irish

First edition of these sermons by a French Huguenot emigré pastor in Dublin. The first two sermons are on the subject of religious toleration: ‘Contre l’Intolerance’ and ‘Les justes bornes de la Tolerance’. The Toleration Act had been enacted in Ireland in 1719, granting Dissenters freedom of worship and allowed them to run schools. Caillard argues that not only was intolerance immoral, but irrational and imprudent. ‘It is imprudent since enforcing a set of beliefs undermines society: it leads groups to take a defensive stance against other groups, destroying public order. It is irrational since, while coercion can lead people to accept a belief outwardly, it cannot alter their inner convictions. It is immoral because coercion’s inability to change inner beliefs means it can only breed lies and hypocrisy, and because individuals have the right to self-determination. However this toleration was not to be extended to Catholics. The sermon was preached on 5th November, commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. In a later sermon, Caillard established the limits of toleration. While still endorsing the individual right to self-determination, Caillard argues there is a limitation on religious freedom: that such freedom not be harmful to religion in general or society as a whole.’ (Toleration in 18th century Ireland, Irish Philosophy.com)

The book includes a subscriber’s list of men and women, both of Irish and French extraction. Among them is the name of moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson, then resident in Dublin. It is not difficult to trace a connection between Caillard’s arguments for tolerance based on circumstances and Hutcheson’s theories of moral rights, including the right to free conscience — which were later to have a profound influence on both the French and American constitutions. Outside Europe we find copies at Illinois, Charleston and Penn only.

A rare Dublin edition of this popular spiritual guide by an important evangelical preacher, first published c. 1750 and several times reprinted in the eighteenth century. The adverts for other works published by Whitestone in Dublin includes a collected edition of Wesley, ‘elegantly printed’ in 32 volumes. ESTC T103515. BL and NLS only in ESTC/WorldCat.

The earliest portrait of Leopold Bloom. Mariette Lydis published this image in the first issue of the journal 900 with the fragment of Ulysses in the French translation by Auguste Morel. It is dated 1925 in the lower corner. No earlier illustration of Bloom is known (nor indeed any earlier illustration of Ulysses) and it predates Joyce’s famous but inept sketch of him made in Paris in 1926. Lydis’s Bloom was introduced (by us) in The James Joyce Broadsheet (issue 121, February 2022) and discussed in the Times Literary Supplement 6167 (11 June 2021).
Joyce was nominally a joint editor of the radical literary review 900 with Massimo Bontempelli. Mariette Lydis was Bontempelli’s lover at this period having separated from her second husband, Jean Lydis in 1925. Mariette knew Joyce and sketched his portrait the following year in Paris. Slocum & Cahoon, A Bibliography of James Joyce (953), D25 (p. 113).

First Dublin edition, printed in the same year as the first (London) edition. The ten letters comprise: On the First Principles of Religion; On the Study of the holy Scriptures (2); On the Regulation of the Heart and Affections (2); On the Government of the Temper; On Oeconomy; On Politeness and Accomplishments; On Geography and Chronology; On the Manner of Reading and Course of reading History. It is dedicated to Elizabeth Montagu. ‘Montagu encouraged Chapone, presumably in the summer of 1770, when the two friends were travelling in Scotland, to publish the letters on education she had been sending her niece since 1765. Chapone was grateful to Montagu for correcting the manuscript, and the text, Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773), was Chapone’s most celebrated work’ (Oxford DNB). It ran to many editions over several decades. ESTC: BL, Cambridge, NLI, Bodley and National Trust (Florence Court, Enniskillen, N.I.). No US copies of this edition.

Probable first edition in French of Sheridan’s best novel, dedicated to Richardson (1761). Two French translations appeared in 1762, Robinet’s, and another by the Abbé Prévost entitled Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la vertu. Rochedieu lists only Robinet’s which is probably the first. Rochedieu p. 299.

Kane O’Hara, Irish playwright (1711/12–1782), born at Templehouse in Connaught. ‘O’Hara’s first professional play was Midas, an English Burletta, which had its première production at the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin, on 22 January 1762. Midas was a clever, chauvinistic response to the success of a touring Italian troupe, the D'Amici family, which had brought a lively production of an Italian burletta to the Smock Alley Theatre on 19 December 1761. The Italian burletta, a slight comic opera already modish on the continent, captivated Dubliners with its simple domestic plot and brisk galante music’ (Oxford DNB). It transferred to London, became a hit and was performed there over 200 times by 1800. O’Hara was seriously shortsighted (he is seen here in spectacles) and lost his sight in 1778.

The etching by Edmund Dorrell (1778-1857) is comparatively rare, the plate apparently having been destroyed soon after it was first printed. This is a splendid example on a full sheet. O’Donoghue 25-II, 1802.

A charming and accomplished series of diminutive watercolours of views in Ireland, including rugged landscapes, seascapes, woodland and buildings. Most are captioned and denote locations in Wicklow and Kerry. The owner has added initials ‘F.P.C. and an address in Hackney to the upper cover, and another inscription ‘Miss Collis’ gives an address in Harlesden.

Prévost’s novel Le doyen de Killerine was first published in 1735 and was frequently reprinted. Set in Ireland, it tells the story of the attempts of a worldly Irish priest’s attempts (usually thwarted) to find suitable marriage partners for his siblings. It is full of romantic anguish, especially in dealing with the thorny question of intermarriage between Protestant and Catholic, and was influential in forming the French taste for ‘celtic’ novels which became so prevalent towards the end of the century and in the next. This copy is an early match of a 1760 edition of volume 1 and 1744 editions of the remainder, with slightly different spine tooling, unified by matching labels (presumably c. 1760). cf. Cioranescu 51276-7 (1735 and 1740 editions).