Search

An attractive, unsophisticated copy in contemporary decorative wrappers of this Prussian officer’s account of England and Italy. A professor of history with an interest in contemporary European politics, Archenholz wrote widely on current events. From 1791 he lived in France and ran a German language newspaper, Minerva, which reported the events of the French Revolution. His initial enthusiasm for the Revolution was challenged by its increasing violence and in 1792 the opinions expressed in his paper forced him to flee France in order to escape the guillotine.
The present work was originally published as England und Italien, Leipzig 1785. It was a very popular work which saw many editions and was translated into French and English. This is one of several editions of this French translation by the poet and dramatist, Ludwig von Bilderbeck. A two volume edition of the first part of the work only, that on England, was printed in Brussels by le Francq as Tableau de l’Angleterre, contenant des anecdotes curieuses et intéressantes, 1788. In the same year, there was a Gotha edition printed by Ettinger, including both parts on England and Italy and also a two volume Paris edition printed by Volland, including both English and Italian parts. Both parts were also translated into English, the first two volumes as A picture of England, containing a description of the laws, customs and manners of England, London 1789 and the final volume as A picture of Italy, London 1791.
‘La Grande-Bretagne, cette reine des îles, est si différente de tous les autres Etats de l’Europe, par la forme de son gouvernement, par ses loix, ses usages, ses mœurs et la manière d’agir et de penser de ses habitans, qu’elle parait plutôt appartenir à un autre globe qu’à celui où nous vivons. Le contraste est sur-tout frappant lorsqu’on passe de France en Angleterre. On se croit transporté dans une autre planète’ (I pp. 1-2).

A selection of light-hearted essays on a number of subjects including women, justice, monks, literature and fashion. The author, an obscure writer called Nolivos Saint-Cyr, was a captain in the infantry and a self-styled 'comédien', who sometimes signed himself 'Laval'. G. Monval published a biography of him in 1902, is entitled Un Comédien nomade, mort aux Invalides. His Tableau du Siècle is written in an easy, readable style and covers a range of entertaining and at times contentious subjects. One nice aspect of his style is the creation of characters to illustrate his points, so that instead of writing, for example, 'all women are dreadful', he writes 'all women are dreadful. Emilie was born into a rich family &c. &c.' and brings the particular vice or virtue to life with a little story.
'Si la religion est le prétexte de tout, les femmes en sont la veritable cause … On peut dire enfin, avec vérité, que si les femmes conduisent & reglent tout, elles travaillent à se render dignes d'être consultées. C'est, à les bien définir, un melange de légéreté, & de prudence; d'amour des plaisirs, & de respect pour la vertu; de bonté, & de vengeance; d'ambition & de générosité: En un mot, les femmes de notre siécle sont de véritables caméléons' (p. 31).

A delightful and vivid portrayal of the salons and artistic haunts of Paris society. Presented in a series of short chapters, with plentiful dialogue, short anecdotes and lively descriptions, the subjects covered include a music lesson, a scene in a café, an evening at the Tuilleries, the opera, a ball, a visit to the doctor, a supper party, dreams, rebels, springtime and ‘the real pleasures’ of life. The dedication is addressed ‘O Vous, Sexe charmant, qui savez tout embellier, malheureusement même jusqu’au vice... Les femmes sont chez nous les véritables précepteurs des hommes: elles aiment les sciences, les arts, les talens & les encouragent; elles veulent les trouver dans le cercle qui les entoure’.
Authorship of this work has been hotly contested over the years. Paul Lacroix, in his bibliography of Restif, not only attributed the work to Restif, but claimed it to be among his best writings: ‘Ce sont les plus agréables pages que Restif ait écrites, et tout ce que nous avons lu dans ce joli ouvrage est bien du Restif, de l’excellent Restif’ (Lacroix p. 334). Rives Child, on the other hand, states that the Tableaux are the work of the Prince de Ligne and adds, ‘Je ne vois absolument rien de Restif là-dedans. A mon avis, cet ouvrage fut écrit par quelqu’un qui a passé pas mal de temps au Pays-Bas, peut-être un diplomate français’ (Rives Child, Restif de la Bretonne, Témoignages et Jugements. Bibliographie, 1949, p. 312). In Cohen-de Ricci it is listed under Restif but with the proviso that all the chapters were not written by Restif. It has more recently been attributed to Stanislas Jean de Boufflers.
First published earlier in the same year, the work was originally intended to accompany a suite of plates by Moreau. These were reused in a number of later editions but were not included in the present edition, which has been entirely reset and which, unlike other editions, has no mention of plates on the title-page. The chapters of later editions also vary, but in this edition they are the same as listed by Lacroix for the first edition and all appear in the same order.

The scarce first English edition of Fabliaux ou contes du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle, Paris 1779, compiled and edited by Legrand d’Aussy, conservator of French manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale. The work consists of 37 ‘original stories, serious and comic’ taken from French legends and, as such, presenting a very different impression on the English reader, who would have been introduced for the first time to many of the tales (although some, notably the Arthurian tales, would have been well enough known). The work is prefaced by a longish essay by the anonymous translator on the origin and nature of legend and fables. The tales are accompanied by explanations of what is known about each story and where it has been reworked: ‘with an account of the imitations and uses that have since been made of them, by Bocasse [Boccacio], Molière, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Racine, Corneille, Voltaire, Rousseau, and other modern authors’ (advertisement).
Samuel Badcock wrote in the Monthly Review: ‘These Tales shock probability. We cannot realise many of the incidents, yet they discover a vigorous and wild imagination. They awaken curiosity; and as they are generally short, they are seldom tedious: and we easily suffer ourselves to be carried away by the pleasing illusion into the land of inchantment [sic]’ (MR 76 p. 61).

An attractive copy in a German heraldic binding of these popular apocryphal memoirs, first published in Amsterdam in 1761. Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle (1684-1761) was the grandson of the famous finance minister to Louis XIV. Chevrier’s work was hugely popular, running to many editions in French and being translated into English as The Political Testament of the Marshal Duke of Belle Isle, London 1762. The subjects covered include taxation, commerce, law, imports, the celebacy of priests and luxury. Chapter Five (pp. 97-101) is about the history of the young pretender and the Stuarts. ‘Je vois, avec douleur, que tous les Princes de la Maison de Stuard ont mérité l’horreur de leur situation par foiblesse, ou par nonchalance, & je pense qu’il faut regarder cette Maison comme éteinte, par le découragement de celui qui seul peut la relever’ (p. 102).

This well-known utopian novel was for many years believed to be by Bishop Berkeley, an incorrect assumption that much increased its popularity and profile. The novel went through numerous editions and was translated into French, German and Italian. First published in 1737, the tale follows the journey undertaken by a prisoner of the inquisition named Gaudentio de Lucca to a country in Africa called Mezzorania.This patriarchal society is fundamentally an experiment in socialism, the citizens have equal rights and property and are governed with an overarching principle of community. Mezzorania has its ancestry in the society of the Ancient Egyptians, marking the tale as an early example of a Lost Race novel.
This copy of the 1776 edition - in a contemporary binding marred by a sturdy reback - contains the following notes by a previous owner: ‘An ingenious novel falsely imparted to Bishop Berkely, the author reputed to be Dr Samuel Scoale of Huntingdon G.M. [Gentleman’s Magazine] 1785 fol. 376’, below which is inscribed: ‘In G.M. Oct 1785 fol. 759 it is attributed to one Barrington, a Catholic priest who had chambers in Gray’s inn and was keeper of a library for the use of the Romish clergy - he was author of several pamphlets chiefly anonymous particularly on the controversy with Julius Bate on Elohim. Classed by Dunlop in his History of Fiction with Robinson Crusoe and Gullivers Travels’. Opposite this extended note, on the front pastedown, is pasted a bookseller’s description quoting Lowndes, describing ‘this admirable work [as] partly a romance and partly a scheme of patriarchal government; the incidents are well contrived and most agreeably related’ (The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature 868). The note describes Berington as ‘belonging to the well-known Roman Catholic family of that time’. The pastedown also bears the contemporary heraldic bookplate of Fullerton of Carstairs.
At the time, the novel ‘attained a rank and dignity comparable to that of the Republic of Plato, the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and the New Atlantis of Lord Bacon’ (Gove, P.B. The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction), partly because of the esteemed Bishop Berkeley’s supposed sponsorship. It was not until 1785, proposed by ‘WH’ in the Gentleman’s Magazine, LV (1785), that Berington began to be associated with the work. Berington’s Mezzorania emerged during a period where exploration was expanding towards far corners of the earth, and was taken up with enthusiasm by a reading public eager to contemplate new lands and other societies. Compared with its utopian predecessors, the idea of this foreign society was no longer an alien, new idea, but instead a credible representation of what might lie beyond British seas.

An attractive copy in an elegant, contemporary binding, of this important early fishing manual. First published anonymously in 1681, Chetham’s detailed account of the art of fly-fishing reveals a wealth of personal experience and skill and is written in a clear, concise and frequently witty manner. Chetham’s study covers all aspects of the sport, including observations on the most commonly encountered fish, the different lines to be used, descriptions of the dub-flies to be used each month and instructions on protecting the fish and their habitats. Chetham also includes instructions for the dressing of different types of fish as well as numerous recipes for the baking, roasting, frying, broiling and stewing of the catch, together with instructions for such delights as ‘eel pye’ and the recipe for ‘an excellent French bread to eat fish with’.
‘Chetham’s prefaces are in Diogenes’ vein, curt and caustic; he escapes from the category of manual makers, and takes rank as one of the original writers on the sport. He is indebted, indeed, to his forerunners, but acknowledges it; he improves on their systems, and calls attention to the fact. He is never servile, nor plagiaristic, always honest, sometimes a little surly’ (Westwood & Satchell p. 60).
One of two editions of 1700, this is a paginary reprint of the second edition of 1689. This issue has the phrase ‘illustrated with sculptures’ on the title-page and has the two engraved plates, each with six fishes and carrying the imprint ‘Printed for William Battersby at Thavies Inn Gate near St. Andrews Church in Holborn’. Seven of the fourteen errors listed in the errata of the second edition have been corrected. Copies of this work are seldom found in such good condition but are frequently rebacked or rebound and wanting one or both of the plates. Other than a couple of small tears, this is an excellent copy internally and externally.

The scarce first edition of this delightful collection of moral tales, attributed to the prolific children’s writer Richard Johnson. Illustrations by Bewick were added to the second and subsequent editions, of which there were many, including four in America, in Philadelphia, Wilmington and New York. The author is given on the title page as ‘by the editor of the Looking Glass for the Mind’, which was printed by Newbery in 1787 and which was actually by the French children’s writer Arnaud Berquin. It was translated by ‘J. Cooper’, one of the many pseudonyms of Richard Johnson.
In his preface, the editor praises Berquin and other foreign writers whose books for the juvenile market ‘merit the highest encomiums’ and who have humbled themselves to deal in ‘the plain language of youth, in order to teach them wisdom, virtue, and morality’. The text comprises some 23 short stories, of varied length, style and setting, including such titles as ‘Juvenile Tyranny conquered’, ‘The Book of Nature’, ‘The happy Effects of Sunday Schools on the Morals of the rising Generation’, ‘The Happy Villager’, ‘The Indolent Beauty’ and ‘Female Courage properly considered’.

A fascinating miscellany bringing together a number of articles and poems that were first published in the Chester Courant, each entry being clearly dated as to its first publication. Of particular interest is the first part which includes numerous prose reports relating to the Jacobite rebellion (pp. 4-169). In the brief preface, the editors explain that the project came about because of the many requests for back numbers of the Chester Courant, which they were unable to supply and so ‘they were induced to make a Collection of several of their Papers within the Compass of a few Years, and to publish them in a Pocket-Volume’.
‘Among these, are some Journals, whose Contents... will give a Series of Accounts relating to the Insurrection of the Scots, A.D. 1745: Their several Marches, and Advance, even almost to the Centre of this Kingdom; their Retreat, and Winter’s Warfare in the North; their Defeat at the Battle of Culloden; and the extinguishment of the Rebellion, by the immediate, and other Consequences of that Victory’ (pp. iii-iv).
Other articles of note include an essay on English marriage by a French author, ‘An Extract from the Observations of a French Author, upon the Manners and Customs of the English Nation’ (pp. 193-195), ‘A Copy of a Letter from a French Lady at Paris; giving a particular account of the Manner in which a certain Prince was lately arrested’ (pp. 311- 319), an Oxford poem on Frugality (pp. 207-208) and various accounts of Oxford University (pp. 296-310), ‘The Speech of Miss Polly Baker, before a court of Judicature, at Connecticut, near Boston in New-England, where she was prosecuted the fifth time for having a Bastard Child: Which influenced the Court to dispense with her Punishment, and induced one of her Judges to marry her the next day’ (pp. 223-226), ‘Beauty’s Value’, by William Shakespeare (p. 289-290), and various poems on silk-mills, taxes, ‘the hoop’, earthquakes, a jubilee ball, fireworks, poor sailors and the Gunpowder Plot (p. 358, with the manuscript note, ‘ ‘Giffard was a Gentleman; on his stage Garrick first appeared; but never with all his art could mimick Giffard!’ (note cropped, see p. 358).

The Chester Miscellany is offered with the first five parts (of six) of a scarce Scottish periodical, The Caledonian; a Quarterly Journal, Volume First, Dundee 1821, in contemporary half sheep over marbled boards, with three engraved plates of mechanical devices. OCLC lists the British Library only.

A charming two-penny chapbook alphabet clearly set out with a single letter to each page. Illustrated with 27 oval wood engravings, those for the letters E, G, J, K and S are copied after Bewick. Each page shows the letters in large print, with single words referring to the illustration, with the words hyphenated to syllables for easy reading and pronunciation, giving also two-letter combinations and a final sentence - also hyphenated - explaining the pictorial reference. Subjects include an African smoking tobacco, a military captain, a drunkard retching, a fiddler, an orange tree, quince, a rainbow, a usurer and the philosopher Zeno.

Dodington left all his property to his cousin, Thomas Wyndham of Hammersmith, who in turn left it all to Henry Penruddocke Wyndham. In addition to the diary, it included a vast collection of Dodington’s private correspondence. Wyndham, a native of Compton Chamberlayne near Salisbury, also published a translation of the entries for Wiltshire in the Domesday Book, hoping that it might pave the way for a more general history of Wiltshire, for which he put up some money.

An attractive copy of the second edition of this compilation of English literature, first published in 1799 for the French market. Inspired by the success of The Beauties of the Spectator, Angelo Vergani assembled the present anthology of ‘Fables, Moral Tales, Histories, Allegories and Reflexions selected from the most eminent English authors with a view to afford farther assistance to those who are desirous of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the elegance and beauty of the English Language’. The extracts are taken from Johnson, Chesterfield, Middleton, Shakespeare, Sterne, Goldsmith and many others, as originally published in the Spectator, Tatler and Guardian. Although the work is intended chiefly for those learning the English language, Vergani suggests that the passages selected are such as will bring pleasure to ‘all sorts of readers’.

A good copy in an Irish binding of these two works lavishly illustrated by Lady Diana Beauclerk. The daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, Lady Di, as she was known, suffered two miserable marriages, the first to Frederick St. John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke, during which they were both notoriously unfaithful, and the second to Topham Beauclerk (1739-1780), the great-grandson of Nell Gwyn and Charles II. Beauclerk was a close friend of Dr. Johnson and was known for his brilliant conversation, but he was also famous for his ill-humour and lack of personal hygiene: Fanny Burney recorded Edmund Burke’s reaction to the death of Beauclerk: ‘I never, myself, so much enjoyed the sight of happiness in another, as in that woman when I first saw her after the death of her husband’.
‘During [the years following her divorce] Lady Diana's artistic talents became particularly evident: she practised portraiture, and her enormous output of small drawings of fat cupids entangled in branches of grapes and little girls wearing mob caps gave place to larger and more ambitious groups of peasantry introduced into landscaped backgrounds. She worked chiefly in pen and ink, pastel, and watercolour. Essentially a designer, she successfully executed seven large panels in ‘soot ink’ (black wash), mounted on Indian blue damask and illustrating Horace Walpole's tragedy The Mysterious Mother. Apt to overrate her skills, Walpole placed these at Strawberry Hill in a specially designed hexagonal room named the Beauclerc closet. At the same time he opined absurdly that ‘Salvator Rosa and Guido could not surpass their expression and beauty’ (Anecdotes of Painting, 24.524). Lady Diana also enjoyed the patronage of Josiah Wedgwood, probably from 1785, when her designs, mostly those of laughing bacchanalian boys, were translated as bas-reliefs onto jasper ornaments, plates, and jugs; they proved to be enormously popular. In 1796 she illustrated the English translation of G. A. Burger's ballad Leonora and in 1797 The Fables of John Dryden; in both cases her illustrations were engraved mostly by Francesco Bartolozzi’ (ODNB). The other engravings in the Dryden are by Vandenberg, Cheeseman and Gardiner.

A lovely copy of this privately printed poem by a Sussex clergyman, who was a professor of poetry at Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen College. Hurdis set up his own printing press at his house in Bishopstone, near Seaford in Sussex, in 1796, from where he printed selections from his own lectures and poems. The Favorite Village is thought to be his best work and is a panegyric to Bishopstone, the village where he was born and where he eventually became the vicar. It is a nostalgic eulogy to the village, set within the framework of nature and the seasons and much influenced by the poetry of Cowper and Thomson.

Attributed to the architect and traveller Charles Kelsall, this is an entertaining fantasy arising from the proposal to erect a national monument to Shakespeare. Written in the form of a play, it is set in the green-room at midnight, where the committee take their seats around a long table. As they prepare to begin their meeting, there is a peal of thunder and a ball of fire rends one of the walls, through which appears the shade of Aristotle, who addresses the committee with his thoughts on Shakespeare. He is followed by many others, including Longinus, Aeschylus, Molière, Milton (blind), Dryden, Voltaire, Diderot, Johnson, Susanna Shakespeare, Frank Crib (owner of the Butcher’s Shop at Stratford-upon-Avon), Peter Ogee, an Architect of York, Obadiah Flagel, a Schoolmaster of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Samuel Grim, Plug-turner of the Pipes which supply the Theatre with Gas.

A lovely set of this rare series of prints depicting the Elements. This is a charming Italian and English collaboration, engraved and printed in Italy from an original by an English artist, using English language headings and presumably sold in Italy to an English market. The combination of the English artist and the use of English titles would have had a particular appeal to the traveller on the Grand Tour. The prints may have originally been published by a London print gallery, to whom Hamilton supplied a number of drawings, but we have traced no other version.
The British painter William Hamilton had initially trained as an architect but was sent to Italy by the neoclassical architect Robert Adam, who employed both Hamilton’s father and the young Hamilton, whose first job was working for Adam as a decorative painter. Hamilton spent two years in Rome where he studied under the painter Antonio Zucchi, who later married Angelica Kauffman. On his return to England Hamilton established a reputation for himself painting theatrical portraits and illustrating scenes from Shakespeare. He was commissioned to create works for Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery and was one of three principal illustrators of Boydell’s illustrated edition of Shakespeare, a massive project which ran from 1786 to 1805. He also contributed illustrations to Bowyer’s History of England and Thomas Macklin’s Bible, many of which were widely reproduced and sold as popular prints. Hamilton’s style was reminiscent of the cult of sentiment prevalent at the time and his work was clearly influenced by Angelica Kauffman and Henry Fuseli. These classical representations of the four Elements are typical of Hamilton’s output in combining sentimental interpretation with distinctively dramatic settings.
Giuseppe dall’Aqua was a northern Italian engraver, son of the engraver Cristoforo dall’Aqua (1734-1787). A native of Vicenza, he began his career as an apprentice in the Remondini press of Bassano, where it is thought he continued to work for some years. In 1791 he became beadle of the Accademia Olimpica in Vicenza and later moved to Verona and Milan. Dall’Aqua is known to have copied many prints from the prolific Italian printmaker Francesco Bartolozzi (1727-1815), who worked in London.
‘[Hamilton’s] pleasantly plump and youthful figures were better suited to the less pretentious format of book illustration than that of history painting. His attractive romantic scenes appear in many editions of 18th century poets ... Hamilton was capable of being an accomplished draughtsman in a variety of styles; his album of drawings (London, V&A) includes work reminiscent of Henry Fuseli and Angelica Kauffman as well as more distinctive compositions nervously constructed with repeated, scratchy strokes of the pen’ (Geoffrey Ashton in Grove Dictionary of Art, online).

A very scarce rewriting of Thomson’s Seasons for a juvenile market, together with ‘The Shepherd’s Day’, a pastoral dialogue written in imitation of John Gay, and other poems. Published under the pseudonym Bob Short - a nom de plume used throughout the eighteenth century by writers including Eliza Haywood, Robert Withy and Robert Wiley - and attributed by E.W. Pitcher to George Wright, author of The Country Squire, 1781, The Rural Christian, 1772, and a frequent contributor to the Lady’s Magazine. One of three short poems that conclude the volume is a four stanza idyll under the title ‘Colin, a Pastoral, on the Death, and in Imitation of Mr. John Cunningham’; this has the footnote, ‘Mr. Cunningham would frequently lie about in the fields, under an hedge or a tree, in which situation he wrote many of his pastorals’. This is a delightful copy of a large format book of verse for children bound in Dutch floral boards.
‘The following Poems are recommended to the Perusal of young Gentlemen and Ladies, who are fond of rural Scenes, and the Pleasures of Country Life; as they describe the Innocence, Simplicity, and unenvied Happiness of Sylvan Retirement, in a natural, concise, and entertaining manner; while the Seasons of the Year are taken from,
and pourtrayed in the lively Colours of the late Mr. Thomson, but in common Verse, for the use of those who are not fond of blank poetry, nor long descriptions’ (Advertisement).
ESTC records another edition of this work printed in London by H. Turpin &c. in 1787 (with the same collaborative imprint as this edition) but with pp. 96. This other edition appears to be printed in the smaller format associated with children’s books, ie. 16mo (the Bodleian copy measuring height 9.5cm), which would account for the greater number of pages (see ESTC n18595, at Bodleian and Toronto only). We have not been able to compare copies of the two works, but a possible explanation would be a simultaneous publication of editions for children (the pocket-sized edition) and for young people (the present edition). The choice of Dutch floral boards puts this copy firmly in the category of children’s books, but this unusually large format, suited to the more slightly more sophisticated subject matter, does suggest that it may have been intended for rather older ‘young ladies and gentlemen’.

A scarce and highly sentimental Gothic novel by Eliza Parsons, author of two of Jane Austen’s ‘horrid novels’, the seven gothic novels recommended to Catherine Morland by Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey. The two novels are The Castle of Wolfenbach, 1793 - the first novel in Isabella’s list and probably the most reprinted since - and Mysterious Warnings, published in 1796, the year before the present work.
The Girl of the Mountains is set in a desolate region of France where the eponymous heroine, Adelaide, is raised by her impoverished but noble father after the death of her mother. One day wandering about the mountains, her father is attacked by three bandits, but he is saved at the last moment due to the repentance of one of the bandits, whose bearing and manners suggest a noble birth and a mysterious past. The consequences of the meeting are disastrous for Adelaide, who finds herself forced into an adventure that leads her to Spain and encounters with flirtatious Dons, gallant Governors, a monk that had been in the service of Louis XII and a bossy Baroness and at the centre of the whole tale: an ancient manuscript and a mystery waiting to be revealed.
The three final leaves of advertisements for ‘Minerva Publications’ advertise just two novels: Count St. Blanchard, quoting the lengthy and largely positive piece in the Critical Review, and The Pavilion, quoting the review from the British Critic. This is a far cry from the traditional listing of multiple titles available and is an enlightened form of advertising, drawing the reader in to both novels.
A Dublin edition followed in 1798, published by P. Byrne and a Philadelphia edition, by John Bioren and David Hogan, was published in 1801. The dedication of this first edition is to Princess Sophia Matilda of Gloucester.

A scarce poetical description of the earliest history of Scotland, accompanied by notes. This slim (and very scarce) volume is all that came of an ambitious plan for a four volume work of poetry and scholarship spanning several centuries. Dedicated to George James Hay, Earl of Errol and with a prefatory ‘Address to the Inhabitants of Annandale’, the work opens with a note on the origin of the Scots and a three page introduction in verse. The origins of the nation are further explored in ‘Chapter First’, which ends with the death of the mythical Fergus I. The poem continues with the invasion of the Danes, the death of Kennethus, the battles of Almon and Loncarty and the reign of Malcolm, which take the reader to the beginning of Book IV, accompanied by footnotes throughout. At this point, verse is abandoned and the narrative is ‘continued in Prose, from Fergus I. to Robert Bruce, being the end of the first Volume’ (pp. 55-70). The remaining pages contain verses by and addressed to John Carruthers, on various subjects.
Given the slightness of the volume, the disclaimer in the opening address is rather endearing: ‘I am only sorry that, on account of the book swelling larger than could possibly be afforded at the price, I have been necessitated to leave out the verse, and insert the notes only, from the reign of Macbeth. I shall however make some amends in the next volume, which will be much more concise, having only to treat of nine Kings reigns, down to James the Sixth’. In a final note at the end of the text, Carruthers addds ‘From the want of authentic records in the early ages of Scottish history, I have been as brief as the subject would admit. When we come to more enlightened times, the events that passed will be more fully treated. The fourth and last volume of this Book, which gives an account of this present war from its commencement, will be above 200 pages, including the Subscribers names, who are now upwards of two thousand’.

A handsome copy of this scarce chronology. Written in two parts, the first seems to be the only English edition of Doglioni’s Compendio historico universale, a work which appeared in different forms and numerous different editions. This section has its own title page, immediately following the general title page, in which the sub-title is repeated and extended: ‘The Recovery of Lost Time, being a Compedious Chronology &c.... to our present Age, with the most notorious Remarks that have occurred, Whether Ecclesiastical, Political, Domestick, or Foreign’. This section (pp. 7-33) consists of fairly brief entries, getting more detailed in the later years and ending with the year 1664 (1661: The death of the most eminent French minister of State, Cardinal Mazarin; The overflowing of Rome, by the River Tiber. The Beatification of Francisco de Sales, Bishop of Geneva).
The second and larger section is an anonymous work, also with its own separate title page: ‘England’s Remembrancer. Being a Summary of the Actions, Exploits, Battles, Sieges, Conflicts, and other remarkable Passages that have hapned in any of His Majesties Dominions, from Anno Domini 1600 until the present Year of 1675. Written by a Lover of his King and Country’. Starting in 1600, Nov. 19.: ‘King Charles the First, born at Dunfernling in Scotland’, this section also takes the form of a chronology, though a much more detailed one, mainly concerned with events from the 1640s to 1674. The short bullet points which are used to describe historical events during this turbulent period of history, and the fact that it is being written comparatively soon after the events, give the text an immediacy which makes for a very exciting read.
This work is sometimes wrongly attributed to Samuel Clarke, who wrote another work under the same title.