This volume’s oversized, folding frontispiece shows the front facade of the “new East India House now building in Leadenhall Street”; there is also one in-text engraving of Lethington House in East Lothian, residence of the Maitland family.

Provenance: Front pastedown with inked ownership inscription of Joshua Gilpin, a Quaker from Philadelphia who established the first paper mill in Delaware, in 1787.

•  Disbound with front cover, front free endpaper, and frontispiece separated; back cover lost, and signature sewing exposed/going, with many leaves loose. Now contained in a simple, acid-free phase box. Edges untrimmed. Minor offsetting and a few stray marks; mostly clean.

Boston’s

•  Venus: ESTC T73277; Ode: ESTC T41985 (first ed.). Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Second work lacking half-title and title-page. Inner margins of two leaves reinforced; last line of advertising page shaved. Title-page and last few leaves with moderate foxing; one page (not the title) stamped by a now-defunct institution, with some offsetting to opposing page.

Contents are “Academia primera, segunda, tercera, y cuarta”; “A lo que obliga el honor”; “Hombre honrado, entre Pacor y Albano”; “Prudente Abigail”; “Contra el amor no hay engaños; Amor con vista y cordura.”

The title-page offers an ornamental border and a modest vignette/medallion incorporating the Jesuit device(!); there are head- and tailpieces and woodcut initials. This is printed partially in double columns in a variety of point sizes of roman type.

Interesting that despite this author's having been burned in effigy his works continued to be printed and read in Spain.

A later edition — the first of the 18th century — this Barcelona imprint is still uncommon: WorldCat locates NO copies of it in U.S. libraries and the earlier editions are either also not held in the U.S. or are held in three or fewer copies.

•  Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 285, frames 107–73; Palau 79832.   Late 18th- or early 19th-century full dark, acid-stained sheep with modest gilt tooling on spine and covers; ornamental title-page border (but little else) just touched by binder's knife. Age-toned variously as usual with 18th-century Spanish imprints; light waterstaining to first several leaves in from edges, and three leaves torn and repaired. Overall a good++ copy of a scarce edition of an important work of the Spanish Golden Age. (29047)

•  ESTC N31610. On Knox, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and board edges gilt; binding rubbed, irregularly darkened, and chipped, with front joint open (sewing presently holding) and back joint starting. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, inked call number on endpapers, title-page pressure-stamped. No other markings. Collation matches ESTC's description. Varying degrees of foxing/browning, with most leaves unaffected or only a little so. All edges saffron.  (26377)

Jansenist

The text here is in Latin, printed in roman and italic with sidenotes, large woodcut initials, intricate headpieces, and ornaments, including a number of dainty stars and at least two impressive, richly inked tailpieces. The title-page features a large printer's device for the widow and children of Wilhelm Metternich's shop.

Gratian's Decretum, written in the 12th century and henceforth amended (most significantly in the 16th), was a legal cornerstone of ecclesiastical courts until 1917 and a major influence on the most recent laws of 1983, even though it was never officially promulgated by the Church.

•  On van Espen, see: NCE, V, 543.   Contemporary flexible vellum, remnants of four leather ties, ink title to spine; soiled and shelf-worn, small chip one to corner. Marginal waterstains and the odd ink- or other stain, a few small bits of paper lost at edges, very minor but persistent marginal worming, one small hole in text (a natural flaw), and browning/foxing (heaviest in the commentary). Deckle on some leaves, and one témoine. Early inscription in ink on title-page.  (30254)

•  ESTC T22250; Foxon E519; NCBEL, II, 547. Recent marbled-paper wrappers, front wrapper with paper label. One page stamped by a now-defunct institution. Some early inked marginalia, one page with first few letters of each line hand-supplied where the printer erred. First and last pages with extremely light foxing.

•  Wing E3513 (first ed.) On Evelyn, see: Dictionary of National Biography, XVIII, 79–83. Contemporary speckled sheep with red gilt-stamped morocco spine label; some little chipping to edges, with joints and spine lightly abraded and cracking (not disastrously). Early inscription reads "Evelyns Sculptura compiled originally the elder Faithorne." Pages unspotted for the most part, and plates in good condition save for slight offsetting to frontispiece. A pleasing book!