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First edition of an important work about the so-called ‘Man in the Iron Mask’, the legendary figure long thought to have been the identical twin brother of Louis XIV. The mysterious man had been a captive of the French government since 1687 and was imprisoned in the Bastille in 1698 until his death in 1703, during all of which time his face had been hidden by a mask. The legend formed part of Dumas's brilliant novel Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, 1846, the most glorious and most dangerous of the adventures of the Three Musketeers, and the story was the subject of the MGM film, ‘The man in the Iron Mask’.
Agar-Ellis's account, extracted from documents in the French archives, was translated into French and published as Histoire authentique du Prisonnier d’Etat, connu sous le nom de Masque de Fer, Paris, 1830. Dumas is known to have read it while he was researching the subject for his novel. Agar-Ellis was led to the conclusion that the masked prisoner was probably the Italian Antonio Ercole Matthioli, born December 1, 1640 at Bologna. Matthioli, an astute, clever man became the Secretary of State to the Duke of Mantua, a province of Italy. Matthioli became powerful and rich but his unscrupulous selling of a treaty drawn up by Louis XIV of France and the Duke of Mantua (whereby Louis pledged to buy the fortress at Mantua) to France's enemies resulted in him being kidnapped by French soldiers and held at Pinerolo for treason. The Duke of Mantua disowned him and Matthioli was kept masked for his own protection. The German historian Wilhelm Broecking came independently to the same conclusion seventy years later.

First edition of John Brown’s wide-ranging discussion of civil liberty, which includes comparisons of Great Britain with Sparta, Athens and Rome. Brown’s remarks on education in this work provoked an attack from Joseph Priestley in An essay on a course of liberal education for civil and active life. With plans of lectures on I. The Study of History and general Policy. II. The History of England. III. The Constitution and Laws of England. To which are added, remarks on a code of education, proposed by Dr. Brown, in a late treatise, intitled, Thoughts on Civil Liberty, London 1765.
The other work in the volume is Brown’s critical analysis of the development of poetry. Starting with a discussion of melody, dance and poetry ‘in the savage state’, Brown goes on to explore the origins of Hebrew, Indian, Chinese and Peruvian poetry and discusses at some length the development of various kinds of poetry in ancient Greece as well as in other European countries. This is a simplified edition under a new title of A dissertation on the rise, union, and power, the progressions, separations, and corruptions, of poetry and music, London 1763, with the section on music omitted. An advertisement leaf after the title informs the reader: ‘It is thought proper to inform the Purchasers of the ‘Dissertation on the Rise, Union, &c. of Poetry and Music,’ that the Substance of this Volume is contained in That; which is now thrown into the present Form, for the Sake of such classical Readers as are not particularly conversant with Music’.