Author: [MAYHEW (Jonathan), former owner.]
Title: BOYLE, Earl of Orrery (John): Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, London: Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, in a Series of Letters from John Earl of Orrery to his son, the Honourable Hamilton Boyle.
Description: London: Printed for A. Millar, opposite to Catharine-Street in the Strand, MDCCLII. 1752 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 202 x 120 mms., pp. [ii], 339 340 blank, 341 - 349 index, 350 blank], K4 and K7 leaves are cancels (as usual), engraved portrait of Swift as frontispiece, contemporary lightly speckled calf, spine richly gilt in compartments, dark red morocco label; a very good copy. This volume is an extremely rare relic from the library of Dr Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766), whom John Adams, the Founding Father, revered as "a transcendental genius". This Mayhew-owned copy of the Earl of Orrery's book on Swift is hitherto unknown, and is of compelling interest -- since John Adams himself compared Mayhew's writing to Swift's writing, with Adams indeed finding Mayhew to be superior to Swift in quality if similar in kind. Jonathan Mayhew was also a close friend of Thomas Hollis (1720-1774), the important early benefactor of Harvard. Hollis was also of course a notable benefactor of Princeton. Recently Mayhew's life and works have been re-examined by historians, and at the forefront of this is a book by Professor John Patrick Mullins, Father of Liberty: Jonathan Mayhew and the Principles of the American Revolution (U of Kansas Press, 2017). The publisher's website says this of Mullins's study and subject: "Dr. Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766) was, according to John Adams, a 'transcendental genius . . . who threw all the weight of his great fame into the scale of the country in 1761, and maintained it there with zeal and ardor till his death.' He was also, J. Patrick Mullins contends, the most politically influential clergyman in eighteenth-century America and the intellectual progenitor of the American Revolution in New England. Father of Liberty is the first book to fully explore Mayhew's political thought and activism … . As pastor of the Congregationalist West Church in Boston, Mayhew championed the principles of natural rights, constitutionalism, and resistance to tyranny in press and pulpit from 1750 to 1766. He did more than any other clergyman to prepare New England for disobedience to British authority …" (). Mullins is not alone among modern historians in seeing Mayhew as fundamental. Mark A. Noll, in a review of Mullins's book, assures us that in "Father of Liberty, J. Patrick Mullins solidifies the reputation of Boston minister Jonathan Mayhew as a crucial early advocate of the ideology that fueled the American Revolution." Adams comparing Mayhew to Swift In a letter quoted by Alden Bradford, Mayhew's biographer, John Adams is credited with saying that "Dr. Mayhew had already raised a high reputation, both in Europe and America, by the publication of a volume of seven sermons, in 1749 ... and many other writings; especially a discourse on 30th January, 1750, on the subject of passive obedience and non-resistance -- in which the saintship of King Charles I. is considered, seasoned with wit and satire, superior even to Swift or Franklin. It was read by every body -- celebrated by friends, and abused by enemies" (Memoir of the Life and Writings of Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, D.D., Pastor of the West Church and Society in Boston, from June, 1747, to July, 1766 [1838], p. 119). Books owned by Jonathan Mayhew Volumes from Mayhew's library are vanishingly scarce. The bookman Edwin Wolf found four, with a probable fifth, giving such details as he could, in his article, "Some Books of Early New England Provenance in the 1823 Library of Alleghany College" (Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 1963, pp. 13-44). None of the books Wolf found of Mayhew's were associated with Jonathan Swift or the Earl of Orrery, but two of the books Wolf found were presentation copies from Thomas Hollis to Jonathan Mayhew (p. 36). Thomas Hollis was an admirer of Swift. Hollis gifted at least three books by Swift in his long run of benefactions: a 1748 edition of Good Queen Anne Vindicated, and two editions of Tale of a Tub, from 1710 and 1739 (William H. Bond, "Checklist", p. 182). Further research may determine whether this copy of the Earl of Orrery's book on Swift was in fact a gift from Hollis to Mayhew. Princeton is one of the institutions thought to hold one possible example of a volume from the library of Jonathan Mayhew: a fourth edition of Viscount Molesworth's Account of Denmark (1738), at shelfmark Ex DL116 .xM7 1738 in Princeton University Library, is tentatively catalogued as a "Presentation copy (to Jonathan Mayhew?) with annotations by Thomas Hollis" (ESTC T135760). Signatures of Jonathan Mayhew Jonathan Mayhew wrote his signature in different ways. The signature in the upper right corner of the title-page of the book on offer is a very good match to Mayhew's signature on the second page of this two-page manuscript report from the early 1740s: . That signature is not underscored, however, whereas the signature on this Swift book is heavily underscored with a flourish. Just such a heavily flourished and underscored signature by Mayhew can be seen, however, in a facsimile signature at the foot of an engraved portrait of Dr Mayhew by R. Cooke and T. Moore:
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Price: GBP 1.00 = appr. US$ 1.43 Seller: John Price Antiquarian Books
- Book number: 10161

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