create pdf catalogue:
social sciences
Social Sciences
407-430 of volume 4 of The Pamphleteer (1813). This is an important speech advocating the inclusion of stipulations in the peace treaty with Napoleon that the French should abandon the slave trade. Romilly, a lawyer of French extraction, maintained a broadly Whig outlook throughout his career, and had been a vocal opponent of slavery since 1787, when he joined the committee against slavery, making friends with Wilberforce and Bentham. A major argument levelled against abolition by the British in 1807 was that other nations would continue the trade regardless. Romilly, whose interests were whole-heartedly European was one of the most important forces in British politics for a wider movement towards abolition, recognising that slavery would only be abolished with European concensus. His contention in this speech was that the treaty was far to weak on the subject of slavery, stipulating as it did that the French abandon slavery in its colonies within 5 years. For Romilly, this was 5 years too many, especially since France showed every intention of breaking that deadline. see full details...
One of the central texts in the development of utilitarian tradition, Bentham's Fragment on Government is the first attempt to apply the principle of utility in a methodical and systematic manner to the theory of government, in the form of a detailed criticism of a section of Blackstone's famous Commentaries. "Admirably written, free from the diffuseness and pronounced mannerisms of his later productions, the book is a model of controversial literature. Bentham's observations went far beyond the text upon which he proposed to comment. They were destructive of the theories in jurisprudence and political philosophy which were then prevalent, and 'were the first publication by which men at large were invited to break loose from the trammels of authority and ancestor wisdom on the field of law.' The 'Fragment on Government' was a new point of departure in jurisprudence." (John Macdonell, DNB, 1885.) During the productive final years of Bentham's life, a number of his early works were republished, including this title which originally appeared anonymously in 1776. Though described on the title page as enlarged, the only significant addition was a long footnote to Ch. I, pp. 45-48. see full details...
It enjoyed many editions, ‘even becoming a textbook in colonial American colleges’ (Oxford DNB). Johnson’s contributions are the long Preface to volume I and ‘The Vision of Theodore the Hermit of Teneriffe, found in his Cell’ (II, 516–26), a piece which, by Johnson’s own admission, was ‘the best thing he ever wrote’ (Boswell, Life, I, 192). In this copy, the plate featuring six nudes (‘Drawing No. 9’) has been removed and the numbering of the subsequent four Drawings discreetly altered to avoid suspicion. This was evidently done at an early date. One wonders whether the Archbishop had it removed for reasons of propriety. see full details...
A later bibliographical note to the endpaper asserts that this must “sans aucune doute” be Giard’s manuscript for his edition. This is perhaps unlikely: early manuscript copies of hard-to-come-by imprints are an important (if under-appreciated) aspect of the contemporary circulation of new books. Chastelet’s treatise (dedicated to the King) covers all aspects of war: types of troops, garrisons, ranks, invasion, battle, morale, treatment of casualties, defence, sieges, sea warfare, civil wars, discipline, military law, espionage and treaties. see full details...
![[CAREW, Bampfylde-Moore.]](/photos/342/main/342.jpg "[CAREW, Bampfylde-Moore.]")
This is one of two editions printed for Buckland, Bathurst and Davies in 1793. The final 5 pages contain a notable cant dictionary. Carew fell in with a band of gypsies as a wayward young boy. “After a year and a half Carew returned home for a time, but soon after resumed a career of swindling and imposture, which saw him deceive people to whom he had previously been well known. Eventually he embarked for Newfoundland, but stayed only a short time. On his return to England he passed as the mate of a vessel, and eloped with the daughter of a respectable apothecary from Newcastle upon Tyne, whom he later married. Carew soon returned to the nomadic life, and when Clause Patch, a Gypsy king or chief, died Carew was elected his successor. He was convicted of being an idle vagrant, and sentenced to be transported to Maryland. On his arrival he attempted to escape, but was captured and made to wear a heavy iron collar; he escaped again, and encountered some Native Americans, who removed his shackles. On departure he travelled to Pennsylvania. He was then said to have swum the Delaware River, after which he adopted the guise of a Quaker, and made his way to Philadelphia, then to New York, and finally to Boston, where he embarked for England. He escaped impressment on board a man-of-war by pricking his hands and face, and rubbing in bay salt and gunpowder, so as to simulate smallpox” (John Ashton, rev. Heather Shore in Oxford DNB). This biography is variously attributed to Bampfylde Moore Carew himself, to Robert Goadby and also to his wife, Mrs. Goadby. see full details...
Henry’s reign marked the rehabilitation of France’s fortunes after the near-disintegration of the country during the Wars of Religion. Sully’s collection represents a very immediate account of the period between 1570 and 1628, including episodes such as Henry’s conversion to Catholicism (arguably a political expediency urged by Sully himself, who remained Protestant); the Edict of Nantes (which promised religious toleration for the Huguenots); negotiations with the English crown (both Elizabeth and James I); and war with Spain (in alliance with England). Sully’s own contrubution to the state is amply recorded - he is remembered for his reorganisation of the country’s finances and system of office-holding as well as for his engineering projects (the Place Royale and the Briare Canal linking Seine and Loire being the best known). The Mémoires are historiographically advanced and include both critical narrative and a large number of transcribed diplomatic material. They have, however, been criticized for partiality and for containing “many fictions, such as a mission undertaken by Sully to Queen Elizabeth in 1601, and the famous ‘Grand Design,’ a plan for a Christian republic [or a United States of Europe], which some historians have taken seriously” (Ency. Brit, 1911). The work was completed posthumously by a second volume (present here) under the editorship of J. Le Laboureur. The bibliography of this work has been contentious. For a long time, our edition with the coloured frontispieces was accepted as the first, published with a false imprint at the Chateau de Sully itself. It is now clear that there were actually as many as 3 issues bearing versions of these title pages: the exceptionally rare true first edition printed under Sully’s eye (with a different collation to ours); our swiftly-produced contrefaçon of the same year, and one other pirate edition. Complete sets of any edition are rare. see full details...
In this encyclopaedic work, Vergil addresses questions of origins, from the origin of the gods, man and languages to the origin of wine and liqueurs, marriage, magic, medicine, poetry, drama, geography and law. First published (in Latin) in Venice in 1499, it was first printed in France in 1528 (also in Latin). A French translation (probably by Jacques Regnault) appeared in 1544, followed by a new translation by François de Belleforest printed at Paris in 1576. Our small format Lyon edition of the same year is of de Belleforest’s text, without the preliminary material. An Italian by birth, Vergil spent much of his life in Britain, principally working as a Papal envoy at the court of Henry VIII. François de Belleforest (1530-1583) was a prolific translator and author, perhaps best known in the anglophone world as a source of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, through his French translation of the medieval Gesta Danorum found in his Histoires Tragiques published in 1570. The book contains the bookplate of Justin Godart, lawyer and mayor of Lyon, who was a leading figure in the French Resistance (heading the Comité du Front National clandestin de libération de la France Zone Sud) during the Second World War. see full details...
![[PALMER, Sir Thomas.]](/photos/447/main/447.jpg "[PALMER, Sir Thomas.]")
Palmer’s intention was to explore the motivation for travel and explain the ways in which travel could be beneficial to the individual and to his country. Following the example of Zwinger’s Methodus Apodemica (1577) Palmer’s work contains four large and elaborate tables showing the diversity of types of foreign travellers (from tourists, to spies and exiles) and the priorities they should adopt while abroad. Palmer was not himself a seasoned traveller and the book is not a practical guide, but is culturally important as a complete exposition of an English Renaissance theory of travel. ‘Sir Thomas Palmer (1540–1626), “the Travailer,” born in 1540, was the third son of Sir Henry Palmer of Wingham, Kent... He was high sheriff of Kent in 1595, and in the following year went on the expedition to Cadiz, when he was knighted. In 1606 he published ‘An Essay of the Meanes how to make our Travailes into forraine Countries the more profitable and honourable,’ London, 4to. Here Palmer discussed the advantages of foreign travel, and some of the political and commercial principles which the traveller should understand. The book is dated from Wingham, where the author is said to have kept, with great hospitality, sixty Christmases without intermission. The book is dedicated to the young Henry, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the throne, who would then have been 12 years old’ (DNB). see full details...
This immensely popular juvenile novel emphasises thrift and hard work through the character of Simon, a travelling salesman. It was published by La Société pour l’instruction élémentaire following a competition, with a prize of 1000 francs donated by an anonymous benefactor, for a work of no more than 250 pages in which were ‘tracés avec simplicité, précision et sagesse, le principes de religion chrétienne, de morale, de prudence sociale’, for the improvement of everyday town and country people. There were numerous subsequent editions in France, as well as translations into Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Greek and even Breton. A nephew of the Jussieu brothers of botanical fame, Laurent Jussieu became director of police to the French minister for the interior in 1837. see full details...
![[RUTLEDGE, John James.]](/photos/410/main/410.jpg "[RUTLEDGE, John James.]")
Not, despite the title a genuine work by Sterne, but an original novel by Rutledge (or Rutlidge) of French-Irish parentage born at Dunkirk. La quinzaine angloise a Paris tells the story of rapid demise of a young English aristocrat during his brief sojourn in Paris. He is seduced by the glittering Parisian beau monde, attending balls, horse races, galleries and theatres and (naturally) he falls in love. Through various unfortunate twists of fate he loses all his money and finds himself imprisoned for debt. The novel’s critique of French society made it notorious in its day, especially since he failed to disguise several of its characters: notably the painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) whose atelier the hero visits, occasioning an interesting discussion of the decadence of contemporary French art. Despite its obvious caricatures, it is a serious comparison of English and French character. ‘Rutlidge’s principal claim to fame was his promotion of English literature in France. In Observations à messieurs de l’Académie française (1776) he provided a spirited defence of Shakespeare’s superiority over French dramatists, attacking Voltaire for his earlier criticisms of the English writer. (Alger and Carter, ODNB). This criticism appears also in La quinzaine angloise, with the 12-page preface devoted to a defence of Shakespeare against the claims of Voltaire, and with several incidental reflections on the comparative merits of French and English literature appearing throughout. The work appeared in English the following year as The englishman’s fortnight in Paris. Rutledge went on to play a significant part in the Revolution, becoming a champion of the Paris bakers in the affaires des boulangers: accusing Louis XVI’s minister, Necker, of conspiring to deprive the capital of bread (briefly costing him his liberty). see full details...
![FLEURY, [Claude, Abbé.]](/photos/351/main/351.jpg "FLEURY, [Claude, Abbé.]")
The part considering servants is divided into categories: butlers, valets, chambermaids, coachmen and so on and is a valuable source for understanding private lives in the age of Louis XIV, giving detailed opinions on the conduct expected in a well-ordered household. To take one example, the instructions to the valets de chambre include remarks on discretion, on moral rectitude and on the effective use of spare time. Reading is recommended as a suitable recreation for servants, provided the subject matter is edifying: works of religion, history and morality are suggested, but also some science and perhaps mathematics. The art of fine writing is encouraged, since it is helpful to the master and also perhaps the learning of a musical instrument or a little painting. Overfamiliarity with the female servants is expressly discouraged, in recognition of the frequent opportunities for female company a valet may find. At the end is an Abregé de l’histoire sainte, a kind of catechism for servants. There are 11 pages of advertisements for other works sold by Aubouin, Emery and Clouzier. see full details...
As the title suggests, this later work is essentially Owen’s response to the European political upheavals of 1848, the year of the Paris Commune and of the publication of Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto. Since Owen had made his first practical statement of socialist principles in A New View of Society (1813-14) the socialist movement had become the central theme of European politics: “A revolution from wrong to right, from falsehood to truth, from oppression to justice, from deception and misery to straightforward honesty and happiness, has commenced” (Revolution in the mind and practice..., Ch. 3, p. 39). Owen, for his part, had also accrued the experience of his social experiments at New Lanark, New Harmony (United States) and Queenwood. He fundamentally opposed the principle of ‘revolutionary socialism’ which advocated violence as the only way of fomenting the necessary change in society. The present work opens with envoys both to Queen Victoria and “To the Red Republicans, Communists and Socialists of Europe” - the latter being a stinging reprimand for the mistakes of 1848 in which he accuses the Communists of committing the same errors as their enemies by resorting to violence rather than reason and kindness. The work provides a succinct retrospective account of the New Lanark experiment as an illustration of Owen’s principles (and as a mature admission of the limitations of his first experiment) and proceeds to rehearse the basic principles and laws of a genuinely rational society, many of which he had earlier developed in the The Book of the New Moral World (1836-44). A supplement to the work appeared later in 1849. see full details...
The notes have the character of being source material for an unpublished scholarly work on the subject of the office of Magistrate (chief priest, lawgiver, judge, and commander of the army) in ancient Rome. Compiled in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic experiment, Gibelin's exmination of Diocletian's termination of republicanism in favour of autocracy for is surely significant. The author, Jacques Gibelin (1744-1828), in whose hand the volumes are written, was, at the time of composition, the librarian of the town of Aix and secretary of the town's Société Académique. He was already a prominent literary figure and had lived in Paris and England, being responsible for introducing many English scientific ideas to a French audience, having translated and published large portions of the Abridgements of the Transactions of the British Royal Society and important Enlightenment treatises by Joseph Priestley and Richard Kirwan. He also published the French translation Adam Ferguson's History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic and oversaw the first publication of the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which appeared, in Gibelin's French translation (before the original English version) in 1791 as Mémoires de la vie privée de Benjamin Franklin écrits par lui-méme. The extracts in this manuscript are drawn from Herodian, Dion, Suetonius, Tacitus, Eutropius, Justinian, Plutarch, Apuleius, Orosius, Zosimus and modern commentators such as Isaac Casaubon. The compilation is made with a librarian's thoroughness, with precise references given to the editions consulted (usually giving the editor, and the place and year of publication). Loosely inserted is a printed and manuscript slip, with Gibelin's printed subscription, from the Aix Société Académique, requesting the presence of a member at a meeting on the 4th July 1827 at 6 o'clock. see full details...
It had first appeared as a preface to Les crimes de l’amour (1799) and sought to trace the origins and development of the modern or psychological novel from classical literature to the eighteenth-century works of Rousseau, Voltaire, De Graffigny, Marivaux and Crébillon fils and in de Sade’s own Aline et Valcourt. De Sade identifies Richardson and Fielding as the masters of the genre (‘C’est Richardson, c’est Fielding qui nous ont appris que l’étude profonde du coeur de l’homme, véritable dédale de la nature, peut seul inspirer le romancier...’) and he prefers Lewis to Radcliffe among gothic novelists. He also denies his authorship of Justine, attributed to him by contemporaries, writing ‘jamais je n’ai fait de tels ouvrages, et je n’en ferai sûrement jamais.’ Uzanne adds a bio-bibliographical preface, the latter portion providing a checklist of de Sade’s works and a critical overview of nineteenth-century studies. see full details...
![[BOEMUS, Johannes.] WATERMAN, William, translator.](/photos/446/main/446.jpg "[BOEMUS, Johannes.] WATERMAN, William, translator.")
The book is important as a summary of anthropological knowlege of races, traits and customs of Africa and Asia from the early years of the age of discovery. A translation of Book 1 only by William Prat had appeared in 1554 (STC 3196.5, BL only) and text was reprinted in the 1812 edition of Hakluyt’s voyages. The dedication to Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel promises a translation of Book 3 (on Europe) but this never appeared. Very little is known of the author. ‘Born in Aub in Franconia and writing between 1515 and 1520, Boemus was a contemporary of Copernicus and of Sir Thomas More; he was an elder member of the generation of Jean Bodin and Giovanni Botero; and if still living in the sixth decade of the sixteenth century, an old man when Bacon and Shakespeare were born’ (Hodgen). His work was evidently well-read in Europe to judge from the various early editions and translations. His descriptions of Africa, include Ethiopia, Egypt and Carthaginia and are based largely on ancient sources while the Asian sections are devoted to the Middle East and India. At the end is printed a ‘treatise of Josephus conteyning the ordres, and Lawes of the Jewes commune wealthe’ a translation of book 4, chapter 8 of Antiquitates Judicae, the first appearance of part of thisJosephus’s text in English. Provenance: foliation in an early hand. Several short quotations in Latin from Horace, Ovid and elsewhere in a neat late 16th-century hand, vertically down outer margins, presumably by the Francis Smith who signs one of them, including on: (O6v) “I fire, i freese, I burne, i broyle. I starve i frett i fume / I live and die. i die and live, in langor I consume.” A direct quote from A Most lamentable and tragicall historie, containing the outrageous and horrible tyranny which a Spanish gentlewoman named Violenta executed upon her lover Didaco, beacuse he espouthed another being first betrothed to her (London, 1576, leaf D2r): adapted into verse by Thomas Achelley from William Painter’s translation of one of Bandello’s Novelles in The Palace of Pleasure. Achelley’s poem recorded in one copy only (STC 1256.4, Bodley, lacking leaf A4). Violenta became, probably via Painter, a speechless character (entering only once) in Shakespeare’s ‘All’s Well that ends Well.’ (T6v): “Dives dives non omni tempore Vives / Da tua, dum tua sunt, post mortem tunc tua sunt. ffranciscus Smyth.” Later provenance: Henry Cunliffe, bookplate and his notes on first flyleaf; probably the Lancashire dialect lexicographer who collected Shakespearean sources and early books on the English language; bought from Boone of New Bond Street for £4 in 1859 [a letter from Boone concerning the incorrect catchword on T7v tipped in at end]; by descent to Rolf, 2nd Baron Cunliffe, sale, Sotheby’s 13 May 1946, lot 46, £38 to Maggs, Catalogue 817/334 (1953) £52/10. see full details...
One of the central texts in the development of utilitarian tradition, Bentham's Fragment on Government is the first attempt to apply the principle of utility in a methodical and systematic manner to the theory of government, in the form of a detailed criticism of a section of Blackstone's famous work. "Admirably written, free from the diffuseness and pronounced mannerisms of his later productions, the book is a model of controversial literature. Bentham's observations went far beyond the text upon which he proposed to comment. They were destructive of the theories in jurisprudence and political philosophy which were then prevalent, and 'were the first publication by which men at large were invited to break loose from the trammels of authority and ancestor wisdom on the field of law.' The 'Fragment on Government' was a new point of departure in jurisprudence." (John Macdonell, DNB, 1885.) During the productive final years of Bentham's life, a number of his early works were republished, including this title which originally appeared anonymously in 1776. Though described on the title page as enlarged, the only significant addition was a long footnote to Ch. I, pp. 45-48. see full details...
Intended as the first of a projected series of works with the general title Idées singulières, Le Pornographe is an important early manifesto for the regulation of prostitution. It also holds a significant place in the historical etymology of pornography: meaning literally ‘one who writes about prostitutes’, being the first modern coinage of a word used by the ancient Greeks. Restif issued the work anonymously, presenting it with a preface claiming that the idea was not a French invention at all but one found in the manuscript of an Englishman by the name of Lewis Moore. In a series of letters, the work presents an anatomy of prostitution, noting its inevitability in cities such as Paris and its dangers to public health and morality. Most interestingly, it then outlines a system of regulations, with well-managed maisons publiques, in which prostitutes are required to stay, where they are protected and cared for and where customers are strictly controlled. A major pre-occupation is the contemporary anxiety over the (wrongly) perceived decline in population, a decline to which prostitution was seen to have contributed. Restif proposes that pregnant prostitutes be required to fulfil their pregnancies and that their children should be brought up and educated within the maisons publiques and to take up alternative professions when of age. This early work by Restif encapsulates both his social realism his utopian aspirations, both of which became major aspects of his later novels. The imprint is false and the work was published in Paris by Delalain, who sold the author’s works, but who deleted his own name from the imprint after the first impression. The two issues are identical save for the title-page. see full details...
While General Hoche’s fleet had been defeated by the weather in January 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte took up the cause later that year, writing to Talleyrand that France ‘must destroy the English monarchy, or expect itself to be destroyed by these intriguing and enterprising islanders... Let us concentrate all our efforts on the navy and annihilate England. That done, Europe is at our feet.’ Frightened gossip and hearsay dominated conversation throughout the South East and created a ready market for scaremongering broadsides such as this. It was widely believed that the French were constructing some form of barge to bring troops to England, and several contemporary broadsides exist claiming to depict it. This vast, if entirely improbable, wind-powered platform thought to be lurking somewhere in the Channel is described in the letterpress text beneath: ‘This Machine is flat; 2,100 Feet long, and 1,500 Feet broad; has 500 Cannon round it, of 36 and 48 pounders; at each end is two Wind Mills, which turns Wheels in the Water at every point of the Wind to Navigate; in the middle is a Fort enclosing Mortars, Perriers, &c. It carries 60,000 Men, Cavalry, Infantry, and Artillery.’ see full details...
An early work by Bentham, published in seven sections, of which the first is Bentham's proposed draught, and the following six chapters consist of his analysis and observations of the draught. "The news that the Constitutional Committee had submitted on 21 December 1789 to the National Assembly a draught plan for a new judicial system prompted Bentham to prepare and print in instalments his own Draught of a new plan for the organisation of the judicial establishment in France. Instalments, translated by Dumont, began to appear in the Courier de Province, for 22-23 May and continued to do so until May. At the beginning of April he addressed a letter to the President of the National Assembly, and one hundred copies of the parts so far printed in England were sent to Paris through the French minister in London, Francois Barthelemy (Correspondence, iv)" (Chuo, p. 59). see full details...
Joseph Edmondson was an artist of humble origins who had begun his career as a coach-painter, and became coach-painter to Queen Charlotte in 1763. “On 21 January 1764, thanks to the support of the new deputy earl marshal, Lord Suffolk, Edmondson was created Mowbray herald of arms extraordinary, although he continued his successful coach-painting business until his death. His brother officers, especially Stephen Martin Leake, Garter, regarded him as an ignorant and low ‘mechanic’, and only reluctantly did they now allow him, as an extraordinary herald and not a member of the college, access to their records and collections” (Ailes in Oxford DNB). Precedency gives tables of precedency of British men and women and provides a list of “collar days” on which those entitled may wear their official “collars” indicating precedency. The book was reprinted in a second edition c. 1785. see full details...
Edward Carpenter was an influential campaigner for sexual freedom, especially in same-sex relationships. Strongly influenced by Walt Whitman (who he visited in 1877) he pursued a utopian socialism, setting up his own working community near Sheffield. He worked with John Addington Symonds, who was preparing a major study of homosexuality with Havelock Ellis, supplying case studies from his private circle of friends. ‘In the course of 1894–5 the Labour Press, Manchester, published four of Carpenter’s pamphlets on sex: Sex-Love, and its Place in a Free Society; Woman, and her Place in a Free Society; Marriage in Free Society; Homogenic Love, and its Place in a Free Society... Among those who were influenced by his works were Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, E. M. Forster, and D. H. Lawrence’ (Chushichi Tsuzuki in ODNB). see full details...
A very scarce Regency tavern-keeper’s guide, with invaluable information on the most popular wines, beers and spirits served in English taverns, together with instructions for making a range of cordials and bitters. The numerous recipes for English wine include cherry, cowslip, blackberry, birch and elderflower and there are also brief instructions for distillation and several good ale and beer recipes (for porter, amber, Windsor and spruce). The chapter on foreign wine gives advice on keeping and serving madeira, sherry, claret and port. There is a lengthy series of tavern-keeper’s tricks for preserving and recovering beverages past-their-best: recolouring claret with damsons and preventing sourness with the addition of crushed oyster shells or crab-claws. Though now scarce, the work apparently ran to at least three editions in a short time. see full details...
François Gattey was, with Legendre, one of the members of the convention established in 1795 to enact the definitive adoption of the metric system. “One of the most significant results of the French Revolution was the establishment of the metric system of weights and measures....On June 19, 1791, a committee of 12 mathematicians, geodesists, and physicists met with Louis XVI, who gave his formal approval. The next day, the king attempted to escape from France, was arrested, returned to Paris, and was imprisoned; a year later, from his cell, he issued the proclamation that directed two engineers, Jean Delambre and Pierre Méchain, to perform the operations necessary to determine the length of the metre. The intervening time had been spent by the scientists and engineers in preliminary research; Delambre and Méchain now set to work to measure the distance on the meridian from Barcelona, Spain, to Dunkirk in northern France. The survey proved arduous; civil and foreign war so hampered the operation that it was not completed for six years. While Delambre and Méchain were struggling in the field, administrative details were being worked out in Paris. In 1793 a provisional metre was constructed from geodetic data already available. In 1795 the firm decision was taken to enact adoption of the metric system for France. The new law defined the length, mass, and capacity standards and listed the prefixes for multiples and submultiples. With the formal presentation to the assembly of the standard metre, as determined by Delambre and Méchain, the metric system became a fact in June 1799. The motto adopted for the new system was ‘For all people, for all time’” (Ency. Brit.). see full details...
The backbone of the British war policy, these 1793 agreements were designed to create an allied coalition against the French, of which the axis would be Britain and the German powers, with further support from subsidiary powers in the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic. However, the speed and efficiency with which these agreements were signed belies the complex and conflicting aims of each nation and the subsequent rapid disintegration of the policy. Britain's initial admiration for the evolving Revolution in France quickly changed to alarm with the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793, followed by the French declarations of war on Britain and the Dutch Republic on February 1 and Spain on March 7. French war-mongering had already led to the annexation of Savoy, Belgium and the Rhineland in 1792 and French ambitions were spelt out by Danton in the National Convention: "The frontiers of France have been mapped by nature, and we shall reach them at the four corners of the horizon, on the banks of the Rhine, by the side of the ocean and at the Alps. It is there that we shall reach the limits of our Republic." Notably, the first two agreements were conventions signed with Russia, one uniting the two countries as allies against the aggressions of France and securing Russia's cooperation in the naval war, the other being a trade agreement, which finally settled a longstanding commercial dispute between Britain and Russia. Signed on the same day in March 1793, a contemporary commentator wryly noted that it seemed the two powers were competing as to "who shall be most fond and shall kiss the first". However, despite the apparent goodwill on both sides, the conventions never led to full and binding treaties. Similarly, the terms of the convention signed with Prussia unravelled almost as soon as the ink was dry and within two months Frederick William II was demanding significant additional terms. Lord Grenville, Britain's Foreign Secretary, took a dim view of such demands and having first shored up his own position by negotiating a separate agreement with Austria, he initially refused to comply with Prussian requests. However, under pressure from Pitt and Dundas, Grenville was forced to negotiate further with the Prussians, with the result that the Austrians were in turn estranged. Like Russia, the Spanish had their own motives for joining the war and despite the successful signing of the convention of Aranjuez, which committed both parties to explore the prospects of an alliance, a further agreement was never reached. Alliances with Portugal, Sardinia and Sicily proved equally problematic in the following months. see full details...
Though anonymous, this is perhaps a transcript of legal lectures given at the University of Caen. Of paramount interest here are laws relating to land and inheritance, by which, according to Norman custom, property passed strictly through the male line to the almost total exclusion of women. The text is divided into five parts: 1. De l’origine et de la definition des fiefes; 2. Des droites féodaux; 3. Des droits naturels; 4. Des droits accidentels; 5. Des moïens de reversion ou consolidation aux fiefs. Within these broad sections is also much of incidental interest to the social historian, including several articles on the laws of hunting, fishing and game; on the customary rights of salvage (‘Varech’) of goods washed up on the Channel coasts and on water law, concerning rivers and ditches. The work is generally theoretical in tone, but it contains very numerous references to external sources, usually giving page references. Le Grant Coustumier du pays & duché de Normandie by Guillaume Le Rouillé is cited many times (it was first published in 1534 but frequently reprinted and here referred to as ‘la nouvelle Rouillé’) as is La coustume réformée du pays et duché de Normandie by Josias Bérault. Alongside these treatises, many chapters include precise references to royal ‘arrêts’ governing the operation of customary law which had been issued in the preceding centuries. The author or copyist may have inscribed his name at the foot of the title page, but this has been carefully obscured at an early date see full details...
The minute book covers six years and includes the record of the club’s foundation. After an initial section of club rules and procedures the entries alternate between monthly meetings and the records of club runs. The runs began at the club’s headquarters at the Rechabites Hall in the city centre and took members to local towns and beauty spots, including Prestbury, Latchford, Budworth, Knutsford and Buxton, most at a distance of around 30 miles, making the customary round trip around 60 miles. The club run records are brief but informative, describing the weather, the riders, the state of the roads, accidents and something of the destinations. On a run to Prestbury (near Macclesfield) in May 1898, 8 members turned out ‘owing to the unfavourable look of the weather’ to cover the 30 miles to Prestbury where the church was visited and ‘a call was made to a friends house when we had a musical half hour with a dash of ginger beer’, followed by a return journey to Manchester during which members spent ‘about half an hour at Ms H. Jackson’s where we regaled ourselves with herb beer & more music. There were no casualties on the road.’ A run to Marton in early June 1899 was hot, dusty and beset with punctures so ‘the club pump was in great demand’, while a a midnight run to Chester at Midsummer a few days later seems to have been a highlight; in July 1900 the clerk was ‘sorry to say that one of our lady members met with an accident, but fortunately however sustained no personal injury.’ Another midnight run in August 1900 took four members to Chester: ‘The return journey commenced about 12.15 a.m. & with nothing to impede their progress but cats and policemen the club rattled home in fine style & arrived in Manchester again about 4 a.m. Despite the serious distances covered on the road, the Walla Walla was evidently also a social club. Among the striking items in the manuscript are the tipped in formal invitations for meetings and social events which were printed on behalf of the Walla Walla. These include a Dinner and Social Evening at the Grotto Cafe in Stevenson Square in Manchester in November 1899, complete with an award of medals recorded in the attached minutes, and a full printed programme of entertainment for a social evening in 1900, with half tone photograph of the club members dressed as Napoleonic soldiers which had been first published in Cyclers News. The latter years’ minutes document the dissent within the club’s membership, concern over falling numbers, and the club’s diversification into rambling and swimming. see full details...
It deals with the raw materials, their preparation, manufacturing process and the dyes as well as the styles of hats. The plates, re-engraved for this Spanish edition are detailed depictions of the hatter’s craft with excellent workshop scenes. Like his French counterpart Nollet, Suárez y Nuñez was an enlightened polymath dedicated to the scientific exposition of crafts and industry. His magnum opus was the multi-volume Memorias instructivas, y curiosas: sobre agricultura, comercio, industria, economia, chyimica, botanica, historia natural, &c (1778-1791) translated from pioneering works published across Europe. see full details...
The sermon takes as its text Revelation XVII, 5 “And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth” and gives a detailed consideration of the supposed ceremonies of the masons. Three other editions/issues dated 1768 are known, one with a Robinson and Roberts imprint paginating [iv], 39, [1] (NY Historical Society only) and a stated “Second edition” with the same imprint and pagination (BL and Clark Library, UCLA only), together with a Dublin reprint. All three are recorded by ESTC in single copies only. The Sermon provoked a response from John Thompson, freemason, entitled Remarks on a sermon lately published; entitled, Masonry the way to hell. Being a defence of that antient and honourable order, against the Jesuitical sophistry and false calumny of the author (1768, BL only). see full details...
M’Quhae, though unprolific in published work, had been a major influence on the young James Boswell, who had written his early “Journal of My Jaunt, Harvest 1762” for M’Quhae and John Johnston. The 21-year-old Boswell had met M’Quhae in 1761 and found in him a firm and sympathetic friend. “Only three years Boswell’s senior, he had come into Lord Auchinleck’s household as domestic tutor... By that time Boswell himself had passed beyond the need of a tutor’s ministrations, and was able to associate with the new governor on purely social and friendly terms, M’Quhae’s manliness pleased him greatly. At the University of Glasgow he had been a favourite pupil of Adam Smith; he was well educated, loved polite literature, and, though he had decided to be a clergyman in the country, was not without a relish for the scenes of active life” (Pottle, Boswell, Earlier Years, p. 75-6). The friendship did not however survive Boswell’s European tours and M’Quhae lived a relatively quiet life as minister of St Quivox from 1764. He became, however, a respected member of the “New Licht” faction within the Church of Scotland, a movement which reflected the liberal attitudes of the Enlightenment against the conservative and Calvinsist “Old Licht faction”. Burns humorously referred to him in “The Twa Herds” as “That curs’d rascal ca’d M’Quhae”, and mentioned also “M’Quhae’s pathetic manly sense.” see full details...
Mayer’s massive collection contains the work of over 40 authors and a valuable bibliographical survey of at least 100 others. It includes tales by Madame d’Aulnoy, Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamps, Charles Duclos, Antoine Hamilton, Antoine Galland, Mademoiselle de La Force, Mademoiselle Leprince de Beaumont, Madame Levesque, Mademoiselle Lheritier, Madame de Lintot, Mademoiselle de Lubert, le chevalier de Mailly, Madame de Murat, Charles Perrault and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As Marina Warner has pointed out, within this corpus of tales of magic and enchantment, female authors outnumber male authors two-to-one (From the Beast to the Blonde, 1994). Mayer established this canon of wonder tales at the very moment when they were most threatened as a literary form. By 1789, the aristocratic salons which had given birth to this genre, were no longer to be taken for granted and tales of this type almost ceased to be published in France. Le cabinet des fées was Mayer’s attempt to preserve for posterity this remarkable corpus of popular literature. This is also an important illustrated book, with its 120 plates engraved by Pierre-Clément Marillier (1740-1808). These plates are especially interesting for their representation of oriental themes and characters, reflecting the very strong bias within the collection (and within this genre of French literature as a whole) for texts like Galland’s translation of Mille et une nuits set in the Near- and Far East. Marillier’s illustrations certainly reinforce the tendency to depict eastern culture as both alluring but dangerous and, incidentally, furnish the first properly illustrated version of Mille et une nuits (Hensher, ‘Engraving Difference: the representation of the Oriental Other in Marillier’s illustrations to the Mille et une nuits and other contes orientaux in Le Cabinet des fées (1785-89)’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 31, September 2008). see full details...
Reymes saw active service in the Royalist armies, and was appointed to various lucrative offices on the Restoration. He was also a noted diarist and was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1667 by his friend John Evelyn. ‘Reymes seems to have been built for friendship: among those in this category he numbered Pepys, Evelyn, Thomas, Lord Clifford, Sir Charles Cotterell, and Sir William Coventry. Despite a passionate temper, he seems to have earned the respect of nearly all who came into contact with him. Contemporaries valued him for his loyalty, honesty, probity, and wry good humour. He was tolerant of the full spectrum of Restoration belief, but died a staunch Anglican. He was also highly cultivated, skilled in music as a youth, an avid theatre-goer and gardener’ (Bucholz, ODNB). The text ofUtopia here is a reprint of the 1629 Amsterdam edition, edited by Pierre Gillis. see full details...
![[DALRYMPLE, David, Sir.]](/photos/111/main/111.jpg "[DALRYMPLE, David, Sir.]")
![NECKER, M. [Jacques].](/photos/288/main/288.jpg "NECKER, M. [Jacques].")
![[ERARD, Claude.]](/photos/328/main/328.jpg "[ERARD, Claude.]")
![[MANCINI, Cesare, attributed to.]](/photos/326/main/326.jpg "[MANCINI, Cesare, attributed to.]")
![[JOHNSON, Samuel, contributor].](/photos/438/main/438.jpg "[JOHNSON, Samuel, contributor].")
![(MILITARY MANUSCRIPT). C[HASTELET, Paul Hay, Marquis de.]](/photos/205/main/205.jpg "(MILITARY MANUSCRIPT). C[HASTELET, Paul Hay, Marquis de.]")
![[TUFNELL, Edward Carlton.]](/photos/70/main/70.jpg "[TUFNELL, Edward Carlton.]")
![JUSSIEU, L[aurent]. P. de.](/photos/299/main/299.jpg "JUSSIEU, L[aurent]. P. de.")
![[BECCARIA,Cesare, marchese di.]](/photos/327/main/327.jpg "[BECCARIA,Cesare, marchese di.]")
![LAMOTHE-LANGON, E[tienne] L[eon], Baron de.](/photos/321/main/321.jpg "LAMOTHE-LANGON, E[tienne] L[eon], Baron de.")
![(MALTHUS.) [WHATELY, Richard, later Archbishop of Dublin.]](/photos/54/main/54.jpg "(MALTHUS.) [WHATELY, Richard, later Archbishop of Dublin.]")
![[MOLÉ, Guillaume François Roger.]](/photos/317/main/317.jpg "[MOLÉ, Guillaume François Roger.]")
![PEEBLES, J[ames]. M[artin].](/photos/399/main/399.jpg "PEEBLES, J[ames]. M[artin].")
![[GRANT, Anne.]](/photos/7/main/7.jpg "[GRANT, Anne.]")
![[SHIRLEY, Laurence, fourth Earl Ferrers.]](/photos/1/main/1.jpg "[SHIRLEY, Laurence, fourth Earl Ferrers.]")
![[ALI ABENCUSIAN, pseudonym of Miguel de LUNA]. VIEUX-MAISONS, [Gilles de Rainssant, Sieur de], translator.](/photos/322/main/322.jpg "[ALI ABENCUSIAN, pseudonym of Miguel de LUNA]. VIEUX-MAISONS, [Gilles de Rainssant, Sieur de], translator.")
![(LONDON). MOGG, E[dward].](/photos/166/main/166.jpg "(LONDON). MOGG, E[dward].")
![[DAVENANT, Charles.]](/photos/62/main/62.jpg "[DAVENANT, Charles.]")
![(NESTLÉ, Henri.) LEBERT, H[ermann].](/photos/393/main/393.jpg "(NESTLÉ, Henri.) LEBERT, H[ermann].")
![[FENN, Ellenor]. [Mrs.] LOVECHILD.](/photos/160/main/160.jpg "[FENN, Ellenor]. [Mrs.] LOVECHILD.")
![[SCOTLAND.] [CROKER, John].](/photos/132/main/132.jpg "[SCOTLAND.] [CROKER, John].")
![FREYDIER, M[onsieur].](/photos/382/main/382.jpg "FREYDIER, M[onsieur].")
![[CHEVRIER, François Antoine.]](/photos/335/main/335.jpg "[CHEVRIER, François Antoine.]")
![TAILLEFER, L[ouis]-G[abriel].](/photos/389/main/389.jpg "TAILLEFER, L[ouis]-G[abriel].")
