PICKERING & CHATTO CATALOGUE 789 ENGLISH BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS Pickering & Chatto (Antiquarian Booksellers since 1820) 144-146 New Bond St London W1S 2TR England Tel. +44 (0)20 7491 2656 Fax. +44 (0)20 7499 2479 email. [email protected] web. www.pickering-chatto.com Please contact Ed Smith or Edmund Brumfitt with any enquiries. All prices are in Pounds Sterling; we accept Mastercard, Visa, and American Express. Terms: 30 Days Bankers: Butterfield Bank [UK] Ltd, 99 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7NG Account No. 32425131 Sort Code. 40-52-26 William Pickering Ltd VAT No. GB 896 1174 90 P ICKERING & C HATTO Ross-on Wye Charity School 1 [ABSTRACT]. ABSTRACT OF THE CONVEYANCE AND DEED OF TRUST, for establishing Walter Scott’s charity school, in the parish of Ross, in the county of Hereford, dated 28th August, 1798. Walter Scott died in London, 4th 12th Month, 1786, aged 70. Ross: Printed by Farror and Dobles, Booksellers. [1839]. £ 185 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 32; stab sewn, as issued; inscribed presentation copy from the editor, Nathanial Morgan. Born in Ross in 1716 the son of a poor tradesman, Walter Scott attended the local Charity School, a Blue Coat school funded through public subscriptions and intended for the “instruction of poor boys and girls in the parish of Ross-on-Wye in the Christian Religion according to the doctrines and usages of the Church of England”. In 1785, the year before his death, Walter returned to visit Ross-on-Wye and was distressed to find his old school in a very neglected state. He roused the local townspeople to revive the school, promising to contribute five guineas annually to the funds, and on his return to London amended his will to provide a permanent endowment for the school. The present work sets out the endowment, rules and regulations of the school, lists of the trustees and governors, and concludes with an account of one James Baker, a ‘great benefactor to our parish’, with a copy of his will also included. OCLC records one copy only, at the British Library. Court of chancery not obscure 2 [ACHERLEY, Roger]. THE JURISDICTION OF THE CHANCERY AS A COURT OF EQUITY RESEARCHED. And the traditional obscurity of its commencement cleared. With a short essay on the judicature of the Lords in Parliament, upon appeals from courts of equity. London: printed for Joel Stephens; and sold by A. Dodd, 1733. £ 650 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 46; with final blank leaf; disbound. The author of this essay in legal history, with a defence of the jurisdiction in certain matters of the House of Lords, was himself a prominent lawyer, who wrote treatises on constitutional matters which were in their time highly regarded. ESTC records three copies in the UK, at the BL, Bodleian and Edinburgh University library, and one copy in North America, at the Boston Athenaeum. 3 ADAM, Alexander. ROMAN ANTIQUITIES; or, An account of the manners and customs of the Romans; Respecting Their Government, Magistracy, Laws, Judicial Proceedings, Religion, Games, Military & Naval Affairs, Dress, Exercises, Baths, Marriages, Divorces. Funerals, Weights & Measures, Coins, Method of Writing, Houses, Gardens, Agriculture, Carriages, Public Buildings, &c. &c. Designed chiefly to illustrate the Latin classics … Edinburgh: Printed for A. Strahan, and T. Cadell, London; and William Creech, Edinburgh. 1791. £ 850 FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. [ii], xiii, [i] blank, 594, [1] errata, [1] blank; some minor light browning and foxing in places, but generally clean; in contemporary continental mottled blue boards, spine with paste paper label lettered in gilt, head rubbed, and boards alittle dust-soiled, nevertheless, still an appealing copy. Scarce first edition of Alexander Adam’s best known and most important work, on Roman antiquities. 1 P ICKERING & C HATTO ‘Nothing has more engaged the attention of literary men since the revival of learning, than to trace, from ancient monuments, the institutions and laws, the religion, the manners and customs of the Romans, under the general name of Roman Antiquities. This branch of knowledge is not only curious in itself, but absolutely necessary for understanding the classics, and for reading with advantage the history of that celebrated people. It is particularly requisite for such as prosecute the study of the Civil law’ (p. iii). Alexander Adam (1741-1809) was a Scottish teacher and writer. In 1764 he became private tutor to Alexander Kincaid, afterwards Lord Provost of Edinburgh, by whose influence he was appointed in 1768 to the rectorship of the High School on the retirement of Mr Matheson, whose substitute he had been for some time before. From this period he devoted himself entirely to the duties of his office and to the preparation of his numerous works on classical literature. His popularity and success as a teacher are strikingly illustrated by the great increase in the number of his pupils, many of whom subsequently became distinguished men, among them being Walter Scott, Lord Brougham and Francis Jeffrey. The present work passed through a large number of editions and was also translated in to German. OCLC records just two copies outside the British Isles, at McMaster and Washington. On Display at the Great Exhibition? 4 ADORNO, Juan Nepomuceno. INTRODUCTION TO THE HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE; or, Principles of physico- harmonic Geometry. London, [Reynell and Weight] for John Wheale and Newton and Son, 1851. £ 2,250 FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [2], viii, [2], 160, one large folding table and 17 folding plates; two of which with frayed outer margins, light browning; a handsome copy in an elaborately gilt contemporary presentation binding of Russia for the financier Francisco de Murrieta, covers embossed with large floral framework, inner dentelles gilt, green watered silk endpapers; small area of spine damaged, upper joint cracked (but holding firm) and very lightly rubbed, but not detracting from this being a highly desirable copy. A superb copy of the first edition of this rare work by the Mexican utopian thinker and inventor Juan Nepomuceno Adorno. ‘An obscure but fascinating figure in nineteenth-century Mexican thought, Juan Nepomuceno Adorno (1807-1880) was a seemingly indefatigable inventor who dreamed that the physical and moral perfectibility of mankind could be achieved through the combined efforts of technology and the enlightened doctrine he called “Providentially.” Adorno outlined his philosophy of Providentially in his 1851 book Introduction to the Harmony of the Universe, or Principles of Physico- Harmonic Geometry, written in English while Adorno was living in London. The treatise was later expanded, translated, and published in Mexico as Armonía del universo: Sobre los principios de la armonía física y matemática (1862). Influenced by the work of Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier - particularly with regard to social reform and the concept of the utopia, Adorno believed that many social, economic, political, and ethical problems could be eradicated through the vigorous application of progressive technology in fulfillment of divine providence’ (Bell and Molino-Gavilan, Cosmos Latinos - An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain, chapter I, online). ‘Juan Nepomuceno Adorno [1807-1880] was born and died in Mexico City. A philosopher, mechanic, and inventor, he dedicated his energies to the study of the hydrography, meteorology and hygiene, of the Valley of Mexico. He wrote several books on these topics, and also designed a drainage project for the capital. He travelled in Europe between 1848 and 1859 and presented some of his inventions - such as the melograph 2 P ICKERING & C HATTO piano or pianola that when played, recorded music on a roll of paper and then printed it out at the Paris World’s Fair in 1855 … He also published his Introduction to the Harmony of the Universe or Principles of Physico-Harmonic Geometry in London (1851), which he translated into Spanish in a revised and enlarged edition upon his return to Mexico, publishing it as Armonia del Universo’ (Lockhart, Latin American Science Fiction Writers: An A-to-Z Guide). The dedicatee of this copy was the financier and shareholder of the London-based Spanish bank of dubious reputation, Cristóbal de Murrieta & Co., which held the monopoly for guano imports from Peru to Spain and was involved in the settling of financial disputes between Mexico and Peru in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The publication of this edition by Wheale cost £300, which was provided by the author. The lavish binding has got the aura of the splendour of the Great Exhibition, to which the author refers on several occasions. Indeed, Adorno was an exhibitor in two classes in the Crystal Palace; he offered his invention of a cigarette making machine performing ‘14 different operations from a single motive axis, and is capable of making, simply from paper and tobacco, 80 to 100 cigarettes in a minute, and neater than those made by hand’ and as cartographer, he exhibited a ‘terrestrial globe, capable of separation into pieces, which may be used as convex maps for navigation, and other geographical purposes’ as well as ‘twelve patent convex maps of the earth, invented by the exhibitor, to form a geographical sphere, or to be used separately for marine purposes, and to constitute useful and ornamental fittings for rooms or cabins’. The final plate in the volume is a depiction of one of his cartographic inventions. OCLC locates four copies in America, in the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art, Johns Hopkins University and at Brown University. ‘Sincere thanks for the valuable present’ 5 ALBERT, H. R. H. Prince, of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819-1861). AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED to Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux. Buckingham Palace, March 18th, 1843. £ 650 MANUSCRIPT IN INK. pp. 4 (186mm x 227mm); with various fold lines and evidence of some light dust-soiling, nevertheless, still a very appealing item.