Search

An attractive copy of one of Mercier's most important works, a collection of short essays, some written in the form of dream sequences, and one or two 'contes'. Some parts had previously been published in Mercier's Songes philosophiques, 1768, but this was very much part of Mecier's distinctive style. 'He published prodigiously by recycling passages from one book to another and stretching essays into multi-volume tracts. His major works - L'An 2440, Tableau de Paris, and Mon Bonnet de Nuit - therefore have a formless character. They are composed of short chapters on a wide variety of subjects, which Mercier cobbled together without worrying about narrative coherence. When a book caught on, he expanded it, cutting and pasting and fighting off pirates as he advanced from one edition to the next. The result was never elegant, but it often had a gripping quality, because Mercier knew how to observe the world around him and to make it come alive in anecdotes and essays. There is no better writer to consult if one wants to get some idea of how Paris looked, sounded, smelled, and felt on the eve of the Revolution' (Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers, 1996, p. 118).
The work is made up of two distinct parts. In the first edition, volumes III and IV bear exactly the same imprint as the present edition but have a different pagination, viz. pp. [iv], 390; [iv], 382. It was inordinately popular and many editions followed, both in two and in four volumes. MMF lists a total of twenty-six editions. The final two volumes were also published under the title, Mon Bonnet du Matin.

An unusual project in that the plates came first: starting in 1775 with a first set of a dozen engravings by Freudenberg published by Prault, which were followed by a second and third set of engravings by Moreau. Restif was then approached to provide a text to accompany Moreau’s plates. The full work was first published in Neuwied sur le Rhin, 1789 in a sumptuous folio edition with 36 pages of text and Moreau’s original 26 plates.
The first English piracy was published by Charles Dilly in 1790 and has the same collation as the present edition, but was published with only two engraved plates, providing frontispieces to each of the two volumes. The second English piracy noted by Rives Child (’Londres 1793’), was published with a new suite of 26 plates, one for each of the 26 chapters, newly interpreted after the English style, published by W. Hinton and with captions in English and French. However, internal evidence suggests that the present edition is a reissue of Rives Child XXXVI/2, the Charles Dilly edition with the frontispieces, as a footnote in the Avis des Editeurs states: ‘Dans l’Edition originaire de cet Ouvrage, on a embelli chaque histoire d’une estampe intéressante, dessinée & gravée par M. Moreau le jeune... Le Libraire qui présente au Public cette Edition, a choisi deux de ces Estampes, qu’il a fait graver par M. Heath; & il en a placé à la tête de chaque Volume’ (I, ii). This edition therefore appears to be an unrecorded piracy, being a reprint of the Dilly edition with two frontispieces rather than the full suite of anglicised Moreau plates. However, this copy unfortunately has no plates: although uncut and in contemporary boards, a reback and new spine make it hard to know whether they were ever present. Despite this, we offer this copy as an interesting Restif text which was not often reprinted and is scarce in any edition.

A scarce feminist pamphlet written at the height of the Revolution discussing women’s rights and the place of religious orders for women. Following the section title, a drop-head title on A1 supplies the questions addressed in this motion: ‘Le bonheur des hommes est-il dépendant de celui des femmes? Quels sont pour elles les moyens de l’établir? Les Couvents de Religieuses doivent-ils être supprimés?’. The author of this scarce pamphlet describes as a wife and mother of an unspecified number of sons (footnote to p. 4). She has been identified by Mouret as a Madame Bastille, ‘à qui nous devons la Bibliothèque des Romans’ (see Mme Mouret, Annales de l’Education, vol. II, pp. 35-36). A note before the colophon advertises the pamphlet as available for 6 sols ‘chez l’auteur rue des Poitevins, no. 20. The publisher’s details are given in the colophon.

A lovely, fresh copy of this antiquarian study of a newly discovered Bamberg incunable, Historie van Joseph, Daniel, Judith und Esther, 1462. An unsophisticated copy in original condition with wide margins and five wonderful plates.
Camus was an ardent revolutionary whose zeal for social and political reform was only matched by his enthusiasm for bibliography and literature. In 1789, he was appointed by the Estates General as archivist of the Commission des archives, from which role he founded the Archives Nationales which he presided over until his death. An indefatigable speaker in the National Assembly and one of its earliest presidents, his legal background gave an authority to his speeches and he was called on to speak more than any other elected member: he is said to have addressed the Assembly more than 600 times, over a hundred more than the next most frequent speaker. Extreme in his political opinions, he was heavily involved in the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, in cancelling payments of annates to the papacy and, in 1791, in abolishing titles of nobility. At the trial of Louis XVI, he voted for ‘death without appeal and without reprieve’.

A curious Ossian style production, with a Norwegian saga written in Italian terza rima and printed alongside the supposedly English prose original, ‘Almurka and Snivenus’. Set in early medieval Norway where the enlightened monarchs Alminda (the name has been changed to be more resonant with the Italian language) and Sniveno reign over a peaceful nation, though under the rule of Britain. One sorrowful day the King of Britain summons Sniveno, ‘come to the English court; an high reason of state requires it’ and despite the anguished entreaties of his wife, fearful of the raging seas, he submits to the order and embarks for Britain. A few days later, the vessel ‘was assailed in a dark night by a terrible storm. The ship was flinged up and down by the waves and beated at once by winds, hail, and rain. The thunder bursted in the darkness. The Master of the ship was appaled for the danger; the thunderbolt rending the clouds sended on the surge a flash of livid light. The sailors had lost their art and spirit. The vessel was plunged down almost topsyturvy and cryes and groans were heard. The whirlwind broke masts and sails; the surpassing and raged waves fluttered around the bodys of agonizing and dead men, and some of them not yet entirely drowned uttered in their throat with a dying groan the name of their fathers, children and wives’. The spirit of Snivenus assumes the form of the drowned king and returns in a dream to Almurka, who goes to the shore where she finds her husband’s corpse and promptly dies of grief. The Italian poem is clearly the original, but the florid English translation, so clearly non-native, is charming.
Alminda e Sniveno first appeared in Milan in 1818 and this second edition was first published in 1821. OCLC lists only the 1821 edition of Novella Romantica, at Bodleian and the BN. The Bodleian copy is catalogued as pp. [24], which brings the volume to the conclusion of ‘Alminda e Sniveno’, with a final Italian poem printed on the verso. In the present volume, the dates on the imprint have been altered to 1823 and a further eight pages have been added, comprising Italian poems on mainly historical themes. The second work in the volume, Pascoli’s Improvvisi, contains a selection of verse on various subjects; it was first published in 1812 (actually 1821) with slightly differing contents. The divisional title, ‘Rime Faceto-Morali’ has been stamped ‘Estemporanee’. The final work in the volume is a New Year’s poem for 1823. Although not recorded as by Pascoli, its inclusion in this volume and the similarity with his other publications, would suggest his authorship.

A lovely fresh copy of a very scarce commentary on the Museum Rusticum, a periodical that was published in monthly parts between 1764 and 1766 and included papers on many aspects of agriculture, technology and science. The anonymous author of these Observations states in his opening remarks that his object is not to censure the ‘useful and pleasing collection’, but to promote its utility. ‘He intends not only to make some few remarks on several papers there, occasionally; but also to add, as he hopes, many useful discoveries of his own - the result of several years practice and experience in agriculture’. The subjects covered range from a lengthy section on hops, some advice on plants and trees that will thrive near the sea, to the culture of winter cabbages for cattle and the improvement of waste land and methods of drainage.
The pamphlet received a long critique in The Monthly Review, which commented ‘Several very judicious oeconomical hints are thrown out, for the young gentleman farmer’s notice, before he begins his Observations on the Museum Rusticum... We are referred to certain papers in the two first Volumes of the Museum, where the same subjects are treated of, - though not altogether to the good liking of our present Author: - who appears to be well versed in the most necessary principles of agriculture’.
The author concludes with a sorrowful note on the closure of the cambric factory at Winchelsea. The manufacture of cambric was a fairly recent introduction to the area, the factory having been established in 1760. ‘What can give greater concern to a person who has his country’s good at heart, than to find any useful manufacture decay, or be discouraged. How far this may be so, I am an utter stranger to, but certainly we all know that a manufacture (especially in the loom way) which gives employment to a great number of the industrious poor, is one of the most valuable acquisitions a neighbourhood can be blessed with. Therefore it is the indispensible duty, and interest, of every individual to promote and establish it’ (p. 52).

A scarce edition, in three parts, of five major works by the Italian physician, historian and biographer Paolo Giovio, including his account of Muscovy and his history of Britain.
The first part features the ‘Elogia doctorum virorum’ of 1546 - an encyclopaedia of early humanism celebrating with short biographies important scholars of the time including Trapetiuntius, Regiomontanus, Thomas Linacre, Copernicus, Machiavelli and Zwingli. The second includes his ‘Descriptiones Britanniae, Scotiae, Hyberniae & Orchadum’ of 1548, devoted to the history and ethnography of the British Isles, followed by ‘elogia’ of important British figures including Thomas More, chronological annals of the kingdom and a genealogical diagram of the kings of England. The third part begins with his influential account of Muscovy first published in 1525: a fundamental source for the knowledge of Russia in 16th-century Europe, with sections on its history, customs, religion and language. His first and less famous ‘De Romanis Piscibus libellus’ of 1524 is also included, an account of all the kinds of fish which could be caught in the River Tiber, as well as ‘Descriptio Larii Lacus’, a topographical account of Lake Como, near which Giovio lived.
In a fine contemporary binding, probably from southern Germany: the blind stamps of the Crucifixion, with the snake wrapped around the Cross and St Peter is typical of sixteenth century bindings from Bavaria and Saxony.

Two orations written in celebration of the elevation to the role of Doge of Venice by two Venetian dignitaries. This was an interesting time in the history of Venice, with the war against Austrian-funded pirates raging as well as the threat of Spanish invasion. The Doges being celebrated are Giovanni Bembo (1543-1618), who was elected the 92nd Doge on 2nd December 1615, and of Antonio Priuli (1548-1623), the 94th Doge, who was elevated in May 1618 and remained in office until his death. Vianello is described as the ambassador from Chioggia and Grigis, described as ‘il Morlacco’, dedicates his speech to Felice Nola, ‘canonico d’albe de Marsi’. This is a charming object, the Grigis oration embellished with hand-painted arms on the outer wrapper and both speeches preserved at some later date in a wallet-style vellum binding.

The author’s first book, published when she was 26. The daughter of William Whateley, a gentleman farmer at Beoley in Worcestershire, Miss Whateley appears to have had little formal education but she loved literature and began to write poetry at an early age, contributing poems to the Gentleman’s Magazine as early as 1759. These, and some other poems in manuscript, attracted the attention of some distinguished contemporaries including William Shenstone, William Woty and John Langhorne, who set in motion a scheme to publish a volume by subscription, to which Langhorne contributed some prefatory verses. The 24 page subscription list contains some 600 names, including Elizabeth Carter, Erasmus Darwin, Mrs. Delany and one Rev. Mr. J. Darwell, the man Miss Whateley was to marry. John Darwall, Vicar of Walsall, was also a poet as well as a composer. The husband and wife together ran a printing press and she wrote songs for his congregation which he set to music. They also had six children together, to add to his six from a previous marriage.
The collection includes a number of pastoral poems - ‘artless rural Verse’ as she describes her ‘Elegy Written in a Garden (pp. 56-59) - several odes and poems addressed to individuals as well as some poems reflecting contemporary debate such as that ‘Occasioned by reading some Sceptical Essays’ (pp. 53-55). The final poem in the collection balances the prefatory verses supplied by one of her patrons: ‘To the Rev. Mr. J. Langhorne, on reading his Visions of Fancy, &c.’. Also included is a poem addressed to her future husband: ‘Ode to Friendship. Inscribed to the Rev. Mr. J. Darwall’:
‘Hail! Friendship, Balm of ev’ry Woe!
From thy pure Source Enjoyments flow,
Which Death alone can end:
Tho’ Fortune’s adverse Gales arise,
Tho’ Youth, and Health, and Pleasure flies,
Unmov’d remains the Friend’ (p. 101).
With a seven page dedication to the Hon. Lady Wrottesley, at Perton. The contents leaf, printed as part of the last signature, is here bound at the end. In some copies it has been bound at the front. Despite the wear to the spine, this is an appealing copy in an attractive contemporary binding. A Dublin edition was published later the same year.

Second edition of this translation of MacPherson’s Ossian poems, first published as Poésies Galliques en vers français, Paris 1801. A note before the text, signed by the printers Capelle and Renand, state that they will take any printer or seller of pirated editions of this work, to court. Baour Lormian’s translation was certainly popular; even apart from any piracies, a fifth edition was published in 1827. With a dedication to Joseph Despaze, reading simply ‘Vous aimez Ossian: recevez ce travail comme un témoignage de mon estime et de mon amitié’. An attractive copy in a slightly snazzy binding.

The scarce first edition in French of John Banim’s novel, Peter of the Castle, first published in Dublin in 1826. The translation is by the travel writer and anglophile Auguste-Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret, now mostly remembered as the translator of Walter Scott’s novels.
‘The Banims may be justly called the first national novelists of Ireland... Their ambition was to do for Ireland what Scott, by his Waverley Novels, had done for Scotland — to make their countrymen known with their national traits and national customs and to give a true picture of the Irish character with its bright lights and deep shadows’ (Mathew Flaherty, The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York 1907).

An elegant copy, despite a few light scratches on the covers, of the scarce first edition of Helen Maria Williams’ translation of Saint-Pierre’s best-selling Paul et Virginie. This English translation was also to prove enormously popular, with many printings in England, but this first appearance, thought to have been printed in Paris at the English press of Williams’ lover, John Hurford Stone, is scarce. Additionally, this copy includes the suite of six engraved plates, found only in a few copies.
In 1792, two years after her first visit to Paris, Helen Maria Williams returned to live there permanently. Her salon on the rue Helvétius became a meeting place not only for her Girondist circle but also for a large number of British, American and Irish radicals, writers and public figures, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine, Joel Barlow and Charles James Fox. It was at this time that she became involved with John Hurford Stone (1763-1818), a radical English coal dealer who was working as a printer in Paris. Their involvement caused huge scandal in England, as Stone was married. He divorced his wife in 1794 and it may be that he was married to Williams in the same year. On October 11th, 1793, during tea with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Williams had learnt that all British citizens in France were to be arrested, following the French defeat at Toulon. The next day she and her family were taken to the Luxembourg prison where they stayed until 26th October, when they were moved to the English Conceptionist Convent, otherwise known as the Couvent des Anglaises. It was here that Williams began this translation. She was released in April of the following year on the condition that she left Paris: she and Stone went together to Switzerland until they were able to return to Paris in 1795, when Stone printed the completed work.
Of the copies listed in ESTC, only three copies, Virginia, Morgan and Penn have the plates, although the BN copy also has the plates. Of the Morgan copy, John Bidwell writes in their catalogue: ‘Given the French origins of the paper, type, plates, and binding, and the quality of the typesetting, this edition was printed in Paris, almost certainly at the English press of the expatriate radical John Hurford Stone, who was living with Helen Maria Williams at the time. Cf. Madeleine B. Stern, “The English Press in Paris and its successors,” PBSA 74 (1980): 307-89’. Adding another level to the interchange of nationalities in this edition, although French, the type was of English origin, being cast from Baskerville’s punches by the Dépôt des caractères de Baskerville in Paris, established by Beaumarchais in 1791 and closed c.1795–6. Beaumarchais, a great admirer of Baskerville, purchased the bulk of the Birmingham printer’s punches from his widow after his death (John Dreyfus, ‘The Baskerville punches 1750–1950’, The Library, 5th series 5 (1951), 26–48).
‘The following translation of Paul and Virginia was written at Paris, amidst the horrors of Robespierre’s tyranny. During that gloomy epocha, it was difficult to find occupations which might cheat the days of calamity of their weary length... In this situation I gave myself the task of employing a few hours every day in translating the charming little novel... and I found the most soothing relief in wandering from my own gloomy reflections to those enchanting scenes of the Mauritius, which he has so admirably described... the public will perhaps receive with indulgence a work written under such peculiar circumstances; not composed in the calm of literary leisure, or in pursuit of literary fame; but amidst the turbulence of the most cruel sensations, and in order to escape from overwhelming misery’ (Preface, signed Helen Maria Williams, Paris, June, 1795).

An early edition - for many years thought to be the first - of Diderot’s first original work, bound in nineteenth century morocco. An immediate furore followed its initial publication and it was condemned to be burnt by the Paris Parlement for its dangerous and anti-religious content: ‘the venom of the most criminal opinions that the depravity of human reason is capable of’. Diderot’s original manuscript had been purchased by the bookseller Durand and the first editions were printed in Paris at the clandestine press of l’Epine. It was to become one of Diderot’s most popular and controversial works, running to at least eighteen editions in the eighteenth century and prompting numerous refutations.
At this stage in his life, the young Diderot was a Deist and in the Pensées he sets out to demonstrate the existence of God through evidence of the material world. He attacks atheism in this work, but also criticises revealed religion and religious asceticism and challenges the existence of miracles. He writes eloquently of human passions and argues for the reconciliation of feeling with reason. The work is presented in the form of sixty-two short chapters, some of which are little more than maxims, brief and quotable in the manner of La Rochefoucauld, such as: ’A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it’; ‘One may demand of me that I should seek truth but not that I should find it’ and ‘Skepticism is the first step towards truth’. The work concludes with a final detailed index.
This is one of four editions that appeared in 1746, all with the imprint ‘A la Haye, aux dépens de la compagnie’. The present printing was long thought to be the first edition, partly on account of its errors in pagination, but Adams demonstrates that it is third in priority. Furthermore he concludes that the present edition was entirely reset, rather than as previously thought a few corrections being made to a number of pages. The printer’s ornament is the same as both previous editions, but the double rule in the imprint of this copy measures 50mm, rather than the 45mm as called for by Adams.
With an attractive engraved frontispiece in the manner of Eisen, in which the voluptuous figure of Truth standing on the right removes the mask from the foul looking figure of Superstition, who is lounging on the floor with a broken sceptre. In our copy the plate measures 98 x 57 mm.

An excellent copy of Lockhart’s controversial portrayal of Scottish society, an entirely fictional correspondence which targeted many of the leading figures of the day. Presented as a series of letters from an imaginary Dr. Peter Morris - a portrait of whose dignified features stands as frontispiece to the first volume - to his kinsman in Wales, the Reverend David Williams, the work caused something of a scandal on publication. Among those who came in for Lockhart’s severest criticism were Leigh Hunt and William Hazlitt, who are condemned as ‘by far the vilest vermin that ever dared to creep upon the hem of the majestic garment of the English muse’.
‘In this work of epistolary fiction, Dr Peter Morris, a Welshman, travels to Scotland and connects with the important personages of the age. Penetrating and lively character sketches are the highlights of his letters to friends and relatives in Wales. As one of the most important chronicles of early nineteenth-century life in Scotland Peter's Letters can be seen as the 'biography of a culture' (Hart, 46, DNB)
Alongside the fictitious author and recipient, the whole presentation of Lockhart’s work is jocular, with its ‘Epistle Liminary to the Second Edition’, in which the author specifies minute instructions for the publishing of this ‘second’ edition as a joint venture between Cadell and Davies and William Blackwood: ‘The First Edition being but a coarse job, and so small withal, I did not think of him’ and wishing to discuss Peter’s Letters from Italy and Germany with the publisher. Another little bibliographical joke is the final page of advertisements in the third volume, giving an imaginary list of ‘Works by the Same Author’.
The text gives a detailed view of the Edinburgh of the day: the prominent men and women of the city, the clergy, the booksellers, the dandies; the courts, the coffee-rooms, the balls, dinner parties, dancing and social life; the university versus the English universities; the novels, the buildings, the ladies’ dress; the philosophers, the wits and the blue-stockings. ‘We can hardly be too grateful for so bold and skilful a picture of the social life of the age’ (J.H. Millar, A Literary History of Scotland, pp. 518-519). The writing capitalises on the intimacy of the letter form and no attempt is made to spare any of the dignitaries mentioned. Inevitably, Lockhart’s book caused more than its share of offence, ‘especially to the Whigs, by its personalities, and perhaps, as Scott said, by its truth’ (DNB).

A scarce book of considerable significance, this was the first work to introduce the ideas of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) to the French-speaking world. In the long preface, Villers discusses the impact of Kant’s works and their principal opposition, comparing him in importance with Descartes and Copernicus. ‘C’est en 1781 que parut le livre à jamais mémorable, Critique de la Raison Pur... une doctrine nouvelle [qui] ruinait toutes les métaphysiques qui l’avaient précédé... Ce livre renfermait la plus désolante et la plus irréfragable définition du mot savoir, chose que tant de savans ignorent’ (pp. xix-xx). Villers highlights Kant as one of two game-changing thinkers of the age, the other being Lavoisier: ‘La nouvelle chimie, la nouvelle philosophie, sont les deux tendances majeures de notre âge, les deux degrés scientifiques les plus remarquables qu’a monté notre génération’ (p. x).
Villers expresses his surprise that such a key thinker has remained unknown in France: ‘Depuis près de vingt ans, une nouvelle philosophie qui intéresse tout le savoir humaine... est encore inconnue aux Français, et il ne s’en est pas encore trouvé un seul qui ait entrepris de l’étudier et de la faire connaître à sa patrie... Mais il semble qu’il y ait une distance infranchissable de l’esprit français à l’esprit allemand; ils sont placés sur deux sommets entre lesquels il y a un abîme. C’est sur cet abîme que j’ai entrepris de jeter un pont’ (pp. lx-lxiv).
Villers studied at the Benedictine College in Metz and then went on to the School of Applied Artillery in the same town, where he developed an interest in animal magnetism. After the French revolution, he moved to Göttingen where he had an affair with the German intellectual Dorothea von Schlözer, subsequently moving in with her and her husband, Mattheus Rodde, where the three lived openly as a menage à trois. It was Villers’ French nationality that protected the household during the French occupation in 1806, a narrative that is described in his a letter written to Fanny de Beauharnais and published as Lettre contenant un récit des événements qui se sont passés à Lübeck le 6 novembre 1806, [sans lieu] 1807, a popular work which in later editions carried Fanny de Beauharnais’ name on the title-page.

A slim pocket volume containing a course of education prepared for the dauphin and originally published as a part of the Almanach Dauphin avec un plan d'un cours nouveau de littérature françoise, à l'usage de ce prince, 1784, by Poullin de Fleins, a Royal councillor who worked as an examiner of accounts. The Almanach Dauphin is very scarce, being known in a single copy at the BN, and we have not compared the texts, but it seems probable that this volume comprises the text removed from the almanac.
Poullin de Fleins’ curriculum is divided into the three sections: the first concerned with details that are common to all genres, equally prose and verse; the second section looking into details that distinguish poetry from oratory and other genres and the third section treating of each genre in a separate article. The first section is divided into ‘des figures, des pensées & des Images’ and it is recommended that the most time possible is spent on this section, because it is amusing, the pupil will not be required to concentrate too hard and the teacher will be able to supply a large variety of examples. The second part is divided into six lessons: what distinguishes Poetry from Eloquence; Expression, Style; Interest; Customs and Fables (the last two chapters are specified but have no content or advice). The shorter third part gives an introductory section on the different genres and has a dedicated section on Criticism. The volume concludes with ‘Hymnes de Callimaque’, comprising three extended prose accolades to Jupiter, Apollo and Delos.

A collection of poems by the physician, dissenter and writer John Aikin, printed by his friend Joseph Johnson. Aikin spent his early career as a surgeon but when he found this unprofitable he turned to medicine, gained a degree at Leiden and established a medical practice in Norfolk where his sister, Anna Letitia Barbauld, the renowned educationalist, lived. Two of the poems in this collection, including the opening poem, are addressed to her. Aikin’s time in Norfolk was dogged by divisions between the dissenters and the established church. Among his circle, most of those who shared his literary tastes were on the side of the Church of England but Aikin, who felt keenly the injustice of excluding dissenters from office, published two pamphlets in 1790 in which he put forward a case for toleration. Although the pamphlets were published anonymously, Aikin’s authorship was widely known and it was largely this, as well as his public support of the French revolution, that lost him the support of most of his friends and patients and made his professional life in Norfolk unsustainable.
It was at this low point, largely ostracised for his dissenting views and before his successful move to London in 1792, that Aikin published these poems. In the preface he explained that mixed with the more general poems are a few that may not meet with impartial judgement. ‘They will certainly meet with as decided a condemnation from one set of readers, as they can possibly obtain applause from another... with a mind strongly impressed with determined opinions on some of the most important topics that actuate mankind, I could not rest satisfied without attempting to employ (as far as I possessed it) the noblest of arts, in the service of the noblest of causes’ (pp. iii-iv).
Aikin’s daugher and biographer, Lucy Aikin, described his move to London as ‘a blessed change’, as the dissenters there welcomed him as ‘a kind of confessor in the cause’ (Aikin, Memoir of John Aikin, 1823, p. 152). In 1796 he became literary editor of the Monthly Magazine, he also wrote for the Monthly Review and edited The Athenaeum for a while. His circle of friends there included Erasmus Darwin, John Howard, the philanthropist (whose biography he wrote and whose death is commemorated by a poem in this collection), Robert Southey, Thomas Pennant and the radical publisher Joseph Johnson. Aikin also wrote Johnson’s obituary for the Gentleman’s Magazine.

A good copy in contemporary red morocco of a charmingly illustrated collection of poems. Originally published in a Dublin edition of 1791, this is the first edition to include the sequence of beautiful illustrations after Stothard, engraved by D. Harding, William N. Gardiner and Birrel. The text is divided into two sections, the first entitled ‘Elfin Eclogues’, comprising three eclogues, the first two of which feature characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream; the second and longer section is entitled ‘Odes’; this begins with an ‘Ode to Music’ which is accompanied by engraved plate and followed by notes. Further Odes follow on ‘War’, ‘Morning’, ‘Evening’, ‘The Glow-Worm’, ‘Hope’, ‘Love’ and ‘Youth’. A final section includes four ‘Elegaic Odes’, with a couple of touching pictures of youths mourning in graveyards. In addition to the engraved plate accompanying the ‘Ode to Music’, each poem has an engraved head-piece and there are tail-pieces throughout.

A scarce posthumous edition of Fergusson’s Poems on Various Subjects, first published in 1773. It was shortly after the publication of these poems that Fergusson started suffering depression. He then, in falling down a flight of stairs, suffered a serious blow to his head from which his reason and his health never recovered. He died in the Edinburgh Bedlam in the following year, aged 24. His poetry was later made popular by Robert Burns, who saw in him his own precursor. In 1787 Burns erected a momument at Fergusson’s grave in Canongate Kirkyard, commemorating him as ‘Scotia’s Poet’.
In the same year, Smith of Paisley also printed Fergusson’s The Ghaists: a kirk-yard eclogue (ESTC t184779, at NLS only).

A scholarly anthology of minor Greek poetry edited by the English physician Ralph Winterton and first published in Cambridge in 1635. The volume concludes with Winterton’s own substantial commentary on Hesiod. The selection, with a Latin translation printed in parallel text facing the Greek, was based on the earlier compilations of Henry Stephen, published in 1566 and of Jean Crispin, published in 1600. Winterton dedicated his work to Archbishop Laud, presumably out of personal gratitude for his part in helping Winterton to obtain his Cambridge degree. Some incident of unfitting conduct in December 1631, thought to have been a theological debate in hall, had set the authorities of Kings against him and a succession of pleas to grant him his degree had been refused. It was finally Archbishop Laud’s intervention in December 1633 that, within a fortnight, resulted in Winterton’s being granted his degree. Following this setback, Winterton’s Greek metrical version of the aphorisms of Hippocrates was published to such acclaim that he was appointed as regius professor of physic in 1635. His intention had been to extend the present volume but his diligence in fulfilling his professorial duties to the college prevented his doing so.
Winterton’s edition of the minor Greek poets was very popular, appearing in half a dozen editions into the next century. This is a delightful copy of a late seventeenth century edition, bound in contemporary full vellum with a distinctive armorial device - half man, half beast - gilt in the centre of both covers, within a gilt border. Holes in the boards suggest an earlier clasp or the use of ties. These are no longer present and the holes have been covered internally by pastedowns, probably in the eighteenth century. The volume was in the collection of the bibliophile Reinhold Dezeimeris (1835-1913), avid collector of Hesiod amongst other, particularly Greek, authors, and bears his pink Latin and Greek printed bookplate on the front pastedown.