(DALLINGTON, Robert). MOUCHEMBERG, A.-M. de. ~ Essais politiques et militaires. Enrichis de diverses maximes & remarques tirées des anciens auteurs. Par le sieur De Mouchembert. Paris: Nicolas Buon, 1627.
8vo (170 × 90 mm), pp. [12], 590 [10], including additional engraved emblematic title by L. Gaultier. Woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials. Lightly browned, a single wormhole in lower margin, progressively expanding to two and then to a track towards the end, and there touching a few catchwords or a letter of the bottom line. Contemporary mottled dark calf, spine with four raised bands, lettered and with four floral tools in gilt. Upper joint cracked, the lower starting, some worming to foot of spine, corners worn. A sound, unsophisticated copy.
First edition in French of Aphorismes Civill and Militarie (London, 1613) comprising 246 political and military aphorisms selected from the Italian historian Guicciardini, designed to teach the lessons of history in a pithy and pragmatic form, in the spirit of Montaigne. The original Aphorismes had been dedicated by the English courtier Robert Dallington to Henry, Prince of Wales and later to Prince Charles. Mouchemberg’s free translation, retaining the structure of the original, with glosses and apparatus, was dedicated to Antoine Coiffier-Ruzé, Marquis d’Effiat, who had negotiated the marriage of the Prince of Wales (later Charles I) with Louis XIII’s sister, Henrietta Maria of France in 1625. Mouchemberg later published a continuation of another British work — Argenis by John Barclay.
Dallington (1561-1636) himself is an interesting figure in European literary culture. Initially educated at Cambridge (Corpus Christi) but without taking a degree, he published translations from the Hypnerotomachia as The Strife of Love in 1592, dedicated to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney and to the Earl of Essex (into whose circle he was drawn). He made at least two grand tours, one in a party with Inigo Jones. His View of France was first published in 1604 and his Survey of … Tuscany in 1605, both written for private circulation. Rare: WorldCat lists the British Library as the only location outside continental Europe, with no North American copies.