HOPE (John):

Thoughts in Prose and Verse, Started in his Walks, by John Hope.

Stockton: Printed by R. Christopher: And sold at London by W. Goldsmith...[inter alia], 1780. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, 202 x 128 mms., pp. [iii] - xvi, 359 [350 Errata], 19th century calf, rebacked, with spine gilt in compartments, a very good copy, with the distinctive armorial bookplate of John Sheepshanks, dated 1852, on the front paste-down end-paper. The collector John Sheepshanks (1787 - 1763) built a collection of fine books, prints, and pictures. The author, politician, and nephew of John Hope, Second Earl of Hopetoun, John Hope (1739 - 1785) began writing in 1769. The Monthly Review in 1763 remarked, "This eccentric writer, whose thoughts seem to be expressed with the same undisguised freedom that they presented themselves to his own mind, has blended with his singularity a considerable portion of good sense. Though many of the pieces in this volume will no doubt be thought trivial and uninteresting, yet there are scarcely any in which the reader will not meet with something to entertain him." The London Magazine for 1780 also reviewed the work, taking Hope to task for not indicating when and where many of the pieces were first published, but later declares that "there are many curious, interesting, and entertaining pieces in this volume" and concludes with the inevitable pun: "Hope is a flatterer, delusive, uncertain, inconsistent; but a cheerful, entertaining companion."

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N° du livre: 7945

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays poetry literature

[JENNINGS (Henry Constantine)]:

Summary and Free Reflections, in which the Great Outline Onmly, and Principal Features of Several Interesting Subjects, are Impartially Traced, and Candidly Examined.

[]?Taunton] Pprinted in the Year MDCCXCVII 1798. 8vo, 203 x 122 mms., pp. [iii] iv - xii, [iii] iv - v [vi blank] [7] 8 - 25 [26 blank], ii [3] 46 [47 - 48]; [iii] iv [5] 6 - 76; [iv blank], [3] 4 - 39 [40 blank], 27 [28 blank]; [3] 4 - 20; [3] 4 - 21 [22 - 24 blank]; [iii] iv - v [vi blank], [7] 8 - 18 [19 -20 blank]; 7 [8 blank, [9] - 13 [14 blank]; [5] 6 - 116], bound in recent quarter calf, spine ornately gilt in compartments, red leather label, plain gray boards. A very good copy. The first item has two appendixes, and is followed by the following tracts, essays, and one in verse: "A Physical Enquiry into the Powers and Properties of Spirit," and a "Postscript," "My final Fare-well to this interesting Subject," "A Revision of the Postscript to the Physical Enquiry"; then "Cursory Remarks on Infancy and Education"; "Thoughts on the Rise and Decline of the Polite Arts" "A Translation of the Fifth Canto of Dante's Inferno"; "Observations on the Advantages attending an Elevated and Dry Situation"; "Considerations on the Destructive Application of Gold"; "A Free Enquiry into the Enormous Increase of Attornies..."; "Thoughts on National Independency and General Elections"; and the volume concludes with "Thoughts on the Instability of Empires." Henry Constantine Jennings [later Nowell] (1731 - 1819) is often described as a collector, to which one might add "eccentric"; his life was even more higgledy-piggledy pagination in this volume. He was in prison twice for debt, his collections were sold at auction, and he lived in squalor, surrounded by many curious possessions. This corresponds - more-or-less to ESTC T138909.

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N° du livre: 9827

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays eccentricity literature

JENYNS (Soame):

Disquisitions on Several Subjects.

London: Printed for J. Dodsley..., 1782. FIRST EDITION. Small 8vo, pp. iv, 182, recently rebound in quarter calf, gilt spine, morocco label, marbled boards; fore-margin of C1 slightly frayed, but a very good copy. Jenyns' topics are "On the Chain of Universal Being," "On Cruelty to Inferior Animals," "On a Præ-existent State," "On the Nature of Time," "On the Analogy between Things Material and Intellectual," "On Rational Christianity," "On Government and Civil Liberty," and "On Religious Establishment." The book was republished several times in the 18th century.

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N° du livre: 5082

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays religion prose

JENYNS (Soame):

The Works of Soame Jenyns, Esq. In Four Volumes. Including Several Pieces never before published. To which are prefixed, Short Sketches of the History of the Author's Family, and also of his life; By Charles Nalson Cole, Esq.

London: Printed for T. Cadell..., 1790. FIRST COLLECTED EDITION. 4 volumes. 8vo, pp. [iv], lxvi, 224; [iv], 304; [iv], 299 [300 blank]; [iv], 290, engraved portrait of Jenyns as frontispiece in volume 1, volumes not uniformly bound, with volume 1 bound in early 19th century half sheepskin, marbled boards, morocco label, with volumes 2, 3, and 4 very handsomely bound in contemporary tree calf, spines richly gilt, red and green morocco labels, and with the bookplate of the Earl of Camden in volumes 2 - 4. A made-up set. Jenyns (1704 - 1787) has never recovered from Johnson's dismissive, but inaccurate, review of his Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil (1757). This edition reprints all his major works and most of his minor ones as well.

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N° du livre: 4909

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays poetry literature

JORTIN (John):

Six Dissertations upon Different Subjects.

London, Printed for J. Whiton, and B. White..., 1755. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, 2015 x 125 mms., pp. [iv[, 324, contemporary calf, faded morocco label; joints cracked, top and base of spine chipped, binding a bit dried, with an the Oxford Bookplate of John Williams, 1783, on the front paste-down end-paper. with a note in his hand at the top margin of the recto of the front free end-paper indicating that he purchased the book in London for 10/6 in 1783; below that is the autograph of another Williams, dated 1823. John Jortin (1698 - 1770) was a gifted mathematician and musician, translator, classicist, essayist, and fine stylist, who seems never to have attracted the scholarly attention that he should have. The entry in ODNB by B. W. Young gives a short but an exemplary account of his literary career, recording in conclusion that his "writings enjoyed a considerable afterlife in the closing decades of the eighteenth century before falling into undeserved obscurity in the mid-nineteenth century; they offer an attractive insight into the workings of the literary and religious culture of the eighteenth century." Young comments that the dissertations here are on historical, moral, and legal matters, with the sixth dissertation describing the treatment of the dead by Homer and Virgil. His comments contradicted and thus irritated the easily-irritated William Warburton, whose disciple, Richard Hurd, attacked Jortin. In a spirit of true Christian charity, Warburton complimented Hurd on his attack: "next to the pleasure of seeing myself so finely praised, is the satisfaction I take in seeing Jortin mortified."

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N° du livre: 8878

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays CONTROVERSY prose

LYTTELTON (George), Lord:

The Works of George Lord Lyttelton; Formerly printed separately, and now collected together: With some other Pieces, never before printed. Published by George Edward Ayscough.

Dublin: Printed for J. Williams..., 1775. 8vo, pp. vii [viii blank], 564, engraved portrait frontispiece, contemporary calf, spine ornately gilt, red morocco label; front joint cracked and tender. The first Dublin edition was in 1774 in two volumes. Johnson memorably said of him, "That man sat down to write a book, to tell the world what the world had all his life been telling him."

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N° du livre: 3255

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays literature

LYTTELTON (George), Lord:

The Works of George Lord Lyttelton; Formerly printed separately, and now collected together: With some other Pieces, never before printed. Published by George Edward Ayscough.

Dublin: Printed for J. Williams..., 1775. 8vo, pp. vii [viii blank], 564, engraved portrait frontispiece, contemporary calf, spine ornately gilt, red morocco label; front joint cracked and tender. The first Dublin edition was in 1774 in two volumes. Johnson memorably said of him, "That man sat down to write a book, to tell the world what the world had all his life been telling him."

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N° du livre: 3891

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays literature

MARTINELLI (Vincenzio):

Lettere Familiari e Critiche.

Londra Pressa Giovanni Nourse..., 1758. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 201 x 123 mms., pp. [iv] v - xvi [xvii - xxxi Index, xxxii blank], 397 [380 blank], including half-title (soiled) cheaply recased in quarter calf, marbled boards, blocked in gilt on spine. Martinelli (1702 - 1785) came to England in 1748, and with his first publication, Istoria Critica della Vita Civile ( 1752), he "made his reputation as a man of letters, and was reprinted several times both in England and in Italy," as E. H. Thorne records. The Monthly Review for 1758 said of Lettere Familiari e Critiche "his compositions are pure, easy and flowing. The nature of his undertaking required, that he should sometimes write on familiar occasions, and his letters have therefore the defect unavoidable in such performances. They do not always inform us of any thing that it is much of our interest to know; and are more valuable for the mode of expression than for the thing expressed." Among the good and the great that he met was Charles Burney, whose daughter, Fanny, recorded in 1771, "He has a most uncommon flow of wit, and with it the utmost bitterness of satire and raillery of ill nature. His vanity and self-conceit exceed every person's I ever saw; and far from endeavouring to conceal this weakness, he glories in it, and thinks he but does himself justice in esteeming himself the head of whatever company he is in, and (openly) manifesting that he does so. He is not satisfied with priding himself that he speaks to the Great with sincerity, he piques himself upon treating them with rudeness." E. H. Thorne, "Vincenzo Martinelli in England: 1748 - 1744," Italian Studies (1956). Andrea Lupi, "Music and Poetry in Vincenzio Martinelli's 'Lettere Familiari e critiche'" in International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music (1998).

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N° du livre: 9832

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays letters literature

PALMER (Charles):

A Collection of Select Aphorisms and Maxims; With several Historical Observations: Extracted from the most Eminent Authors.

London: Printed by E. Cave..., 1748. FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. [ii], ii, [ii], 322, engraved frontispiece, contemporary calf, early reback, morocco labels; several leaves sprung, binding scratched and worn. The dedication to Prince George extols his "future Choice" and "future Example." Thereafter, the future George III would be able to enjoy admonitions like aphorism 1315: "Nothing can make a King of England absolute, but his goodness, and strict regard to laws."

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N° du livre: 2852

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays prose

PRATT (Samuel Jackson):

Miscellanies by Mr Pratt in Four Volumes.

London: Printed for T. Becket..., 1785 FIRST AND ONLY COLLECTED EDITION. 4 volumes. 8vo, 183 x 114 mms., pp. [ix] x - xvi, x, 13 - 288; viii. [3] 4 - 320; [iii] - iv, 286; iv, 247 [248 adverts], with half-titles in volumes 1 and 2, engraved head-pieces for first item in each volume, contemporary calf, gilt spines; joints a little tender, front hinge volume 1 repaired, bindings generally rubbed and worrn, but a useful working set of an uncommon work Samuel Jackson Pratt (1749 – 1814) s probably best remembered as the author of Emma Corbett: or the Miseries of Civil War, (1780) and the poem Sympathy (1788), the latter being the first work to appear in these volumes, while the former item makes him the first English writer to take the American Revolution as his topic. The obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine of Pratt summarized his life in these words: "No man who ever attained public distinction was more exempt from envy; and though he may, in the vicissitudes of a life unsupported by fortune and exposed to all the casualties of a precarious subsistence, have fallen into errors, nothing of malice or ill-nature can justly be imputed to him; and as his works are all intended to promote the interests of virtue, none of these errors should be remembered in his epitaph." ESTC T85831 locates copies in BL, Bodleian, Cambridge, Longleat; Harvard (Houghton), Library Company Philadelphia, University of King's College (Nova Scotia), and Yale (3). Uncommon.

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N° du livre: 10131

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays poetry literature

SMITH (David Nichol).

Essays on the Eighteenth Century. Presented to David Nichol Smith in honour of his seventieth birthday.

Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1945. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. vi, [2], 288, portrait frontispiece, original cloth; gift inscription on recto of front free end-paper.

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N° du livre: 3645

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays aesthetics literature

[TALBOT (Catherine)]:

Essays on Various Subjects. By the Author of Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week. The Second Edition.

London, Printed for John and Francis Rivington. 1772 2 volumes in 1. 12mo, 165 x 98 mms., pp. [ii], 198; [iv], 173 [174 blank]. BOUND WITH: [TALBOT (Catherine)]: Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week. The Ninth Edition. London: Printed for John and Francis Rivington..., 1774. 8vo, [iv], 55 [56 adverts], including half-title. 3 volumes in one, bound in contemporary calf, rather unsympathetically rebacked. Inscribed on front paste-down end-paper: "Mary Ann Kilner/ Gift of my Mother." The author and scholar Catherine Talbot (1721-1770) did not have a propitious start to life, having been born four months after her father died at the age of 29. She was, however, ably mentored by Thomas Secker, and, as Rhoda Zuk in the Oxford DNB entry observes, she "received a liberal education, learning classical, English, French, and Italian literatures, as well as history, scripture, drawing, painting, music, and astronomy, and she benefited from the intellectual preoccupations of Secker, his associates, and family friends.... Nevertheless, by addressing matters of practical religious concern rather than abstract theological matters, and in seeking to direct the reformation of masculine conduct while arguing for the dignity of female celibacy, she constructs a specifically female voice within a male text and social universe.... A substantial proportion of Talbot's work is directed to women and their concerns about ethics, economy, manners, and learning." Like Talbot, the famous children's writer Mary Ann Kilner (1753-1831) was "highly intellectual". Kilner is also said to have had "a fertile imagination and a feeling heart" (Oxford DNB). Kilner was born Mary Ann Maze, and her mother was Marianne Maze, née de Burmann, who is believed to have died in or before 1774 (Oxford DNB). The year 1774 is also the year that the second item bound here was published. The inscription in this volume tells us that in fact Kilner's mother cannot have died before 1774, since one of the two works in the presented volume was published in the year 1774. Mary Ann Maze (1753-1831) and her future sister-in-law Dorothy Kilner (1755-1836) grew up together: "The Maze family lived near the Kilners and shared their cultivated tastes. Mary Ann and Dorothy learned, played, and wrote together" (Oxford DNB). "On 18 September 1774 Dorothy's favourite brother, Thomas (1750-1812), married Mary Ann" (Oxford DNB). Later, Mary Ann Kilner and Dorothy Kilner would become two of the most famous children's writers of their time. Both ESTC and OCLC locate several copies of the two editions of Essays on Various Subjects from 1772, but the ninth edition of Reflections on the Seven Days of the Weeks from 1774 is especially rare, with ESTC finding only two locations: the British Library, which holds two copies, and the Huntington Library, which holds one. Both of the British Library's copies are imperfect, however. The copy on offer may be the only perfect copy outside the walls of the Huntington.

John Price Antiquarian BooksVendeur professionnel

N° du livre: 10136

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays women literature

[WIRT (William)]:

The Letters of the British Spy.

Baltimore, Printed: London, Reprinted, for Share and Hailes..., 1812 1812. FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. 12mo, 170 x 95 mms., pp. viii, 214 [215 - 216 adverts], including half-title, contemporary half calf, marbled boards, gilt spine; front joint defective and tender. William Wirt (1772 - 1834), who later achieved fame as the Attorney General of the United States, published this work in Richmond, Virginia, 1803, as the work of a "meek and harmless young [English]man," visiting the United States. Asking his landlord one evening for something to read, he is presented with an odd volume of the Spectator: "Were I the sovereign of a nation which spoke the English language, and wished my subjects cheerful, virtuous, and enlightened, I would furnish every poor family in my dominions (and see that the rich furnish themselves) with a copy of the Spectator; and ordain that the parents or children should read or five numbers aloud every night in the year."

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N° du livre: 6890

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays travel PROSE

[YONGE (J.)]:

Essays and Letters on the Most important and interesting Subjects.

London: Printed for J. Bew..., 1783. FIRST EDITION. 2 volumes. 8vo, 185 x 114 mms., pp. [iv], [i] - iii [2], 6 - 204; [iv], 204, contemporary tree calf, spine ornately gilt to a grapes motif, red morocco labels; top of spine volume 2 very slightly chipped, otherwise a fine and attractive set, with the name "Myrtle Perry" on the top margin of the rear paste-down end-paper in volume 2. This catch-all title seems first to have been used in 1739. Essays and Letters also appeared as part of the title of a work called A Dissertation on False Religion, published in 1757, and re-issued in 1761 and 1763. Bew seems to have published this in two issues (unless, as ESTC suggests there are two different works with the same title): ESTC T68676 lists the work without authorial attribution; while ESTC T108056 is a work with a title-page naming J. Yonge as author. I have not been able to find any differences between the two issues, using a BL copy of the anonymous title and the ECCO copy of the issue with title-page naming Yonge. Essay IX suggests that the author is male, but there is otherwise no real clue to his identity. The author confesses that he has published them firstly for his own benefit and hopes that others will find them useful, adding that they should "contain nothing that can give the slightest offence to the three great articles of our happiness, Reason, Religion, and Virtue." Volume 2 begins with a number of letters to "Euphemia" from "Mentor" and contains observations upon marriage and education, as well as justice, truth, etc. There is a curious example of the dialogue form in a dialogue between "friendship" and "love," and another between [sic] "despair," " hope," "patience" and "reason." ESTC T68676 on-line locates five copies in British libraries (L [2 copies], C, E, O) and five in United States libraries: University of Chicago Regenstein Library, University of Illinois Library, Ohio State University Libraries, Rice University Fondren Library, University of Texas, Austin.

John Price Antiquarian BooksVendeur professionnel

N° du livre: 6901

Catalogue: Essays

Mots-clés: essays binding PROSE