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SENDIVOGIUS, Michael. ~ A new light of alchymy: taken out of the fountain of nature and manual experience, to which is added a treatise of sulphur. Written by Micheel Sandivogius. i.e. anagrammatically, divi leschi genus amo. Also nine books of the nature of things, written by Paracelsus, viz. Of the generations, growths, conservations, life, death, renewing, transmutation, separation, signatures of natural things. Also a chymical dictionary explaining hard places and words met withal in the writings of Paracelsus and other obscure authors. All which are faithfully translated out of the Latin into the English tongue, by J. F. MD.

London: A. Clark for Thomas Williams,  1674.
£1650.00
US$3208.75*





WALKER, William. ~ [A dictionarie of English and Latine idiomes wherein phrases of the English tongue answering in parallels each to the other are ranked under severall heads alphabetically set...] Idiomatologia Anglo-Latina, sive Dictionarium idiomaticum Anglo-Latinum: in quo phrases, tam Latinæ quam Anglicanæ linguæ sibi mutuò respondentes, sub certis quibusdam capitibus secundum alphabeti ordinem è regione collocantur. In usum tam peregrinorum, qui sermonem nostru Anglicanum, quàm nostratium, qui Latinum idioma callere student. Quarta editio. Cui acessit istiusmodi phrasium & idiomatum additio in utraque lingua ad minus trium millium.

London: E. Horton for T Sawbridg,  1685.
£900.00
US$1750.23*




BERTHOLLET, Claude Louis. ~ Elements of the art of dyeing... translated from the French by William Hamilton...

London: by Stephen Couchman, and sold by J. Johnson,  1791.
First edition in English, very scarce, of Berthollet's important scientific contribution to the burgeoning European textile industry. Having collaborated with Lavoisier on the latter's pioneering chemical nomenclature and presented some seventeen memoirs to the Academy, the author was already an influential chemist when appointed inspector of dye works and director of the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins in 1784. The Gobelins had their origins in the workshops of Flemish weavers brought to Paris by Henri IV in 1602 and were formally established by Colbert in 1667 as the "Royal Manufactury of Furnishings to the Crown". They became the pre-eminent centre for tapestry weaving in EuropeIn the Éléments de l'art de la teinture Berthollet "endeavored to place the ancient craft of dyeing on a scientific basis by a systematic discussion of its procedures, coupled with an attempt to find an adequate set of theoretical principles to explain the chemical actions involved. His explanation was that, depending on the variable physical conditions of temperature, quantity of solvent employed, and so forth, when a cloth was dyed the reciprocal affinities of the particles of the dye, the mordants, and the cloth itself were responsible for the kind and quality of dyeing. The colors produced were due to the oxidation of the mordant by the atmosphere" (DSB).The British edition appeared in the same year as the French, reflecting the market for such a treatise in a country where textile production was becoming one of the most important national industries. A second British edition appeared at Edinburgh the following year and several reprints appeared in the nineteenth century, presumably a measure of the popularity and utility of this scientific manual of dyeing in the British industrial revolution.   view more...
£1300.00
US$2528.10*






 

EDIE, George. ~ The art of English shooting; under the following heads: of the knowledge of a good fowling-piece. The ordering and managing the fowling-piece. The appendages of the fowling-piece. The choice of powder, shot, and flints. Of partridge shooting, and the choice and ordering of pointers. Of pheasant shooting, with the ordering and managing of spaniels. Of woodcock shooting. Of snipe shooting. Of water and fen-fowl shooting; and the use of proper dogs. Of upland winter shooting. With necessary observations for the young sportsman, when out and on returning home. Also abstracts of the late acts of Parliament for the preservation of game; for granting licences for shooting, &c. Together with an abstract of the acts of Parliament for preventing the stealing of dogs, &c...

London: J. Cooke,  [c. 1780].
Apparently unrecorded edition of the Edie; first edition of Best's Treatise. A desirable pairing of two important English sporting books. George Edie's exceptionally scarce treatise is notable as only the third English book on shooting birds in flight, preceded by George Markland's verse Pteryflygia, or the Art of Shooting-flying, 1727, and Thomas Page's The Art of Shooting Flying, 1766, which treats the fowling piece and shooting game birds and wild fowl in much the same manner as Edie's work. The first edition of Edie's work appeared in 1772 as A Treatise on English Shooting, retitled about 1780 as The Art of English Shooting. Our copy is an apparently unrecorded later edition of this work. ESTC and Schwerdt list the first edition which concurs with our copy in that the title is undated, but has 29 pages plus an additional page of adverts, whereas our copy has 31 pages plus adverts. ESTC records two other editions with the latter pagination, but with title-pages dated 1775 and 1777 respectively. In any edition this present work is scarce in trade. According to ABPC no edition of the work has appeared at auction in the past 30 years.Best's Treatise on Angling was a very popular book in its day; eleven editions were published in the succeeding 40 years. It is in two parts, the first including descriptions of different fish and the types of angling equipment, and the second concerning fly fishing and with a description of all the fishing rivers of England, particularly the Thames.   view more...
£2000.00
US$3889.39*




BOERHAAVE, Herman. ~ A method of studying physick. Containing what a physician ought to know in relation to the nature of bodies, the laws of motion: staticks, hydrostaticks, hydraulicks, and the properties of fluids: chymistry, pharmacy, and botany: osteology, myology, splanchnology, angiology and dissection: the theory and practice of physick: physiology, pathology, surgery, diet, etc. And the whole Praxis medica interna; with the names and characters of the most excellent authors on all these subjects in every age: systematicks, observators, operators, &c. their best editions, and the method of reading them. Written in Latin... Translated into English by Mr. Samber.

London: by H.P for C. Rivington, B. Creake and J.Sackfield,  1719.
£950.00
US$1847.46*







GOWER, John. ~ De Confessione Amantis.

London: Thomas Berthelet,  1532.
Second edition of Gower's great Middle English poem, completed about 1390 and dedicated to Richard II. Gower is chiefly remembered as a friend of Geoffrey Chaucer and his Confessio Amantis is frequently cited as the origin of William Shakespeare's play Pericles (who's story is taken from book 8 of the Confessio) but he should be accepted in his own right as one of the great pioneers of English literature.The plan of the Confessio was doubtless borrowed from the Roman de la Rose, and consists of a dialogue first between the poet, in the character of a lover, and Venus, and afterwards between the poet, in the character of a penitent, and Genius, whom Venus assigns to him as a confessor. In the conversation between the penitent and the confessor the seven deadly sins are discussed and illustrated from Gower's encyclopaedic knowledge of Ovid, Josephus, Vincent de Beauvais, Statius, the Gesta Romanorum, the Bible, and other sources. In the eighth book, having described the duty of a king and prayed for England, the poet bids farewell to earthly love. The work is a profound meditation on human love and morality and in Gower's own words in the Prologue it was "a boke for Englondes sake".The work survives in numerous early manuscripts (attesting to its immediate popularity) and was first printed by Caxton in 1474. Thomas Berthelet's edition of 1532 is considered textually superior to Caxton. Pforzheimer notes that the "edition was printed from a manuscript, resembling MS. Bodley 294, but inferior in correctness, collated with Caxton's edition from which several passages lacking in the manuscript were supplied. In the prefatory note 'To the reader' Berthelet included the alternative form of the introductory lines Prologue 24-92, also from Caxton's edition, so that on the whole this edition is textually an improvement over the earlier one. It is also a good example of workmanlike printing much above the average English work of the period" (Pforzheimer). The third edition of 1554 is merely a paginary reprint of the present.The early ownership inscription of William Sotheby is dated 1532. This copy is handsomely bound in the style of Mackinley for the Earl of Stafford, among the richest men in England at the opening of the nineteenth-century. The Earl was himself a latter-day member of the Gower family (he claimed descent in the male line from Sir Alan Gower of Stittenham, supposedly sheriff of York at the time of the conquest). Several antiquaries had previously suggested that the poet's origins lay in the same place, so this would have been a fitting acquisition for the Earl.   view more...
£15000.00
US$29170.44*




























 

BARNES, Joshua. ~ Gerania: a new discovery of a little sort of people anciently discoursed of, called pygmies· With a lively description of their stature, habit, manners, buildings, knowledge, and government, being very delightful and profitable. By Joshua Barnes, of Emanuel College, Cambridge.

London: W.G. for Obadiah Blagrave,  1675.
£1500.00
US$2917.04*













[JOHNSON, Samuel, "the Whig."] ~ Julien l'apostat ou abrege de sa vie. Dans lequel, on voit l'horreur que les meilleurs Chrétiens d'entre ses sujets témoignoient publiquement contre lui, en Paroles, en Actions & méme dans leurs Devotions publiques; avec une Comparison du Papisme & du Paganisme; et une autre idee Generale du Papisme, avec un Petit traité de l'Antechrist. Traduit de l'anglois.

[n.p.],  1688.
£480.00
US$933.45*



 

[RIDPATH, George.] ~ Parliamentary right maintain'd or the Hanover succession justify'd. Wherein The Hereditary Right to the Crown of England asserted &c. Is Consider'd, in III. Parts. The Ist Examins the Plea from Scripture. The II. That from the Laws & History of England, for Indefeasible Right, Nonresistance & Disposition of the Crown by Will. The III. Whether the Parliament, can repeal the Hanover Succession, as now Establish'd by the Treaty of Union. With Reflections on the Treasonable Schemes of the Party, as they occurr in their Book: & Particularly that of a new lurking pretender.

[London?],  1714.
£300.00
US$583.41*