We've made no picture that shows this minute setting — unless the image were huge, you couldn't read the text anyway!

The engraved frontispiece, at left, was done by Ph. Simonneau.

•  Schweiger, II, 736. 19th-century stamped paper–covered limp boards, spine with later inked label affixed by tape; small scuff to front cover. Pages gently age-toned, with a few small spots of foxing.

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This report includes a “Plan of an asylum,” the constitution of the Contributors to the Asylum, a list of “Monthly meetings [of the Society of Friends] that have subscribed,” a list of contributors, and a financial report. The second section (pp. 19–76) is a “Description of the Retreat, an institution near York, for insane persons of the Society of Friends,” which is an abridged version of Samuel Tuke's work of the same name, published in 1813. It was Tuke who pioneered “moral treatment” in England and founded the York Retreat, which served as a model for the Friends' Asylum. Here, he expounds on the principles of his treatment, arguing that the “mode of management” of patients has a direct bearing on their recovery.

Illustrated with a frontispiece view of the proposed asylum, drawn and engraved by W. Strickland, Philadelphia.

Provenance:  Signature of previous owner (“Ann P. Paschall”) at top margin of title-page.

•  Austin 525; Shaw & Shoemaker 31538 & 32484.   Removed from a nonce volume; inner edge with two stitch holes, not touching text. Moderate foxing throughout.  (22556)

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Some of the science is now of questionable authority (and may have been even at the time of this publication), as in the answer to “What is supposed to be the proximate cause of sleep?” — “An impeded motion of the nervous fluid to the brain, produced by a mechanical compression or collapse of the nerves” (p. 176).

Provenance: Front and back pastedowns rubber-stamped by the Railroad Mens' Reading Room of Sayre, Pennsylvania (“Contributed by Henry C. Davis”); bookseller's label of a firm in Glasgow. Faint oval rubber-stamp on fly-leaf of Richard Hutchinson(?), New Brunswick (probably in England), with pencilled date, 1858.

•  NSTC 2P15178.   Publisher's green moiré cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped candle vignette surrounded by blind-stamped title and arabesques, spine with gilt-stamped title and back cover blind-stamped; binding lightly rubbed, with spine somewhat sunned and covers with streaks of discoloration. Front hinge (inside) tender; paper across back hinge cracked. Pastedowns and fly-leaf markings as above and two text pages rubber-stamped by the Railroad Men; two leaves of publisher's advertising affixed at front.  (23715)

•  Evans 36546; ESTC W26008. Period-style quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title. First two leaves with a bit of light spotting in margins, otherwise clean.

•  Faux brown suede, blind-stamped on front and back covers and stamped in silver on the spine. Binding protected by a paper chemise and volume in a gilt-stamped slipcase graced with a full-color reproduction of a full-page miniature from the manuscript; bottom edge of slipcase (only) bumped.  Excellent copy.  (21763)

This handsome edition is printed in a round Italian gothic typeface of the sort used for theological works. Guide letters have been printed for initials (unaccomplished); the title-page gives the title above a poem in praise of Peter of Aquila. A table of the questions precedes the text, and at the end is a simply printed register and colophon, with a cipher SL as the printer’s mark. The editio princeps of this work was published in 1480, and two other incunable editions preceded this, the first 16th-century edition. This edition is uncommon: we were able to trace only three copies in the U.S.

Binding: Deep walnut full calf old style (showing lighter than it is, in our picture): Round spine with raised bands, accented in gilt and with blind-tooled devices in compartments, and with oxblood leather labels, gilt-lettered; fillets extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils and covers framed in blind double fillets.

•  Adams P876. On Peter of Aquila, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, XI, 210. On Peter Lombard, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, XI, 221–22. Binding as above; library rubber-stamps, including on title- and last (blank) page. Light waterstaining throughout. a1–8 with chipping or bumping on corners, more obvious on the lower inner and outer corners, not touching print. Title-page very lightly soiled with a few spots of staining. Two inked ownership inscriptions on title-page; some terse marginalia; inked title on fore-edge.

The main text is composed of “In Pindaricam exegesin prolegomena” (pt. 1: fol. 1–5 recto); “Prolegomina de Olympiis” (pt. 1: fol. 5 verso – 12, p. 13–45); “De eidei, strophe, antisrophei [sic], epodoi, kolois, pedibus, & carminibus lyricis” (pt. 1: p. 46–51); “Pindarou Olympionikai” (pt. 1: p. 53–331; caption title p. 53); “Pindari Pythionicae” (pt. 2: p. [1–8], 1–395; half title p. [1]); “Pindari Nemeonicae” (pt. 3: p. [1-8], 1–267; half title p. [1]); “Pindari Isthmionicae” (pt. 4: p. [1–8], 1-–53; half title p. [1]); “ Catalogus victorum, qvibus eide haec scripta sunt” (pt. 4: p. 155–56); “Leipsana seu residua fragmenta scriptorum Pindari, incuria superiorum seculorum amissorum, ex diversis autoribus collecta ab E[rasmo S[chmidtio]” (pt. 4: p. 157–68); “De dithyrambis. Qvaestio in promotione XXXII. Philosophiae candidatorum d. 23. Martii Anno 1607. à M. Joachimo Jaschio proposita” (pt. 4: p. 247–55); and two indices.

•  Alden & Landis 616/94; Sabin 62917; Jantz, German Baroque, 193; Schweiger, I, 235; Dibdin, Greek & Latin Classics, II, 288.   Contemporary vellum. Browned copy; ex-library with bookplate and attractive rubber -stamp in margin of one preliminary leaf; old notes in an elegant hand on front and rear free endpapers. In fact a very good copy. (21201)

This book bears an ornate, emblematic engraved title-page, with portraits of St. Brendan and Boyl and more, and no fewer than 18 leaf-filling plates by Wolfgang Kilian. These plates, which mixfancy and realism in entirely engaging ways, include a portrait of Columbus, a scene of St. Brendan celebrating mass on the back of a whale, botanical images of the marvelous Peruvian potato, and numerous views of the missionaries’interaction with the natives, some friendly, and some not—the unfriendliest being notably violent and gory. Also, on p. 35–36 is given an example of purportednative American music, with both words and notation. This copy is one (probably the first) of two states of this sole edition (with only three leaves in the preliminaries), without the additional foldout plate found in some copies.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 621/100; Sabin 63367; Palau 224762. Binding as above and shown at left (distortion noted), chipped on corners and at head and foot of spine. Small wormholes visible on inside of covers, running into margins of pages and plates, and a few closed tears, neither affecting print or plates. Engraved title remounted. Small stains, light spots of waterstaining, and light soiling. A very covetable illustrated Americanum of the early 17th century, in an enjoyable copy.