Current Stock - B (last online update: 11th May 2010)

Gibson 240; Willems 1157. Volume i title-page headed by the signature of John Green (1706-1789), Bishop of Lincoln and Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge (inscriptions removed from front endpapers of same volume).
Collective edition made up of ten separate Elzevier and Elzevier-related editions of Bacon's Latin works, previously issued together in 1684. "Ces six volumes, qui se recommendent à l'attention des amateurs, comprennent les divers ouvrages imprimé par les Elzevier, et dont Wetstein avait acquis la propriété.... Chacun de ces dix parties est de l'edition originale, à l'exception des Scripta, des Sermones, et du De Sapienta, les seules que Wetstein ait réimprimées." The set thus comprises:
i. De Augmentis Scientiarum Lib.ix. (Ravesteyn, 1662)
ii. Novum Organum (Ravesteyn, 1660) and Historia Naturalis & Experimentalis de Ventis (Elzevier, 1662)
iii. Scripta in Naturali et Universali Philosophia (Wetstein, 1685, with folding table) and De Sapientis Veterum (Wetstein, 1684)
iv. Sylva Sylvarum, sive Hist. Naturalis, et Nova Atlantis (Elzevier, 1661)
v. Historia Regni Henrici Septimi (Elzevier, 1662) and Historia Vitæ et Mortis (Ravensteyn, 1663)
vi. Sermones Fideles (Wetstein, 1685) and Opuscula Varia Posthuma (Ravesteyn, 1663)

Arnott & Robinson 2396: scandalous memoirs of "A very beautiful woman with a very bad character." Front pastedowns bearing contemporary armorial bookplates and the pencilled signatures of the late Frank Muir, raconteur and wit, at tail.

With the bookseller-binder's ticket of Barker...Market-place Hexham.

A series (numbered 1-25, apparently complete) of satirical bank note parodies, a genre that arose during the period of Restriction (1797-1823) when Bank of England notes were made non-redeemable in specie. A sample few: No.1. I Promise to pay to Monsieur Bonaparte, or Bearer, Two Pence, when the Gallic Flag shall triumph over the British, and the French become the Masters of the Sea. London, the 17th day of November 1818. For Self, St. Vincent, Duncan, Nelson & Co. John Bull. Vignette of naval vessel within the legend "Britain's Glory and its Pride."
No.3. I Promise to pay to Rory O Bogg Esqr. or Bearer, Two Pence, when the Union of the Kingdoms shall have produced a union of Civil & Religious principles. London, the 1st day of January 1819. For Self, Leinster, Ulster, Munster & Connaught. Pat Potatoe. Vignette outline map of Ireland.
No.6. I Promise to pay to Messrs. Sinecure, Pensioner, Peculator & Co. or Bearer, Two Pence, when Corruption, Bribery & Want of principle, shall have ceased throughout the Nation & when the noble example, set by the Electors of Westminster, shall have been followed by all the Electors of the United kingdom..... For Independence, Integrity, Honor & Self, Public Virtue. Cap of Liberty vignette within the legend "Do Thou Great Liberty Inspire our Souls."
No.9. I Promise to pay to Messrs. Public Justice & Virtue, or Bearer, Five Danish Skillings, when the Diabolical Massacre & Robbery of the Danes, shall have been properly atoned for, and when the injured Honor & Moral Justice of Britain shall have been completely restored. Copenhagen, the 7th day of Septr. 1818 For Justice, Revenge, Millions & Self, Hamlet. Vignette "A New Arms for Algiers" containing symbols of Piety (Koran), Piracy, Murder and Plunder.

Geddie Middle Scots Poets pp.65 & 145. Well edited by Dr. John Jamieson (author of the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language), and a pair of works recommended by Scott to his friends. Volume ii concludes with a glossary to both works, and a list of the subscribers: Scott, Commissioner Adam and his sons, Alexander Boswell, Andrew Duncan senior, Richard Heber, et al. The present copy is in a pair of fine London bindings, perhaps by John Wright: PLATE II.
"It is with The Bruce of Barbour that Scottish vernacular literature, as a distinctive national product, first begins to take shape.... [It] portrays the triumph of a splendid struggle for independent nationality...; and if not entitled to rank as a great national epic by virtue of qualities essentially poetic, it yet celebrates the daring and victorious career of a national hero in a manner not unworthy of the stirring theme....
...Harry [Henry the Minstrel] may be ranked next to Henryson. As a mere metrical achievement the poem is a great advance on Barbour's Bruce; and although Harry is not usually classed as a Chaucerian, there can be no doubt that he shared, directly or indirectly, in the Chaucerian influence." (Henderson)

Hill pp.13-14; Lada-Mokarski 34. With a loosely-inserted ALs. from Barrington inserted. Dated from his home "Beckett July 29th 1774" it is a request to M. Garnier to provide General Melville with a letter of safe-conduct "to certify that he travels as an antiquarian, and not as a spy." In fact, General Robert Melville (1723-1809: see DNB) did undertake his proposed antiquarian researches into ancient sites of military interest in France, but not until some years later.
The volume includes Barrington's valued works on travel such as "The Possibilty of reaching the North Pole Discussed" and the "Journal of a Spanish Voyage in 1775, to explore the Western Coast of N. America" (the only contemporary account of Don Francisco Antonio Maurelle's voyage to Alaska), together with essays on natural history, the child prodigy Mozart, etc.

WAKEFIELD in gilt to upper cover: from the library of Hugh Cleghorn (1752-1837), the St. Andrews professor of civil history turned political adventurer: see his biography by Aylwin Clark or her article in the Oxford DNB. Items 14, 38, 41, 68, 124 and 130 are from the same source.
Barrington's work complemented that of William Blackstone, particularly in its argument that much statute law was unnecessary and duplicated what was already common law.

From the series Collection des Mémoires relatifs a la Révolution Française.

H.D. Forbes copy. Bound after a copy of his Considerations of the Existence of God, and of the Immortality of the Soul, second edition, 1677, lacking one or more preliminaries (the preface ends with an orphaned catchword), but otherwise textually complete.

Reprinted from the rare original of [1513?]. Bound at the end is a 13-page pamphlet in quarto: Notes and Illustrations [relative to the Battle of Flodden Field]. 1. Notices regarding the death and body of King James IV. [...Letter from Pope Leo X. to Henry VIII. 29th November, 1513.... Notice Regarding Some of the Slain.... Library of James IV. and Ancient Records of Scotland, carried off by Sir Edward Norris], without place, printer or date, but according to the National Library of Scotland copy, with manuscript title, it is one of 16 copies privately printed [182?]. A neat manuscript note at the front of the present volume (the hand looks familiar - Maidment, Turnbull, or another of the contemporary Scottish antiquaries) states that these notes etc. "were collected by Robert Pitcairn Esqr. & were never published."

Alston iii/357; Chuo 28; Jessop p.98. WAKEFIELD in gilt to upper cover: from the library of Hugh Cleghorn (1752-1837), Professor of Civil History at St. Andrews turned political adventurer (see Oxford DNB). The poet, essayist and philosopher James Beattie was Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logick in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen.
"This book met with the most enthusiastic praise from William Cowper...who declared...that Beattie was the only author he had seen 'where critical and philosophical researches are diversified and embellished by a poetical imagination that makes even the driest subject and the leanest a feast for epicures'." (Chuo)

Chapman 3.A.ii; Rothschild 354.
"From the very first paragraph, when we learn of the dreadful power to stun and kill possessed by one of the Caliph's eyes, the story proceeds with an unremitted vigour....
Vathek was composed in French, and translated by Samuel Henley under Beckford's supervision. It was in translation that the book first appeared. He also added copious notes, reinforcing the impression that the text itself creates of a mind thoroughly at home in an exotic world..., where passions are flaunted more vehemently and punished more arbitrarily. Such materials served to anaesthetize any sense of guilt that Beckford's audacity might have engendered, and Vathek is the most wholehearted expression, among English works published in the 1780s, of that sheer iconoclastic exhilaration that shortly afterwards found definitive utterance in Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell." (Butt & Carnall)

Hill p.20; Howes B318; Sabin 4390. Survey of the western coast of America, followed by a voyage across the Pacific via the Marquesas, New Hebrides, New Guinea and Tonga to Singapore. On the voyage home Belcher was diverted to China, where he carried out a survey of Hong Kong, newly ceded to Great Britain.

From the Gladstone library at Fasque, with bookplates.
Covers the eventful years 1760-1793, a period of major upheaval in India, America and France and plenty going on at home.

H.D. Forbes copy. The four evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles, with one of the best philological commentaries on the historical books of the Testament.

The first of three annual volumes, including contributions by Mrs. Hemans, Lockhart, L.E.L., Coleridge (four), Miss Mitford, Lady Caroline Lamb, James Hogg (two) and the editor, William Fraser (two).

A lively account of a tour in cold lands and waters which went through many editions and won many admirers - among them D.H. Lawrence and W.H. Auden.

Adams B.2308; Bibliographia Aberdonensis pp.31-2; Renouard Badius Ascensius ii/pp.195-6.
With a fine contemporary ownership inscription (dated 1533) at the foot of the title-page, that of Matthew Weymiss (or Matthias Weymss) of Dordrecht, "Gardianus" of a convent in Mecheln (Malines, Belgium). This ancient and important city was, from 1559, the residence of the only archbishopric in the country, and hence the religious capital of Belgium. This is the second of two seminal Scottish histories from the press of the humanist scholar-printer Badius Ascensius (1462-1535): the other, by John Major or Mair, is listed below. Following an early education in Dundee, Boece, like so many of his countrymen, proceeded to Paris, then the most frequented university in Europe, and became a regent or professor there, probably from 1492 to 1498. Among his friends and contemporaries in the college were Erasmus, "the splendour and ornament of our age," and John Major or Mair: among their pupils were John Knox and George Buchanan, both of whom brought the new learning back to Scotland with them. Boece's friendship with the great scholar-bishop William Elphinstone led to his appointment as the first principal of King's College Aberdeen. In contrast to Mair, "Boece...was probably more typical of European, as well as Scottish, scholarship in the early sixteenth century. A work long on rhetorical flourishes and very short on either hard evidence or accuracy, his History of Scotland...was to be much more influential [than Mair's] in its own day." (Oxford Companion to Scottish History) It was "related in a style which the admirers of Boece compared to Livy, and followed the model of...the great Roman historian in sacrificing accuracy to a flowing narrative adapted to the public for whom it was written. This accounts for its rapid popularity.... In 1577 it was done into English for Holinshead's chronicles by William Harrison.... In the next generation, Buchanan, not unwilling to cavil at Boece, used his history as material for his own more elaborate work." (DNB)

Bouillé served in the Seven Years' War, and as governor in the Antilles conducted operations against the British in the American War of Independence; the present volume however concerns the French Revolution, to which he was hostile.

Blackmer 384 (this set, which realised £1,760 in the Sotheby sale of his books in 1989; his bookplate on each front pastedown).
The first attempt at a complete catalogue of the British Museum collection of sculpture. Combe had been appointed Keeper of Antiquities in 1807. Volumes i-iii illustrate pieces from the Towneley collection, drawn by William Alexander, and volume iv contains the sculptures from the Temple of Apollo at Bassae and two plates of the temple after drawings by John Foster done on the spot. The work was continued by Edward Hawkins (volumes v-x, 1826-43), and Samuel Birch (volume xi, 1861). Prominent among the collections are, of course, those of Lord Elgin (volumes vi-ix, containing 142 plates).
Complete sets are rare: Navari notes the Gennadius Library set, comprising the first four volumes only.

A flawed copy of a rare and interesting document. Below the heading (as above) is a brief history of Great Yarmouth in thirty-four lines, surmounting five columns of text providing a verse "Summary," lists of mayors, Justices, council members, church officials, constables, excise officers, customs clerks, overseers of the poor, the "Surgeon and Agent for sick and wounded Seamen, and Prisoners at War," "Collectors of Fishing-Doles," "Tellers of Herrings," "London Traders to Yarmouth," "Pack Ships to Rotterdam," etc., plus information about the sea-baths, the fishermens hospital, charity-school, and so on. No copy in ESTC, which records an edition of 1781 at Norwich Central Library and the B.L.

Kress B.4634; Goldsmiths' Library 18666.
"Brougham...touched nearly all subjects and adorned some by his eloquence and dialectical skill. The contact seems least superficial, the ornament particularly solid, in the case of political economy. Brougham's first considerable work was [the above].... Criticising Adam Smith, he maintains that the monopoly of the colonial trade did not produce all the detrimental effects ascribed to it. Referring to the slave colonies, Brougham not only denounces the slave trade as iniquitous - 'not a trade, but a crime' - but also argues that it is unprofitable.... Slavery, as well as slave trade, was assailed by Brougham's oratory...." (Palgrave)

Holland, Belgium, Vienna, Trieste, Venice, Bologna, Ancona, Rome, Naples, Florence, Genoa, Geneva, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Potsdam, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Finland, Denmark, etc.

PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed on the front pastedown: To Mr. Veitch a self taught ingenious Artist & Philosopher from the Earl of Buchan. By the hand of Mr. George Noble at Jedburgh Labourer. October 4 1814. James Veitch (1771-1838) was a self-taught polymath, who - while earning a living as a ploughwright - found the time to practice mathematics, mechanics and astronomy: he was an early encourager of David Brewster, and the two men built many optical devices together. (An archive of their correspondence over 35 years has recently been acquired by the National Library of Scotland.) By the late 1820s he was making telescopes and other scientific instruments full-time, his customers including Brewster, Scott, the earls of Hopetoun and Minto - probably Buchan too - and Professor Schumacher of the Altona Observatory in Germany.

Goldsmiths' Library 31914; Howes 921; Sabin 8892. Presentation copy, inscribed on volume i endpaper: Mrs Mary Polyblank of Truro from her affectionate Brother J S Buckingham May 8th 1841.

H.D. Forbes copy. "...both a serious work of history which drew, for example, on the findings of contemporary scholars of Judaism..., and an attempt to interpret difficult passages of scripture...." (Oxford DNB)

Egerer 242. From the Gladstone library at Fasque, with bookplates. Volume i is inscribed to a Charles and Ina Blundell with the sincere regards of John Gladstone, but it was clearly never presented.
Despite three new letters and a new poem, Egerer expresses disappointment in Gilbert Burns's edition.

The great popular poet of the Restoration's Hudibras is little understood and appreciated today, but his "remarkable series of characters, which remained in manuscript until [1759]...form ONE OF THE OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO RESTORATION LITERATURE. The man who wrote them was a sort of later Ben Jonson, a wit among scholars and a scholar among wits, with the intellectual confidence of wide and unselective reading, and that contempt for pedantry which comes most easily to the non-academic writer." (OHEL) The "characters" occupy the whole of volume ii; volume i contains other miscellaneous satires in verse and prose, and a 23-page list of subscribers.