Author: LAWSON (John):
Title: Lectures concerning Oratory. Delivered in Trinity College, Dublin.
Description: Dublin, Printed by George Faulkner. London, Reprinted for W. Bowyer...and L. Davis... and C. Reymer..., 1759. FIRST LONDON EDITION. Large 8vo, 222 x 133 mms., pp. xxviii, 454 [455 - 456 adverts], uncut, contemporary quarter calf, marbled boards, rebacked with old spine laid down, black leather label; boards rubbed, but a very good copy, with the bookplate of the Library of teh Baptist College Bristol on the top margin of the front paste-down end-paper and an engraved armorial bookplate showing that the volume was "The Gift of Thos. Llewelyn Esq. l. l. d...." John Lawson (1708/9 – 1759) became a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1735 and held various other posts within the university until he was appointed to a professorship of oratory and history in 1750. These lectures were first published in Dublin in 1758. The Critical Review gave the work a long notice, and, having quoted extensively from the work, concluded, "On the whole, though we do not meeting with any thing striking or new in this performance; we think the parts are well disposed, the lectures full and regular, the stile, clear, correct and pretty well adapted to the variety of the subjects, though in many places it sinks under them; the poetry cold, yet not inelegatn; the observations generally just, and the author's erudition well displayed." The Monthly Review published its assessment in a long review, mostly quotations from Lawson's text, shortly after Lawson's death on 9 January 1759, "In these Lectures we have the late Dr. Lawson's sentiments on a great variety of subjects, that have been frequently treated by some of the best Writers, both antient and modern. Those who are conversant with such subjects, will find that the Doctor has scarce advanced any thing new upon them, and that his stile is not always well suited to the dignity of his subject. His language, though clear and strong, is sometimes inelegant; and his periods often harsh and unharmonius. His observations, however, are generally just; his method is easy and natural; and he has displayed no inconsiderable share of learning." The first edition was reprinted in facsimile by Southern Illinois University Press in 1972, with an Introduction by E. Neal Clakussen and Karl R. Wallace.

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