacy, collects and summarizes terms and arguments that have been instrumental in legal definitions of illegitimacy. The ambiguities in Brydall's text begin with a characterization of the bastard as imultaneously "filius populi"-the child of the people-and "nullius filius"-the child of no one. Belonging to everyone and no one, the bastard gains an additional layer of ambiguity by its description as "Terrae-Filius," the child of the earth: "a astard is Filius Terrae, Filius Populi, and quasi nullius filius." To complicate things further, Brydall points out that the bastard as filius terrae has to be imagined as "rising out of the ground like the Wind," and the bastard thus unites the opposing forces of wind and earth, the necessarily common, intangible, elusive, with the tangible and possessible. These richly contradictory terms suggest an unnatural birth, but in law, as Brydall reminds us, the bastard is considered to be a "natural" child because he is born outside the institution of marriage and thus outside the established frameworks of culture and custom. What is remarkable about these strange terms is that Brydall shows no concern whatsoever about their inconsistency. There is not a single moment in his treatise when Brydall laments or even remarks on these proliferating categories. In fact, he is happy to use the terms "Filius Terrae, Filius Populi, and quasi nullius filius" jointly to characterize the bastard. Such unconcern, it seems to me, signals more than an acceptance of the arcana of English common law. It suggests that the law actively contributes to the cultural production of the bastard as a multifarious, polyvalent creature that eludes defini- tion by oscillating between categories.'
8vo, 207 x 122 mms., pp. [ii], 83 [84 blank], bound in contemporary calf, lacks label, binding rubbed and dried, front joint cracked (but firm), rear joint slightly cracked, corners worn; a fair to good copy, with the (very scarce) armorial bookplate of "Sir Henry Fitz Herbert, Bart." on the front paste-down end-paper, which, it must be said, is notably hyper-masculine in its motifs, three lions in full length on the escutcheon, and the crest a brandished fist (Franks 10677). This is the second and final lifetime edition of William Benson's treatise on Milton and Virgil, as well as on poetry more generally, with special attention to formal elements of poetic literature. In 1970, Garland published a facsimile edition. In 1973, Timothy Webb brought out another facsimile edition with Scolar Press, adding his scholarly introduction. Both of the two eighteenth-century editions, 1738 and 1739, are very rare in commerce. Both Scolar Press and Garland Publishing favour the 1739 text of Benson's book, taking this 1739 edition as their copy-text. Known as "Auditor Benson" in his day, William Benson (1682-1754) was an architect, politician, hydraulic engineer, patron of the arts, and literary critic. Benson was famously, if briefly, the successor of the brilliant Christopher Wren. "Favoured by the king, Benson superseded the octogenarian Christopher Wren as surveyor of the king's works on 26 April 1718" (Oxford DNB). Minister of Parliament for the town of Shaftesbury earlier in the century, Benson lost a bid in 1727 to regain his seat, and then "cut off the town's water supply", whose supply he had ensured in 1715 by "engineering a piped water supply" to the town of Shaftesbury "from one of his estates" (Oxford DNB). The influence Benson had in Miltonic matters went far beyond his own critical writing on the bard, as Benson was a moving force in the creation of the monument to Milton for the Westminster Abbey, and was the munificent financier of Dobson's Latin translation of Milton's Paradise Lost. As the Oxford DNB puts it, "Benson's Letters Concerning Poetical Translations (1739) praises Virgil at the expense of Homer and contains good close criticism of Milton's versification. His monument to Milton in Westminster Abbey (1737), with a self-regarding inscription, aroused the ridicule of Pope and Johnson. His commissioning William Dobson to translate Paradise Lost into Latin for a fee of £1000 abrogated Dobson's plan to do the same for Pope's Essay on Man." ESTC T37762. Despite the high Miltonic content to the book, it is notably absent from the Milton collection at the Library of University of South Carolina, which holds only the Garland facsimile. The Virgilian content is also high, but the Virgil collection at UPenn holds no physical copy of any edition.
Small 8vo, 161 x 94 mms., pp. [iii] - xii, 165 [166 blank], with six designs by Maria Flaxman engraved by William Blake, bound in contemporary sheepskin, gilt border on covers, gilt spine, red leather label; spine rubbed with loss of gilt, but a good copy.Blake worked on these plates for the first six months of 1803. In his letter to Thomas Butts of 10 January 1803, Blake reports that he was "now engaged in Engraving 6 small plates for a New Edition of Mr Hayleys Triumphs of Temper. from drawings by Maria Flaxman sister to my friend the Sculptor" (Erdman page 723). At the end of the month, on 30 January, Blake informs his brother James of the commission and state that he would be paid "10 G[uineas]" for each plate (Erdman page 726). By the end of June, the engravings were evidently complete, for Hayley sent a copy of the twelfth edition to Lady Harriet Hesketh, William Cowper's cousin. In a letter of 1 July, she tells Hayley of her disappointment with the prints. In a letter to John Flaxman of 7 August 1803, Hayley, presumably referring to Hesketh's comments, states: "I am sorry to say that the Ladies (& it is a Ladys Book) find fault with the Engravings our poor industrious Blake has received sixty Guineas for them from my Bookseller & I believe both the artist & the paymaster are dissatisfied on the occasion" (Bentley, Records page 157). In the same letter, Hayley also reports that he and Blake made the decision to omit from the engravings the figure of Minerva represented in one of Maria Flaxman's original designs. In response, John Flaxman remarked in a letter to Hayley of 24 August 1803 that one of his half-sister's drawings depicting "Serena viewing herself in the Glass when dressed for the Masquerade whilst her Maid adjusts her train" was overlooked for engraving (Bentley, Records page 166). First published in 1781, Hayley's The Triumphs of Temper was reprinted at least ten times before the end of the 18th century, but this edition is probably the one most collectors of Hayley would like to have. Hayley's mock-heroic have some resemblance to Alexander Pope's verse, but not the wit: his aim is clearly didactic, that of instructing young girls and women the value of tempering their lives in order to please their husbands. Thomas Stothard was the first to provide illustrations for the poem in the sixth edition of 1788. I quote from the William Blake Archive online: "Blake worked on these plates for the first six months of 1803. In his letter to Thomas Butts of 10 January 1803, Blake reports that he was "now engaged in Engraving 6 small plates for a New Edition of Mr Hayleys Triumphs of Temper. from drawings by Maria Flaxman sister to my friend the Sculptor" (Erdman page 723). At the end of the month, on 30 January, Blake informs his brother James of the commission and state that he would be paid "10 G[uineas]" for each plate (Erdman page 726). By the end of June, the engravings were evidently complete, for Hayley sent a copy of the twelfth edition to Lady Harriet Hesketh, William Cowper's cousin. In a letter of 1 July, she tells Hayley of her disappointment with the prints. In a letter to John Flaxman of 7 August 1803, Hayley, presumably referring to Hesketh's comments, states: "I am sorry to say that the Ladies (& it is a Ladys Book) find fault with the Engravings our poor industrious Blake has received sixty Guineas for them from my Bookseller & I believe both the artist & the paymaster are dissatisfied on the occasion" (Bentley, Records page 157). In the same letter, Hayley also reports that he and Blake made the decision to omit from the engravings the figure of Minerva represented in one of Maria Flaxman's original designs. In response, John Flaxman remarked in a letter to Hayley of 24 August 1803 that one of his half-sister's drawings depicting "Serena viewing herself in the Glass when dressed for the Masquerade whilst her Maid adjusts her train" was overlooked for engraving (Bentley, Records page 166)."
Large 8vo, 182 x 113 mms., pp. lxxvii, 303 [304 note], xlvii, 128 [129 -136], engraved frontispiece (looking suspiciously like a facsimile), 15 other engraved plates, two engraved plates of music, 17 engraved vignettes of fish in texts, various woodcuts and woodcut ornaments, finely bound in 20th century full polished calf, spine ornately gilt in compartments, green morocco label. A very good to almost fine copy, with the bookplate of B. J. Findlay on the front paste-down end-paper and notes in his hand on the recto of the first two front free end-papers; and the autograph "Johannes Anderson" on the recto of the leaf before the frontispiece. The vast literature on this book is daunting, and it is said to be the most frequently reprinted book in the English language after the Bible. Hawkins first published this work in 1760, with annotations. N Coigney, R. L. Izaak Walton, a new bibliography, 1653-1987,; 12; Horne, B.S. Compleat angler, 1653-1967,; 12; Oliver, Peter. A new chronicle of The Complete Angler; 12