Lord Dun’s Friendly and Familiar Advices, Adapted to the various Stations and Conditions of Life, and the mutual Relations to be observed amongst them. Edinburgh, Hamilton & Balfour, 1754.
First Edition, First Issue, with p. viii misnumbered vii. 12mo, pp. vii, (ie viii), 243, in contemporary mottled calf, spine with raised bands, simply gilt in compartments with red morocco label lettered in gilt, with the contemporary heraldic bookplate of Inglis of Cramond and the manuscript shelfmark ‘Calder House 7.E.’ on the front pastedown and the ownership inscription ‘Cramond’ on the title page.
An attractive copy with a nice Scottish provenance of this famous handbook of legal and general advice to those in different stations in life. The first part of the work contains specific legal advice to different ranks of lawyers and parties engaged in law suits. After this is a section on ‘Advice to the Monarch’ which is followed by ‘Advice to the Subject’. Further sections are addressed to ministers of state, the landed gentry, the man of wealth, the poor and indigent, the merchant, tradesman, farmer and more general advice to husbands and wives, parents and children, old and young, masters and servants, rich and poor. This is the only known publication by the Jacobite judge David Erskine, generally known under his judicial designation, Lord Dun. An eminent member of the Scottish bar, he was also a jealous Jacobite and friend to the non-jurant episcopal clergy. As a member of the last Scottish parliament, he was ardently opposed to the union.
ESTC notes another issue (t193481), with p. viii correctly numbered and with the amended imprint ‘for G. Hamilton and J. Balfour’. Scarcer than the present issue, it is listed at Aberdeen, Cambridge, NLS and DLC only. Curiously, this copy has a stub before the title page, suggesting a cancel, but given that it has the earlier states of the two pages, it may be more likely that an initial blank has been cut away.
Provenance: Sir John Inglis of Cramond, 2nd Baronet (1683-1771), Postmaster General for Scotland.
ESTC t114020.