
TOBACCO
(A
Pipe Is Good). Browne,
Isaac Hawkins. Poems
upon various subjects, Latin and English. London: J. Nourse, 1768. 8vo (24 cm,
9.4"). [10], 160 pp. (frontis. lacking).
$150.00


First edition of these poems, published posthumously by the author’s son; of two similar issues printed in the same year, this was the one meant for the general public, with the other intended for private circulation only. Browne was a notably witty and amiable conversationalist whose company (though not his public speechmaking) was prized by Dr. Johnson; he is best remembered today for his poems “A Pipe of Tobacco” (“Blest leaf! Whose aromatic gales dispense / To templars modesty, to parsons sense”) and “De Animi Immortalitate,” a meditation on the immortality of the soul — both of which are included here, the latter with Soame Jenyns’s English translation.
ESTC T116967. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Frontispiece lacking; title-page and a few others stamped by a now-defunct institution. Inner margins of the first two leaves and outer margin of the final leaf repaired.
Great Britain. Parliament. A true and exact list of the lords spiritual and temporal, also of the knights[,] commissioners of shires, citizens and burgesses, chosen to serve in the Parliament of Great Britain. [London], 1741. 8vo (19.7 cm, 7.75"). 16 pp.
$500.00
Register prepared for the 1741 general election, with notations
regarding how M.P.s voted on the Convention and on Walpole’s proposed
Excise Bill (a tax on
tobacco
and wine). The current U.K. Parliament website sums up the terms thusly: “The
Lords Spiritual are made up of the Archbishops of Canterbury and of York, the
Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester as well as specific bishops of the
Church of England. The Lords Temporal are made up of Hereditary Peers elected
under Standing Orders, Life Peers, Law Lords, the earl Marshal and the Lord
Great Chamberlain.”
Click
the image to the right
for an enlargement.
Uncommon:
ESTC locates only four copies, none of which are in the U.S.
ESTC T26238; Goldsmiths’-Kress 7877.5. Recent marbled
paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pages
age-toned, with some dustsoiling.

One
Volume, Two
Prominent Holistic Practitioners,
Three Titles
Natural
Hygiene
Kellogg,
John Harvey. The household
manual of domestic hygiene, foods and drinks, common diseases, accidents and
emergencies, and useful hints and recipes. Battle Creek, MI: The Office of the
Health Reformer, 1875. 8vo (17.7 cm, 7"). 124 pp.; illus. [with, as issued]
Trall, Russell Thacher. The health and diseases
of woman. Battle Creek, MI: The Office of the Health Reformer, 1873. 60 pp.
[and the same author's] An essay on tobacco-using; being a philosophical
exposition of the effects of tobacco on the human system. Battle Creek, MI:
The Office of the Health Reformer, 1872. 62, [4 (adv.)] pp.
$225.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First
edition: General “good health” guidebook
written by the proprietor of the Battle Creek Sanitarium and co-creator of corn
flakes breakfast cereal. The title work (which includes three in-text wood-engravings
depicting first aid for drowning victims) is followed by two strongly opinionated
texts by leading allopathic physician and prolific author R.T. Trall. Dr. Trall
was an advocate of vegetarianism and hydropathy, and the founder of the first
medical school to admit men and women on equal terms; here he decries man's
tendency to reduce woman to either “a kitchen drudge or a parlor toy,”
and then calling her the weaker vessel (Health & Diseases, p. 17)
— and blames the medical profession for artificially creating most of
women's disabilities and infirmities. The essay on
tobacco
examines the physical, social, and financial impacts of addiction, and offers
suggestions for kicking the habit.
The authorial juxtaposition here is interesting, given that Kellogg and his former teacher
Trall had a bitter falling-out; prior to that, both had been sponsored and supported by Ellen
White, one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Brown,
Culinary Americana, 1717. Publisher's textured brown cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title and small fountain vignette; mildly worn and spine lightly sunned, sides with small
faint spots of light discoloration. Title-page with partially obscured rule. Occasional light
foxing. (30195)
Abolition
of a
Tobacco
Monopoly
Spain. Laws, statutes, etc. 17 March 1814. Begins: "...Sabed: Que las Cortes han decretado lo siguiente: ...1.o Queda abolido el estanco del tabaco en todas las provincias de la monarquía española en ambos mundos...." [in text at end: Madrid, 17 March 1814 with final subscription in italic type of 20 March 1814]. Folio. [2] ff. (final page blank).
[SOLD]
The first printing of the 31-clause decree abolishing the Crown's tobacco monopoly, creating free trade in the commodity "in both [the Old and New] worlds," scrapping the old tax structure and instituting a new one, and addressing what is to be done with the government employees in the Tobacco Branch.
Not in Palau (?); not in Maggs, Bibl. Amer.; not in Harper, Catalogue XVI. Excised from a volume and leaves no longer integral, but now rehinged. Light stain in inner margin. Rubber-stamped numbers in upper margins. Manuscript notes indicating that this copy was sent to authorities in Chile. Now housed in a quarter cloth (faux leather) folder with marbled paper sides.
A nice copy of an important economic document.

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