[Historiae Augustae] (Casaubon, Isaac, ed.:) Histori? August? Scriptores Sex. Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Aelius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio et Flavius Vopiscus [...]. Parisiis [Paris]: Apud Amberosium & Hieronymum Drouart, [...] cum privilegio Regis, 1603. First edition thus. 2 parts in 1 vol., 4to., pp. [xx], 375, [lvii]; 576, [xxxvi]. Illustrations in text. Title-page to first part in red and black, to second part in black only, woodcut initials and head- and tail-pieces, with final errata leaf. Top corner of title-page a little frayed, first leaf of text with 2-line note in blue biro to head margin, head margins a bit dusty with very occasional light dampstains, occasional spots of foxing, a few paper flaws to fore-edge margins. Small scorch marks to pp.47-8 and pp.101-4 affecting a few letters, smudgy mark (ink or wax?) to fore-edge margin pp.115-22, ink spots to p.345. Contemporary semi-limp vellum, fore-edges slightly overlapped. Quite browned, covers somewhat creased, ties lost, turn-ins lifting, without ffep but still good and sound overall. Latin inscription in an old hand to title-page translates roughly as 'from the common library of the preachers of Dijon'. First appearance of Casaubon's edition of this collection of biographies of the emperors from Hadrian to Carinus, considered to be the first critical edition and also the first to use the title Histori? August?. (The title as recorded on the 9th-century Codex Palatinus manuscript of the Vatican Library is Vitae Diversorum Principum et Tyrannorum a Divo Hadriano usque ad Numerianum Diversis compositae, and it is generally thought that the work may have been originally known as de Vita Caesarum or Vitae Caesarum.) In early editions 'the emphasis had been laid on the Latin text, but in the seventeenth century the work of the editors included not only textual emendation, but comment and illustration. Of these editions the first was that of Casaubon, published in 1603. It was not unnatural that these biographies should have attracted the editor of Suetonius and Polybius and the scholar who wrote in the preface to his edition of the Historia Augusta that "political philosophy may be learned from history, and ethical from biography."' (from David Magie's introduction to his 1921 Loeb edition.) Though its authenticity was regarded with a little scepticism, Casaubon's edition was for hundreds of years used as a genuine source by historians (including Edward Gibbon in the first volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). Browning sums up the tricky position the work occupies: "in modern times most scholars read the work as a piece of deliberate mystification written much later than its purported date, however the fundamentalist view still has distinguished support. [?] The Historia Augusta is also, unfortunately, the principal Latin source for a century of Roman history. The historian must make use of it, but only with extreme circumspection and caution." ('Biography', in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Volume 2 (1983).) Graesse III, 303; Sandys II, 209; Schweiger II, 384. Ref: 54541show full image..
[Homer] Blackwell, Thomas: An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer. London: Printed [for J. Oswald], 1736. Second edition. 8vo., pp.[iv], 346, [lxxxii] + portrait frontispiece and folding map. Single leaf catalogue at rear. Many illustrations and elaborate engraved head- and tail-pieces in the text. Very faint dampstaining to bottom corner, offsetting from some illustrations. Contemporary brown calf, gilt spine with raised bands and title label, plain gilt borders. Worn, endcaps lost, joints split but cords holding, corners frayed, endpapers toned at edges, a good sound copy. The second edition of this pioneering study. 'Blackwell considered why Homer had been the supreme epic poet and concluded that his achievement was explicable almost entirely in terms of natural forces. Homer was the outcome of a specific historical context, social organization, geography, and climate, which combined to shape the culture he represented and which provided an ethos uniquely favourable to epic poetry' (ODNB). ESTC T70409. Ref: 54906show full image..
[Horace] Horatius Flaccus, Quintus: (Opera) Birminghamiae [Birmingham]: Johannis Baskerville, 1770. 4to., pp. [iv], 344 + engraved frontispiece signed Henriquez, but without the other four plates found in about half of the copies Gaskell examined. Title-page setting without the damaged letter D. With margins neatly ruled in red to each page. Occasional spots of foxing, the odd light smudge, p.112 a bit toned, very good. Contemporary calf, gilt spine with raised bands and title, blind-tooled borders and gilt frames to boards, marbled edges and endpapers. Originally dark reddish-brown, the spine and joints are much sunned, patch of further fading to lower board. First compartment of spine and both joints neatly repaired, some scuffs, small stains and scrapes, corners frayed, still a very good, sound copy overall. To front paste-down, armourial bookplate of Octavian Blewitt (1810?1884), English writer and long-serving secretary of the Royal Literary Fund. "The 4to. edition of 1770 is a very beautiful and extremely scarce work, the rarest of all Baskerville's editions. It is frequently chosen by the curious as a repository for any modern or antique design relating to the poet." (Dibdin) ESTC T46243; Gaskell 39; Dibdin II (4th edn.), 111. Ref: 54665show full image..
[Horace] Horatius Flaccus, Quintus: Ad lectiones probatiores diligenter emendatus, et interpunctione nova saepius illustratus. Editio quarta. Glasguae [Glasgow]: in aedibus academicis excudebant Robertus et Andreas Foulis, 1760. 4to, pp. [ii], xii, 307, [i]. Half-title. Small hole to centre of A4 affecting a couple of words, paper flaw to Q4 resulting in shorter fore-edge margin. Deep red morocco, spine heavily gilt with black morocco label, ornate gilt border to boards, edges dark blue, marbled endpapers. A bit rubbed, joints and endcaps neatly repaired, corners worn, upper hinge repaired, but very good overall. Armorial bookplate of William Scott Kerr of Chatto to front paste-down, and gift inscription to blank endpaper: 'To William Kerr, from his friend James Hope, Edinb. 25th Oct 1823'. The luxurious 'large-paper' quarto imposition - using the same setting of text as the octavo, and therefore capaciously-margined - of the fourth Foulis edition of Horace, following on from the 1744 'Immaculate' edition and reprints of 1750 and 1756 (the latter a medal-winning printing). The process of rearranging the frames has not gone entirely smoothly, with pages 20 (C2v) and 24 (C4v) swapped. Gaskell 383; ESTC T46249. Ref: 54180show full image..
[Horace] Horatius Flaccus, Quintus: (Bentley, Richard, ed.:) [Opera] ex recensione et cum notis atque emendationibus Richardi Bentleii. Editio tertia. Amstelaedami [Amsterdam]: apud Rod. & Jacob. Wenstenios & Guil. Smith, 1728. 2 vols. in 1. 4to., pp. [xxiv], 356, [ii], 357-717, [i], 239, [i] + additional engraved title page. Title in red and black with engraved vignette, large engraved headpiece to first page of Dedication. Occasional smudgy marks, a little light dampstaining near gutter, a few leaves lightly toned. Contemporary marbled calf, spine gilt with label, gilt frame and border, central gilt coat of arms of Dokkum. Spine a bit creased, joints rubbed, endcaps and corners slightly worn, still very good overall. The third full Bentley edition (an abridged third edition in 8vo. was produced in Cambridge, 1713), this is an almost exact reprint of the second (Amsterdam, 1713). The two Amsterdam editions are distinguished by having Bentley's editorial notes on the same page as the text, making them more useful to the scholar, and Dibdin and Brunet on this account preferred them to the Cambridge first. "Rash and tasteless in many of its conjectures, marvellously acute in some others (Bentley's Horace is) a signal proof of (his) learning, his ingenuity and his argumentative power" (R.C. Jebb in DNB). Bentley was thought for a long time the first Classical editor of the modern age. He was celebrated and reviled by his contemporaries, and the scholar Alexander Cunningham produced a whole edition of Horace specifically against Bentley's in 1721. Brunet III 818-819; Dibdin (4th edn.) II 101-105; Schweiger II 408; Spoelder 4. Ref: 54317show full image..
[Horace] Horatius Flaccus, Quintus: (Bentley, Richard, ed.:) [Opera] ex recensione & cum notis atque emendationibus Richardi Bentleii. Editio altera. Amstelaedami [Amsterdam]: Apud Rod. & Gerh. Wetstenios Hff. 1713. 4to., pp. [xxiv] 717, [i], 239, [i], including engraved additional title-page and divisional title for 'Pars altera' after p.442. Emendata after p.717 (i.e. 4Y1 verso). Index at rear. Title page in red and black with engraved device, woodcut initials. Gatherings 3M-3O and 3V-3X very toned, occasional light toning otherwise, a few tiny scorchmarks. Contemporary marbled calf, spine gilt with red morocco label, gilt borders, lovely blue paste-patterned edges, very good. With letterpress and manuscript school-prize (to J.J. van Hees, dated 1822) bound at the front. The second edition of Bentley's (in)famous edition of Horace, first printed at Cambridge in 1711, notable for his rash but inspired conjectures and emendations. "The Amsterdam editions of 1713 and 1728 are preferable to the Cambridge one of 1711. The notes and text are in the same page, and they are accompanied by the index of Treter, corrected by Verburgius" (Dibdin 104). Dibdin (4th edn.) II 101; Schweiger II 406; Bijker Riedel A140; Lowndes 1113: "The best edition."; Graesse III 354 (note); Brunet III 319 (note). Ref: 54397show full image..
Johnston, Robert: Historia rerum Britannicarum: Ut et multarum Gallicarum, Belgicarum, & Germanicarum, tam Politicarum, quam Ecclesiasticarum, ab anno 1572, ad Annum 1628 [...] Adjectus est rerum ac Personarum, de quibus in hoc volumine, Index absolutissimus. Amstelaedami [Amsterdam]: sumptibus Joannis Ravesteynii [colophon:Goudae [Gouda], typis Guilielmi va 1655. First edition. Folio, fols. [ii] 737 [xi]. Text in Latin. Printer's vignette to title-page, woodcut initials and head- and end-pieces. Ink spot to bottom edge encoaching very slightly onto bottom margin. Very light toning to edges, 2P4 with paper flaw causing ragged fore-edge, a few other very minor paper flaws. 18th-century vellum, title inked to spine in an old hand and partially obscured by a recent brown and gilt title label, edges sprinkled dark blue, an old catalogue entry pasted to ffep. Vellum a little darkened with some marks and scuffs, fore-edges worn with boards partly exposed, still very good overall. First complete edition, of Johnston's history of England and Scotland; parts of which had already been published in English. The work covers the period 1572-1628, during all of which time King James VI and I was reigning in Scotland or also England. Johnston (1567?-1639) was a member of the first class to graduate from the University of Edinburgh (M.A., 1587), and spent his working life as a clerk in London. "'A work of great merit, whether we consider the judicious structure of the narrative, the sagacity of the reflections, the acute discernment of characters, or the classical structure of the style' - Lord Woodhouselee" (Lowndes). Lowndes 1223: Ref: 54524show full image..
Justinian: (Corvinus, Arnoldus:) Institutiones D. Justiniani ss. Princ.: typis variae, rubris nucleum exhibentibus : accesserunt ex Digestis tituli de verborum significatione et regul. juris. Pariis [Paris]: Apud Guillelmum de Luyne, 1676 16mo, pp. [8], 391, [103], [2], including added engraved title, text in red and black. Light water stain to first and last few leaves. Contemporary full speckled calf, raised bands, spine gilt and gilt-lettered, edges sprinkled red, corners a little bumped, extremities minimally rubbed. Contemporary autograph Ja[cques?] Maule to verso of title, 'Monsieur' to verso of last blank. A fresh copy, in an attractive contemporary binding, of this pocket-size pirated edition of Justinian's legal milestone - printed in red and black. It reprises an edition of the same text printed by Daniel Elzevier in Amsterdam in the same year (Willems 1519), including the design of the engraved title, with a revised imprint. Ref: 53556show full image..
Juvenalis, Decimus Junius: (Dryden, John, trans.:) The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. By Mr Dryden, And Several other Eminent Hands. Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus [...] London: Printed for Jacob Tonson [...] 1697. Second edition. 8vo. pp. [ii], xc, 501, [iii] + frontispiece and 17 further engraved plates. Trimmed a little close at head just touching letters of headline p.v, light dampstain to bottom edge and a little worming pp. 5-20 and pp.345-356, slightly foxed, small tear to head of pp.213-4, occasional small wax spots. Contemporary dark brown mottled calf, raised bands with gilt filets, red label, blind-tooled frame and corners to boards, edges sprinkled red. Roughly 1.5cm loss to head cap, spine creased, some scuffs and scrapes, small loss to bottom corner of upper board and top corner of lower board, good. Ownership inscriptions of Tom S. Gowland, Old Park House, Ripon dated Easter 1947 to front pastedown; Gerrard Thomas (Ferrand?) to frontispiece verso. The first edition in 8vo format, following first publication in folio in 1693. Translations by Dryden, Tate, W. Bowles, Charles Dryden, G Stepney, Stephen Harvey, Mr Congreve, Mr Power, Mr Creech, J, Dryden Jnr. The fourth, anonymous satire translated by R. Duke. ESTC R031548; Wing J1289. Ref: 54733show full image..
Kilburne, Richard: A Topographie or Survey of the County of Kent. With Some Chronological, Historicall, and Other Matters Touching the Same: and the Several Parishes and Places therein. London: Thomas Mabb for Henry Atkinson [...], 1659. First edition. Small 4to. (177 x 135mm), pp. [viii], 422, [xii] + portrait frontispiece. Numerous errors in pagination as usual, list of Contents incorrectly bound before the dedication rather than after. Woodcut initials and head- and tail-pieces. Occasional light smudges and spots of foxing, a little toning along head of title-page, a smudge of red pigment to tail edge of final leaf perhaps indicating the original edge colour. Late 19th- or early 20th-century brown polished sheep neatly rebacked with original spine retained, gilt title and blind tooling to spine, blind-tooled borders to boards, edges marbled, grey endpapers. A little rubbed but a very good copy overall. Recent armorial bookplate of Robert Edmund Lloyd-Roberts to front paste-down. Two MS pencil notes to the ffep verso, the first concerning the placement of the list of Contents, the second recording that this book was 'acquired at the sale at Godmersham Park, the home of Mrs Robert Tritton. 8th June 1983.' Built in 1732 by Thomas May (later Knight), Godmersham Park was inherited by Edward Austen (brother of Jane Austen) in 1794. He was a cousin of the Knight family, who had adopted him in the early 1780s; when his adoptive mother died in 1812 he changed his name to Knight. Jane was a regular visitor to Godmersham Park and is said to have used the house as a model for Mansfield Park. The house passed through several more hands before being bought in 1935 by Robert Tritton and his wife Elsie, whose death in 1983 prompted the Christie's auction mentioned above. In his 'Epistle Dedicatory', Kilburne writes of his intention to present 'the Kent of his own day', and to depict 'the county as it was before the Civil War'. Hasted, in his 1797 History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, dismisses Kilburne's work as being 'little more than a Directory'. However, 'Kent was not well served by early topographers, and Kilburne's small survey was extensively quoted on sixteen occasions by Robert Furley and, over the years in Archaeologia Cantiana, as a first source of reference, and not without some praise. The Topographie devoted disproportionate attention to Hawkhurst: 10 pages out of 422, or, in the words of one writer, 'as much space to it as to twenty other average parishes' (Archaeologia Cantiana, 5, 1863, 59). Kilburne justified this, however: "In respect I finde not any description of this Parish ? it having been the place of my habitation for above twenty eight years last past (God's Providence having also there lent me an inheritance), I thought fit to enlarge my selfe upon this place. (Kilburne, 126)"'. (ODNB) Wing K434 Ref: 50494show full image..
