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An attractive copy of a scarce edition of this major political essay by Quevedo, first published in 1626. This edition is published by the same Confraternity of St. John the Evangelist who also published an edition of his works in the same year.
‘The treatise attempts to establish the theoretical groundwork for a governmental system based on Christian ideals. The best form of government, according to Quevedo, is a monarchy, one whose authority is absolute because it issues from divine will. The king should govern using Christ as his supreme model. Much attention is paid to the qualities required of the king’s counselors, they being probably as important as the king himself. Quevedo rejects tyrannicide as the solution for an evil monarch, choosing instead to present the latter as a form of divine punishment which must be suffered in silence. The work contains few truly original ideas, its significance stemming principally from the mastery of its style as well as the great popularity it achieved’ (Bleiberg, Dictionary of the Literature of the Iberian Peninsula, II, p. 1336).

A delightful anonymous work in which narratives and philosophical digression are happily mixed. Consisting of a total of eight ‘Promenades’, each of which is loosely intended to elucidate one aspect of human passion. In the author’s brief introduction, he laments that the only explanation for the prevailing morality and behaviour is that men have become children. ‘La plûpart des hommes ont aujourd’hui abandonné les lectures sérieuses & instructives, parce que l’application qu’elles demandent, se trouve absolument incompatible, avec l’esprit de volupté qui les domine’ (Préface de l’Auteur, p. iii).
In the first Promenade, Monsieur de Clairenville meets a knight of Malta and falls into conversation with him. The knight tells him of his aventures, including the tragic story of the beautiful Sophie. The second Promenade, subtitled ‘Sur les Passions’, contains an essay on the education of youth and a tale about a young Paris lawyer. The third Promenade, ‘Sur l’Usage des Passions’, includes a prayer to Saint Christopher, a discussion of Jesuits and monks and a section on Reason. The fourth is ‘Sur l’Amour’, with reflections and a story of a young lady who could not cure herself of this malady. The fifth, ‘Sur la Colère’, gives the history of Leonore and Olympia. The sixth Promenade provides a discussion of Avarice, with a strange miscellany of reflections on France, trade in Mississippi and John Law, concluding with ‘Histoire curieuse d’un Avare, qui avoit beaucoup gagné au Mississipi’. Seven is Ambition, with the tale of a persecuted cleric and eight is Hatred, which begins with a conversation between Monsieur de Clairenville and a Carmelite, outlines the author’s general system for understanding this passion and concludes with the final story, ‘Histoire de la Comtesse de.... les excès où elle se porte pour satisfaire sa Haine contre son Mari’.
First published in 1723 (see Jones p. 35) under the slightly different title of Promenades de Mr. de Clairenville, and then republished in 1743 and the present edition under the present title. It was republished in the first volume of the Bibliothèque universelle des romans, April 1782. Despite its evident popularity, with three editions spanning a number of years, this unusual work is now very scarce.

An excellent copy of this charming poetical miscellany, known as the 'Recueil de Barbin' and first published in 1692. It contains the major poems of Ronsard, Villon, Marot, du Bellay and Baïf, as well as a host of minor poems by these and numerous less well-known authors. This expanded version (the original was in five volumes) is one of two printings of the collection in the eighteenth century, both published in 1752, reflecting an interesting resurgence in the study of early French poetry. The miscellany is arranged in six volumes, by author, with a brief biographical notice on each poet. The biographies are ascribed to Fr. Barbin, son of Claude Barbin, the great bookseller who first published the collection. This copy has a good provenance, coming from the de Guillebon family, with contemporary heraldic bookplates and a later booklabel of Madame Guillebon, the younger, circa 1800.

'Une anthologie de la poésie française faite par les classiques éveille l'intérêt; de plus elle a connu un grand succès... On ne saurait exagérer son influence' (p. 109, _Dictionnaire des Lettres Françaises, Fayard, 1996).

Gay III 978.

An important work, edited by Holbach, and first published in 1761, Boulanger's Recherches sur l'Origine du Despotisme Oriental was intended as an introduction and key to Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix. An important and widely-read treatise, it was incorporated in shortened form in the Encyclopédie, under the title 'Oeconomie politique'. It is offered here complete with the first edition of its companion volume, the so-called continuation by Boulanger, entitled Dissertation sur Elie et Enoch. The two volumes are uniformly bound and the second work comes complete with both the half-titles, the 'Dissertations' half-title and the additional half-title which links it to the Recherches, this latter being more often discarded. Included also in this volume (pp. 159-216) is Benjamin Stillingfleet's Traité Mathématique sur le Bonheur with an introductory letter by the translator, Etienne de Silhouette.

A scarce pirated edition of the Abbé Raynal’s popular work which ran to several editions in 1781, many of which bear the ‘Londres’ imprint. In the present case, the Londres imprint is probably false; ESTC suggests a French or Dutch printing.

An unsophisticated copy of this delightful and very scarce sentimental novel which charts the fortunes of the eponymous heroine who despite her modest birth - ‘d’une petite naissance’ - is elevated in society by the intervention of generous benefactors. It was republished under several different titles, L’Education de l’Amour, followed in 1769 and finally Agathe et Clairfons ou les effets de la haine, de l’amour et de l’amitié, 1796.

The author, an officer in the cavalry who went under the name Desboulmiers, was a popular novelist ‘connu comme littérateur dans le genre léger où il a fait preuve d’un certain esprit’ (DLF). He also had an interest in the theatre and a broad knowledge of its history. His two most important works on theatre history, Histoire anecdotique et raisonnée du théâtre italien, Paris 1769 and Histoire du théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, Paris 1769, are still consulted today.

A delightful volume of verse psalms and hymns printed in the small city of Crema, near to Milan. An elegant production, with wide margins, the text is followed by the musical score for each of the psalms and hymns, with music by the popular composers Giuseppe Gazzaniga (1743-1818), musical director of Crema Cathedral and Stefano Pavesi (1779-1850), another local Crema composer, mainly of operas. Tadini prefaces the volume with an essay on music and poetry (pp. 3-23), printed in two columns. Poet and musician, Luigi Tadini created a centre of the arts in his beautiful Palazzo Tadini in Lovere, on the shores of Lake Iseo. It still thrives today as the Accademia Tadini, with a music school and prestigious Tadini International Music Competition.

A scarce Swedish dissertation about the Ossian poems published while the authenticity debate was still raging. Ossian fever arrived fairly early in Sweden, with translations by Gustaf Knos published in Abo tidningar and Gateborqska magazinet, 1765, although the full texts were not published until much later when they appeared as Skaldstycken af Ossian, Upsala, 1794-1800. We have not been able to discover anything about the author of this piece, but it was written under the guidance of Jacob Axelsson Lindblom, a Swedish scholar of some note and author of Disputation de Poematis Ossionis. At the time this thesis Lindblom was the university librarian at Upsala, becoming extraordinary professor at the university in the following year. The dissertation is written in Latin with the excerpts from Ossian quoted in Swedish translation.

For an interesting account of the early translations of Ossian into Swedish, see Howard Gaskill, The Reception of Ossian in Europe, 2004, pp. 198-208.

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.

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).

Two important articles written by Diderot for the Encyclopédie and bound here in modern green vellum. The first article in the volume was originally entitled ‘Beau’ in the Encyclopédie (tome II, 1751) and this is the first appearance under this title and the first printing of both essays outside the Encyclopédie.
In this key work on aesthetics, Diderot discusses many writers - Crouzas, Hutcheson, Wolf - but acknowledges a superior debt to Yves-Marie André, who has ‘most furthered the understanding of this subject... and formed the truest and most solid principles’. Diderot echoes André’s work when he explores the relationship between feeling and beauty: ‘But tell me, is a thing beautiful because it pleases, or does it please because it is beautiful? There is no problem; it pleases because it is beautiful’. Diderot’s essay brings together his first-hand knowledge of artists and their work (learnt from friends like Chardin and Falconet as well as from his experience as critic of the Salons), with a broader moral and civic aesthetic in which art becomes an instrument of social change.
Diderot’s essay De la philosophie des Chinois was the second of two entries on China supplied by Diderot for the Encyclopédie. The first one, ‘Chine’, concentrated on the known facts and merits of China and its culture. By contrast, this essay was a virulent attack both on the Jesuits and on the idolatry and superstitions of the Chinese. Criticising the Sinophilia prevalent in France at the time, Diderot argues that much of what was praised about Chinese culture was based on unreliable translations and he presents in its place a poor picture of an idle, idolatrous and uncivilised nation.
Traité du beau and De la philosophie des Chinois were first reprinted as part of the third volume of the first collected edition of Diderot’s works, Œuvres philosophiques et dramatiques, Amsterdam 1772, from which these two titles have been taken. Given the modern binding, it is impossible to know if it was originally bound and offered for sale separately or if it was extracted more recently. Adams notes that individual volumes of this six volume collected works as well as works within the volumes were frequently offered separately.
‘On trouve souvent imprimés à part les volumes de cette édition, qui furent mis en vente tels quels à l’époque, sans le faux-titre et le titre général et avec le titre particulier seulement. Parfois, les œuvres dont se composent certains volumes furent également détachés et mises en vente’ (Adams, I, p.84).
Adams also notes a German translation of De la philosophie des Chinois by Johann Jakob Engel which was published in Philosophische Werke des Herrn Diderot, Leipzig, 1774.

A scarce and delightful work by the prolific Della Torre Rezzonico, writing under the pastoral pseudonym of Dorillo Dafneio. Produced at the press of Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813), this is one of numerous occasional publications, adorned with handsome engraved typographical ornaments, which he printed at the Royal Press of Duke Ferdinand of Parma and the Archduchess of Austria, Maria Amalia. Count Carlo Gastone dell Torre di Rezzonico was the darling of Roman society, a member of the Roman Accademia dell’Arcadia and a fashionable and accomplished poet, amateur musician and the organiser of legendary court parties. The philosophical, ornate verse in this collection, dedicated to Ferdinand and Maria Amalia, was typical of the Count’s activity at the court of Parma; for this work he was appointed chamberlain and colonel.

First edition of this comprehensive biography and bibliography of Giammaria Mazzuchelli (1707-1765). He is mostly remembered for his vastly ambitious work, the Scrittori d’Italia, 1753-1763, which, though it only extended to the first two letters of the alphabet, was widely praised for its biographical and bibliographical detail. In addition to his work as literary historian, Mazzuchelli was also an important cultural figure, as is clear from the list of his correspondents, which include Carli, Beccaria, Belgrado, Maffei, Muratori, Volpi and Tiraboschi. For a Brescia printing, it is also worth noting that Mazzuchelli was the founder of the Academia Mazzuchelliana, the Brescia literary society.

A scarce illustrated edition of Voltaire’s philosophical novel, printed in London for Gaetano Polidori (1764-1853), father of John William Polidori and grandfather of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti. Gaetano Polidori came to London in 1790 where he taught Italian as well as translating a number of works into Italian, including Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. He published a number of works, including those of his grandchildren, and set up a private press in his house in London.
This is a delightful pocket edition of Voltaire’s enlightenment tale, first published in a slightly shorter form under the title Memnon in Amsterdam, 1747, with the full text appearing in the following year under the title Zadig. Second only to Candide among Voltaire’s contes philosophiques, and based on the Persian tale The Three Princes of Serendip, Voltaire uses the oriental setting to explore religious and metaphysical orthodoxy through the moral development of the protagonist. The oriental backdrop allows for thinly disguised references to the political and social problems of contemporary France.
The text is accompanied by a very attractive suite of thirteen aquatint plates and two vignettes drawn and engraved by Le Cœur. ‘Jolie petite édition peu commune de ce roman. Les figures existent imprimées en couleurs’ (Cohen-de Ricci).