Elegantly printed with wide margins, this is dotted with references to the original works in Greek, which Taylor studied with the aid of ancient commentaries; thorough footnotes clarify foggy passages and explain editorial decisions, often referring to ancient sources. A helpful “Explanation of Certain Platonic Terms” (in English, next to the original Greek) follows the general introduction in vol. I, before the translated Life of Plato by Olympiodorus.

Provenance:  Front pastedowns with one of the 19th-century bookplates of the German Society in Philadelphia.

Evidence of readership: On two pages in vol. IV, ink annotations supply the original Greek and correct the translation.

•  Schweiger, I, 250; Lowndes 1877; Brunet, IV, 698; Graesse, V, 322–23; On Taylor, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent period-style quarter speckled calf over red marbled boards, spines gilt-ruled and with gilt title and volume numbers on red and black morocco labels; place and date gilt-stamped collector-style at spine bases, red speckled edges. Early library markings in ink on front fly-leaves. Offsetting from original binding to endpapers in all volumes and in vol. I from plate onto contents. All volumes with occasional thumbsoiling, sparse mild mildew stains, a few tiny spots from chemical reactions in the paper affecting a handful of words, and occasional ink smudges; there are a natural flaw or two, a couple of marginal tears, light dust stains, and faint browning. Despite its handful of typical blemishes, this five-volume set is handsome and magisterial.  (30052)

•  ESTC T88657; Dibdin, I, 232; Schweiger, I, 2. Contemporary vellum-covered boards, covers framed and panelled in blind with central blind-stamped strapwork medallions, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; front joints repaired and now strong, vellum soiled. Front free endpapers with early inked owner's name as above; shadow of shelf number once pencilled on title-page, erased. Spotting of various sorts and minor smudging in upper margins of some pages; leaves otherwise clean.

This offers evidence of early readership in form of underlining in ink and occasional marginal notations, confined to early portion of the tome.

•  Gibson, Bacon, 243a. On Bacon, see: Oxford Companion to English Literature, 56–57. Contemporary vellum, spine with gilt-stamped title; vellum showing minor scuffing and spots of discoloration. Front pastedown with a 19th-century bookplate; front free endpaper with edge nicks and short edge tears. Lacking half-title. Early inked marginalia and underlining, as above; leaves age-toned with intermittent light offsetting and foxing. One leaf with short tear from upper margin, not extending into text.

•  American Imprints 5858.   Uncut copy. Publisher's quarter red cloth and plain paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label; binding rubbed/soiled, spine sunned/discolored, spine extremities chipped. Ex–social club library: traces of now-absent label at head of spine, bookplate on front pastedown, call number in a 19th-century hand on pastedown and front free endpaper. No other markings. Pages generally clean, with text block firm.  (26284)

•  American Imprints 5859.   Publisher's quarter red cloth shelfback with drab paper on boards and paper label to spine; spine cloth chipped at top (3/4" missing). Ex–social club library; with 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpapers, no other markings. Small piece of front free endpaper torn away. Uncut copy. Clean.  (28077)

•  Shoemaker 8196; NSTC 2B53063.   Period-style quarter light grey cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, spines with printed paper labels. One leaf with short tear from outer edge, not touching text. Pages age-toned with a scant handful of scattered small spots, otherwiseremarkably clean.  (30339)

This may be a later issue of the 1747 first edition; the last line of p. 7 here begins with “de l’esprit” and the first line of p. 223 with “tage au préjudice.” A companion volume to the present work, Principes du droit politique, was to be printed posthumously in 1754 and it is not present here — this volume being a very satisfactory stand-alone, arriving at a conclusion describing the “heureux accord de la lumière Naturelle & Révélée.” (Conceiving of the two works as vols. I and II of a larger whole is an anachronism in period to 1766 when de Felice was to bring them together for the first time.)

•  Quérard, I, 570; not in Brunet. Recent quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather labels and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments. Pages age-toned, with light foxing in spots; outer and lower edges of title-page showing offsetting from original turn-ins.

Uncut and unopened copy of a beautifully accomplished volume.

•  Not in Penzer, Annotated Bibliography of Sir Richard Burton.   Publisher's quarter vellum and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; vellum darkened, corners bumped. Pages clean.  (28273)

This particular copy seems to have incurred someone’s personal wrath, as the plate illustrating the allegory of Wisdom has had its central (nude) female figure excised.

Second thoughts here raise the question, though — maybe this wasn't censorship but rather an expression of erotic interest or, um, art appreciation??  Maybe someone wanted a nice little nude to keep in his pocketbook??????

•  Contemporary mottled calf framed in triple gilt fillets, spine gilt extra, all page edges marbled; binding with expectable acid-pitting and minor cracking of the leather over the spine and joints. One (and only one) signature foxed, leaves otherwise clean. A handsome book, defaced in a way that is depressing but also interesting.

Evidence of readership: This copy has extensive pencilled shouldernotes left by an unknown reader who thoroughly (and neatly) recorded numerous questions about and responses to the first 39 pages of the text — after which our reader is heard from no more.

•  ESTC T109696.   Period-style quarter red morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped publication information and gilt-ruled raised bands, leather edges with gilt roll. One leaf torn across from outer margin, without loss. Marginalia as above, pages otherwise clean. An attractive and interesting copy.  (31050)

•  VD17 1:620459Z.   Contemporary stiff vellum. Ex-library with call number on spine and bookplate, but no other markings. A very good copy.  (14709)

Uncommon: WorldCat locates only two U.S. institutional holdings.

•  Removed from a nonce volume; half-title with affixed paper shelving label in lower inner corner far from text. Occasional smudges and spots, pages largely clean.  (30684)

Schreiber calls this uncommon work “a volume of major importance to the history of Western thought, which rightly belongs on the same shelf with the first editions of Plato and Aristotle.”

Provenance:  Title-page with early inked inscription in upper margin, “Sum Joannis Forestij,” and additional early inked inscription mostly inked over; first fly-leaf with two early words inked, one also “Forestii.”

•  Adams P1682; Brunet, II, 1080; Renouard 140.8; Schreiber, Estiennes, 187; Schweiger, I, 104.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards, spine with remnants of early paper shelving label; minor dust-soiling. No pastedowns, and front fly-leaves with outer edges slightly ragged, scraped by turn-ins; front turn-in at top with affixed printed numeral (early) on small slip of paper. Title-page with old rubber-stamp; a few leaves with mild waterstaining to lower outer portions, pages otherwise quite clean. All edges sprinkled red. A nice copy of a desirable work.  (29094)

The text is printed in roman and italic, ruled in red throughout, with sidenotes inset within the red ruled border. Anengraved portrait of Epicurus faces the title-page.

The translator, Walter Charleton (1620–1707), was named physician-in-ordinary to Charles I shortly after graduating from Oxford, and published numerous books on natural philosophy as well as physiology and antiquity. To the various writings by the philosopher Epicurus (341–270) included herein, Charleton added an Apology for Epicurus, building a Christian framework for the following chapters.

Provenance:  A later pencil inscription on the front free endpaper indicates this book may have once been in the library atDyrham Park, a 17th-century English mansion now overseen by the National Trust.

•  Wing (rev. ed.) E3156; ESTC R13827. On Charleton, see: ODNB online. On the binding, see: Nixon, English Restoration Bookbinding, no. 42.   Binding as above, with joints worn (especially at front joint's ends) and board corners scuffed, these gently refurbished; front hinge (inside) cracked but holding well; red leather spine label partially lost; frontispiece portrait excised and mounted on verso of front fly-leaf. A copy rather remarkably unspotted, with an inkstain in one outer margin and a brown chemical stain on another leaf, neither affecting text; while a shift in paper during printing resulted inan instructive typographical anomaly, with the text being printed at an angle on the lower outer corner of one page. A good book, a good binding, and a good copy.  (32483)

Provenance: Bookseller’s ticket of the “Livraria de Braamcamp-Freire” on front pastedown.

•  Palau 91083. Speckled sheep; spine with double gilt rules above and below each band, second compartment with a brown leather label, gilt-lettered, and the rest with a gilt diamond-shaped floral device. Leather abraded with some loss at head and foot of spine and on edges of covers. Browning from turn-ins and some little tears or chipping to endpapers. Interior generally clean with occasional fine spotting.

• ESTC W28659; Evans 28775; Sabin 28933. 19th-century quarter sheep in imitation of morocco, rubbed and worn; covers pressure-stamped by a now-defunct institution, spine with paper shelving label. Half-title lacking, title-page and a number of others stamped, back free endpaper with pocket. Pages clean save for stamps. (9536)

The text is printed in Latin, double-column, with a handful of large woodcut initials, a few tail ornaments, and one letterpress diagram. The title-page, printed in red and black, features Blaeu's large device of an astrolabe flanked by Time and Hercules. An index on the final two pages lists Grotius's correspondents and the corresponding letters, which are arranged chronologically in the text.

•  Meulen, Grotius, 1210; Brunet, II, 1766; Graesse, III, 163.   Contemporary northern-European style vellum over boards ruled in blind, panels with blind-stamped central cartouches, spine with seven raised bands and remnants of later paper labels, red speckled edges; vellum soiled and lightly rubbed at extremities with corners bumped. Ex-library with bookplate on front pastedown and later library marking in pen on second leaf; light foxing, a light waterstain across the lower outer corner of perhaps a dozen leaves, and scattered darker stains, with a few leaves browned; small tear in outer margin of title-leaf and another margin, small hole from natural flaw in outer margin of one leaf and small bit of paper torn away from lower corner of another. Very mild worming in middle of two leaves and final leaf, the latter repaired; additional very minor, “slim” worming mostly to margins at rear.A solid, handsome important book.  (30293)

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Present here is an early U.S. edition of the first series; two series were published, the first in 1847–49 and the second in 1859. Much of the second volume of this series is dedicated to the question of slavery.

•  Allibone 818. On Helps, see: Dictionary of National Biography online.   Publisher's blind-stamped brown cloth, spines with gilt-stamped title; moderate rubbing most noticeable at vol. I spine head, and vol. II with strip of dark cloth tape at head of spine extending onto sides. Ex–social club library: front pastedowns with 19th-century bookplate and call-number sticker, front free endpapers lacking, title-pages pressure-stamped, no other markings. Pages age-toned, with intermittent spots of staining and light pencilled bracketing.  (26412)

Lord Kames speculates

Provenance: Front pastedown with bookplate “De la bibliotheque de F. Freudenreich.”

•  ESTC T48434; Alston, III, 308; Goldsmiths’-Kress 11089; Sabin 32702. Contemporary speckled calf, neatly rebacked preserving original gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels, spines with gilt-stamped thistle decorations; edges and corners rubbed, sides showing small scrapes and discolorations. Residue on pastedowns from sometime removal of bookplates. Pages age-toned, with occasional small spots, and offsetting from binding to in margins of first and last few leaves. All edges speckled.

The text is in French printed in roman and italic, with woodcut initials and head- and tailpieces as above. The last leaf contains a table of faults to be corrected in the second edition, as advertised in the printer's preface to the reader.

“The greatest maxim writer of France, one of her best memoir writers, and perhaps the most complete and accomplished member of her ancient nobility,” François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac (1613–80) caused outrage and offense among old friends when his cynical memoirs were surreptitiously published. Returning to court in Paris after years retired at his country estate, La Rochefoucauld quickly disavowed the memoirs; but at least a third of the work is his (EB, 11th ed.). The most genuine version of his memoirs were not printed until 1804.

•  Cioranescu, II, 40267; Barbier, Ouvrages anonymes, III, 204; E. Weller, Falschen und fingierten Druckorte, II, 16; Brunet, III, 848; Graesse, IV, 109; Willems 1997; Tchemerzine, IV, 25a; Marchand 2.   Contemporary calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets with gilt-tooled fleuron corner decorations; round spine, raised bands accented with gilt beading, title gilt in one compartment and delicate tooling in the others; gilt turn-ins and bright red edges, marbled endpapers. Extremities rubbed of old, bands included; leather lighter where neighboring books protected it from sun while shelved, that of spine cracking down center though the volume is not splitting. A very little mild foxing in places. Intermittently, lines and passages marginally highlighted in light pencil.  (30913)

•  Wellcome, III, 458; Garrison-Morton 154; ESTC T139902; Lowndes II, p.1321 (“a sumptuous edition”); Osler, Bib. Osleriana, p. 283, no. 3178; Bentley Blake Books 481; Ryskamp, William Blake, Engraver, 22. On the parts, see: Arents Collection of Books in Parts, p. 74.   Contemporary calf ruled and tooled in gilt and blind with gilt board edges and gilt turn-ins, rebacked old style; marbled edges, and blue silk marker in all volumes. Extremities rubbed and corners bumped with small loss to leather. At least one small marginal tear in each volume; offsetting from letterpress on a few leaves; very mild to quite moderate foxing (or none) on illustrations, offset onto surrounding leaves; and other occasional minor stains. Most plates protected by tissue. A monument of labor, art, and excellent “system” devoted to an exploded but fascinating theory; in fact, a wonder.  (30974)

•  ESTC T117287; Pforzheimer 611.   Period-style calf, covers framed and panelled in gilt rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons and central decoration, spine with with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. Title-page with early inked ownership inscription (William R. Williams) in upper outer corner; preface with early inked initials in upper corners, partially effaced, resulting in small holes to upper outer corner (touching two letters of text without obscuring sense). Occasional early inked corrections and annotations; partial topical index filling final blank. One leaf with short tear from upper margin not extending into text, another with portion of lower foremargin torn away just touching (but not really “affecting”) print; scattered light smudges and a handful of pages with old marginal stains, ink-drop to fore-edge (closed) in Latin section, otherwise clean.  (30851)

This isnumbered copy 105 of a limited edition, now uncommon on the market.

•  BAL 13476.   Publisher's limp vellum, front wrapper with gilt-stamped title and author. Slip of earlier cataloguing laid in; pencilled annotations on front fly-leaf. A clean, attractive copy.  (32345)

This translation from the Italian is the work of Giovanni Paolo Gallucci (1538 – ca. 1621), a translator and notable astronomer. In this edition the title-page is printed in black and red, with the text in single-column format in roman with some italic, and each of the four parts of the work is preceded by a special page that includes awoodcut illustration within a handsome border of printer's ornaments.

A nice example of transmission of text through translation. One should remember that even at the late date of 1602 there were many theologians who were fluent in only two languages: their native tongue and Latin.

Binding:  Handsome alum-tawed leather, elaborately tooled in blind using a variety of rolls and rules forming a series of concentric panels. One blind-embossing roll contains medallions of classical heads. Original metal and leather clasps present and sound. All edges blue.

•  Palau 108192. VD17 12:122671L.   Binding as above. Text with some foxing and spotting throughout but never disturbing; overall nice and solid. A very attractive work on the shelf and in the hand.  (31867)

Provenance:  Signatures of Elizabeth Powell (17th century), Robert Binnell (18th century), and three other 17th-century signatures only partially deciphered.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 17063; ESTC S108999.   20th-century half blue morocco with cloth sides. This copy clearly spent time in an English bookseller's “hospital” and may be sophisticated, a fact perhaps of some positive, studyable interest now that such hospitals and their ministrations have been “history” for decades; title-leaf dust-soiled, creased but flattened, with rents and holes repaired most sympathetically. Many corners and leaf edges expertly renewed; some captions touched by binder's knife, none or only one seriously. Child's writing practice, including an alphabet (without J or V), in some margins. A good copy with an interesting provenance worthy of deeper research and greater paleographical skills than we can bring to bear.  (32713)

Click the images for enlargements.

Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, covers decoratively blind-stamped, spine with gilt-stamped title. In its modest, subtle (and difficult to photograph!) way, this is avery handsome binding.

•  Bound as above; binding very slightly cocked, corners and spine extremities with minor rubbing. Ex–social club library: call numbers on fly-leaves, rubber-stamp on title-page and two others, no other markings. Pages clean save for slight offsetting from stamps. A nice copy.  (28238)

Merlin also printed a duodecimo edition in 1767; in the present edition, “Fragmens de philosophie morale” is found on pp. 273–340, followed by the Addition and Approbation.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with gilt-stamped armorial bookplate of notable 19th-century book collector Edward Hailstone, gilt-stamped “I.T.” bookplate with motto “Inter folia fructus,” and bookplate of Sir Montague Shearman.

Binding:  Contemporary crimson morocco, covers framed in gilt triple fillets; spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather labels, board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls. This volume (complete in itself) seems at one time to have been part of a set of Marmontel's works, and bears an (unnumbered) spine label reading “Oeuvres de Marmontel.”

•  Brunet, III, 1440; Cohen de Ricci, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, 688; Graesse 406; Tchermezine 455.   Binding as above, with edges, extremities, and joints showing minor rubbing. Front pastedown with bookplates as above; front free endpaper with affixed slip of early cataloguing; rear pastedown with small chip out of paper. Light spots of foxing, slightly heavier around plates. All edges gilt.  (25776)

The volume begins with a most handsome emblematic engraved title-page signed C. De Mallery involving a ship at sea against a sky labeled “Lutetia” (for Paris) surmounting an elaborate architectural frame containing the title and incorporating elegant symbolic ladies and more, followed on the next leaves by a dedication to the esteemed French collector Jacques-Auguste de Thou (Thuanus, 1553–1617). Beautiful floriated woodcut initials, factotum initials, head- and tailpieces decorate the text, which is anexquisite example of printing.

It seems that there were related texts printed at the same time that are sometimes found bound with this in a variety of combinations, but this not universally.

•  Adams S1061; Schweiger, I, 287.   Period-style full dark brown mottled calf tooled in blind, gilt title and tools to spine, red edges. Small hole from natural flaw in upper corner of title-page and one other leaf; oval-shaped spot in lower margin of title-page from an erasure (?), offset onto the front fly-leaf; light age-toning and occasional foxing in some margins, with a few stray ink marks from printing and maybe two or three dots from oxidization of the paper. Accounting for these minor expectable flaws, the present volume isreally very, very nice and the portraits areterrific.  (30177)

The first three volumes were printed in Amsterdam in 1734, and each opens with an engraved frontispiece; the fourth volume was printed in Cologne in 1739. All four volumes have title-pages printed in red and black, with the fourth specifying that Nicole's notes were translated by Mademoiselle de Joncourt.

Provenance:  All four title-pages with small early inked ownership inscription in upper outer corner of “A. Thorpe, York.”

•  Period-style quarter mottled calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. Vols. I and II with frontispiece rectos institutionally rubber-stamped, with bleed-through into images; ownership inscriptions as above. Pages clean.  (27243)

Except for the papal privilege in Latin, the text is in Italian, printed in italic with headlines and chapter headings in roman capitals and with guide letters for initials, which were never accomplished by a rubricator/illuminator. The printer's large woodcut device of the Sybil graces both the title-page and the final verso.

Provenance:  Early ownership inscription of Buonsignore Buonsignori on title-page; and unidentified woodcut armorial stamp on title-page verso.

Evidence of readership: Six instances of contemporary marginalia in Italian, these summarizing points and highlighting one as striking.

Two records in WorldCat suggest this may be vol. I of a two-volume set published 1543–48, the second volume containing 25 works translated by the same Tarcagnota.

•  Schweiger, I, 268; CNCE 48447; BM STC Italian, p. 527; Adams P-1662 (same imprint except date, 1549, the second ed. according to Schweiger). For a complete list of the Moralia, see: Oxford Classical Dictionary (Plutarch).   Contemporary limp vellum, early ink title on spine and upper front cover, with punctures for four ties now lost; vellum soiled and chipped at extremities exposing band at spine foot. Early ink marginalia and index foliation, as above, and one small, later, two-word note in light blue ink; a limited curve of light waterstaining across upper gutter of first 50 leaves and near lower gutter of 16 or so, with, otherwise, scattered small stains only. Indeed, on the whole, clean, nice, and crisp.  (30875)

•  Brunet, IV, 1421. Contemporary black half morocco over blue pebbled cloth, spine beautifully gilt extra, leather edges ruled in gilt; volume clean and virtually unworn. Front pastedown with private collector’s bookplate and with institutional rubber-stamp (no other markings); some soiling and offsetting to front pastedown and free endpaper. Many leaves lightly to moderately foxed, a few more heavily — the paper here was not as good as it might have been. One leaf with short tear from upper margin, touching page number but not text. An attractive production. (19301)

Schwarz critiques Protestant authors, such as Grotius, Puffendorf, Heineccius, and Thomasius, and other writers on these subjects, pointing out where they agree with and where they differ from Catholic teaching.

He first published his Institutiones juris in 1741, and, according to DeBacker-Sommervogel, this is the third of six editions. Present here are parts 1 and 2 of 4, in which, however, all the matters above listed are discussed. This edition is printed with the title-page in red and black, a woodcut headpiece and tailpieces, and a plethora of side- and footnotes.

Provenance: Inked inscription on title-page, "Rodriguez de Arellano."

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, VII, 948. Limp vellum with remnants of ties; spine with inked title. Scattered spots of staining to spine and rear cover. Pp. 41–42 of the first series of pagination has a large chip out of the upper outer corner with loss of page numbers but no text. Pp. 155–56 has a tear in the outer margin, not touching text. Occasional worming in the outer margins, not touching text. Scattered age-spotting; a few occasions of light waterstaining in the outer margins.

•  NSTC 2S40115. On Stewart, see: Dictionary of National Biography, XVIII, 1169–73.   Contemporary treed calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and extremely elegant gilt-stamped decorations; joints and hinges with excellent repairs, spine leather with small cracks, top spine compartment showing old shelving notations. Ex–social club library: Front pastedown with old inked numeral and 19th-century bookplate affixed over an older one; front free endpaper with inked call number offsetting to bookplate. No other markings; pages gently age-toned.  (26443)

WorldCat and NUC Pre-1956 locate only eight U.S. institutional holdings.

•  Martin & Walter 33276.   Simply stitched. Title-page with paper shelving label in lower inner corner, pencilled initials in upper outer corner. One leaf with tear from upper inner margin, touching a few letters without loss; last leaf with tear from foot along inner margin. Light to moderate foxing scattered throughout.  (30943)