The title is printed within a woodcut “arabesque” border and the text is in roman within line borders defining space for sidenotes.

Evidence of Readership: Occasional pencil marks in text; final blank with old pencil notes and an inked couplet of yet greater age: “To make poor mortalls more in Love with breath / The Gods conceale the benefitts of Death.”

Provenance:  Signature on front free endpaper of “Thos. Hekt”(?) dated 1822; older ownership note on inside rear board of “Fransisci Heyct”(?); 20th-century bookplate of the famous collector Boies Penrose II.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 6251; ESTC S107343.   Contemporary calf over paste boards, modest blind double-ruled border on boards, gilt beading on board edges; binding worn, lacks pastedowns, hinges (inside) open but binding strong. Inner margin of title-leaf discolored from old glue. Text generally clean with only light waterstains in some early leaves' upper inner parts, a few stray stains or pencil marks as noted above in text, one leaf with a short closed tear. Without the imprimatur leaf preceding the title and lacking the dedication leaf, which was an insert between A2 and A3 and is frequently lacking; final blank leaf, also usually missing, present here with notes as above. Ownership notes as noted. On the whole, a good copy.  (34472)

The famous Elzevir print shop published this volume edited by Philippus van Limborch (1633–1712), Courcelles' student and successor. The eulogy following Limborch's preface was written by Arnold Poelenberg (1628–66), another professor at the Seminary whose remarks are still considered themost important source of information on Courcelles' life (1586–1659).

The Latin text is printed in roman and italic with occasional Greek and decorated with handsome woodcut initials and tailpieces. The title-page, printed in red and black, features the printer's device of Daniel Elzevir, the Minerva.

Provenance:  Swirly red stamp (not a rubber-stamp) blazoning owner's initials in a complicated monogram within a wreath, title-page verso.

•  Willems 1506 (“Belle édition”); Goldsmid, I, 123.   Contemporary full vellum with early ink title to spine, red speckled edges; leather scuffed and lightly soiled, upper joint starting. Ex-library: bookplate and old penciling on front pastedown. Waterstaining in outer margin of first eight leaves then intermittently, minor foxing on a few leaves only, occasional small ink blotches; tiniest touches of worming in bottom margin of 250 pages or so in middle of text and starting again at end, most noticeable on rear pastedown. Provenance mark as above.  (30405)

•  VD17 3:301520H.   19th-century half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and date label; mildly rubbed overall. Title-page with rectangular portion on either side of printer's device excised and repaired (repair apparently done some time ago), with excision just barely touching the ends of the motto banner. First few leaves browned; foxing and offsetting throughout. A worthwhile exploration of mathematical thought as it stood toward the close of the 17th century and a good solid copy. (39902)

•  This edition not in Palau.   Later limp vellum, a bit too small for the text block, reusing an 18th-century religious (probably antiphonal) leaf; unidentified marca de fuego on top edges. Usual age-toning and foxing; otherwise clean and good.  (29061)

•  ESTC R4373; Wing (rev. ed.) E2557.   Quarter red morocco with French-swirl marbled paper sides and gilt spine lettering; binding signed (with small rubber-stamp on verso of front free endpaper) by the Macdonald Company of New York. Leather of joints lightly rubbed in places. Very good condition.  (37991)

•  ESTC R19001; Wing (rev. ed.) E1765.   Quarter red morocco with French-swirl marbled paper sides and gilt spine lettering; binding signed (with small rubber-stamp on verso of front free endpaper) by the Macdonald Company of New York. Leather of joints rubbed. Very good condition.  (37985)

Bibliographically interesting.  Wing records four different issues of this ordinance, the telling points being on the title-page: the spelling of “classical” or “classicall” and the form of the date, whether “12 Novemb., 1645,” or just “1645" and combinations thereof. ESTC fails to distinguish them.

•  Wing (rev. ed.) E1894A; ESTC R176130.   Removed from a nonce volume and dusty; in modern wrappers. All edges a bit chipped and lower margins of leaves A2 and A3 with loss of blank paper. All leaves age-toned.  (20454)

Provenance:  These two copies were joined together by a contemporary reader who marked the recto of the printing permission of the first piece with “The Address” and the verso of the permission of the second piece (that is, that piece's final page) with “The King's Declaration. This read in ye Parochial Church of Thrandeston May ye first Anno Domini 1681. [?] Tho. Mael.” Mael served as rector of Thrandeston from 1670 until his death in 1709.

•  Humble Address: ESTC R228475; Nelson & Seccombe 647.49B. Declaration: Wing (rev. ed.) C3000; ESTC R13996.   Disbound from a nonce volume. Pages slightly age-toned with scattered light spots; inscriptions as above. A nice pairing, from the library of a clergyman who presumably had a strong interest in the outcome of the struggle.  (31090)

This is a “fictitious imprint” in thatits given date is false, there being two distinct editions each with a title-page stating it is “Segun el exemplar en Rohan, De la emprenta de Lavrentio Maurry. MDCLXXXII” but with one edition's last numbered page being 268 and the other's being 292 (i.e., 308) as offered here. Charles Amiel argues convincingly based on textual analysis, in his critical edition of the work, that the 292/308-page edition in hand is acounterfeit of the true 1682 edition. Much less convincingly he postulates a publication date as late as 1725, the year before the third edition was printed; whereas had he examined the watermarks in the paper of the text he would have limited the range of publication dates to ca. 1699 — a dating based on my personal experience of almost 50 years cataloguing Hispanic books and manuscripts and always paying special attention to watermarks (DMS).

•  Palau 79834; Salva 1789; Frank W. Chandler, Literature of Roguery (2 vols.; Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1907); Charles Amiel, El siglo pitagórico y Vida de Don Gregorio Guadaña (Paris: Ediciones Hispanoamericanas, 1977), pp. xxv–xxxvi. For biographical data: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 285, frames 107–73.   Contemporary limp vellum, a bit shrunken and cockled, rear free endpaper lacking; remnants of ties. Title-page torn away at outside corners and repaired long, long ago without loss of print; pp. 73–80 clearly supplied from a smaller copy; the expectable sorts of dog-ears, creasing, and soiling only. A decent, interesting copy of an interesting picaresque/fantasy novel of the 17th century.  (36654)

This work appeared with three different title-pages and there are even internal differences. In this copy the setting of quire B has line B3v with “Deliberations” spelled with the capital letter “D.”

• STC (rev ed.) 22058; ESTC S116980.   Removed from a nonce volume and in modern wrappers. First and last pages dust-soiled; tea (?) stain to last leaf. Ex-library with the not unattractive stamp of the Union Theological Seminary on the verso of the title and in the bottom margin of the last text page. Blank area of foremargin of B4 torn with loss. In modern wrappers.  (21000)

The title-page here is decorated with a small printer's device of a snail, perhaps making haste slowly, and the text features shouldernotes for ease of use.

Evidence of Readership: A past reader has added a few paragraphs of commentary in French on the verso of the front endpaper as well as two marginal notes in pencil and one in ink.

Provenance:  19th-century “Ex libris Lebers” in ink on verso of front free endpaper. Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Barbier 4030.   19th-century quarter brown morocco and brown, tan, and yellow marbled paper–covered boards, spine lettered and stamped in gilt, stormont marbled endpapers, all edges stained red; lightly rubbed with some loss of paper and leather. Provenance and readership markings as above, light age-toning with a few spots; a few leaves with waterstaining at corners, two short marginal tears, and one marginal repair.  (38054)