•  ESTC R35715; Wing (rev. ed.) H259; McAlpin, IV, 169.   Modern marbled paper–covered boards with maroon leather gilt-tooled spine label. Text with age-toning sometimes unto browning, and variable dust-soiling and variable evidence of old dampstaining; a sound and serviceable copy trimmed not quite square to type area.  (41336)

The title-pages offer three instances of the same handsome woodcut vignette.

Binding:  19th-century straight-grained citron morocco, raised bands, spine gilt-extra with flowers and flourishes; inner dentelles gilt, puce endpapers, all edges gilt over marbling. Red silk bookmark present and attached.

Provenance:  William Beckford, with 19th-century note “Beckford sale 1883 lot 174" on front free endpaper verso and cutting from sale catalogue on front pastedown; red leather Durdans (Rosebery) booklabel to front pastedown and that library's small blind-stamp to first title-page and elsewhere. Later bookplate of Lawrence Strangman to front free endpaper; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, with his small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  I: Wing (rev.ed.) N1462;ESTC R219402. II: Brunet II, 759 (1638 ed.).   Bound as above, with significant rubbing to joints and spine especially and with discoloration especially affecting raised bands; gilt ornamentation still impressive. Short closed tear to B4 not quite reaching print, another with loss to margin just touching text on L4; age-toning, with a few leaves slightly browned. Desirable texts in a desirable copy, with very desirable provenance. (41315)

Provenance:  Rolle family armorial bookplate.

•  ESTC R10688; Wing (rev.) H1578; Allibone 813.   Contemporary sheep, covers framed in blind double fillets; leather rubbed and scuffed, partially cracked along front joint. All edges marbled. Pastedowns peeled up, front pastedown with early inked inscription; inside front cover with armorial bookplate. Title-page with inked numeral in upper outer corner. (21012)

•  Crumpling at all edges, light brown stain in upper third of the leaf; good condition. Written in a slightly difficult hand: A good paleographical specimen.  (31209)

•  Palau 262674. Wrappers.  (4787)

Provenance:  Signature of journalist and author William Agnew Paton dated 1896 on upper margin of title-page in ink and on front endpaper dated 1898 in blue crayon; Paton also added a presentation inscription in 1911 to Lewis Buckley Stillwell, a president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and long a trustee of Princeton University. Stillwell wrote an inscription to his son Richard in 1831, a year before Richard became the director of the Princeton-associated American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Later in the collection of Classicist Pierre A. MacKay (1933–2015), a Classicist also with Princeton associations.

•  ESTC S119225; STC 13624.5.   19th-century mottled calf with gilt-lettered leather label and gilt-stamped compartments on spine, covers delicately framed in gilt double-rules around simple gilt triple-ruled rectangle with crown stamps at corners, all edges gilt; endpapers chipping, binding worn and abraded, text resewn and reattached to binding, rebacked with 19th-century spine laid on. Marked and lacking engraved title-page and five blanks as above, light pencilling on endpapers, a few very short tears at margins, one leaf with ink spotting; light to moderate age-toning with the occasional spot.  (36544)

•  VD17 23:237169Q; Brunet, III, 347.   Recent quarter calf with sides covered in German-style brown paper speckled with black, leather edges tooled in blind, spine with gilt-stamped cream-color leather author/title and place/date labels; raised bands accented with gilt rules. Title-leaf a little dust-soiled, and text with the occasional spot or instance of a slightly irregular edge (due to paper flaws, not damage); old four-digit number inked on dedication page and no other markings. A very nice copy.  (27523)

This, the editio princeps, was edited by and has the notes of Matthew Bust (1543 or 1544–1613), Fellow of Eton College and father of his namesake who was Master of Eton (1611–30). The prefatory matter and notes are printed in Latin in italics and the main text is in a large greek face; the actual printer's name is from STC.

Searches of STC, WorldCat, and ESTC locate many copies in Britain and even Europe, but only five in U.S. libraries.

Provenance:  18th-century ownership inscription at top of title-page: “Petri Bonifantii.” Most recently in the collection of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

An amazing early English schoolbook!

•  STC (rev.) 14622; ESTC S103427.   20th-century quarter red morocco with red cloth sides. Light age-toning and some stray ink spots. In fact, very good.  (37309)

•  ESTC R202636; Wing (rev. ed.) J943.   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.  (37992)

Uncommon: ESTC, OCLC, and NUC Pre-1956 find only 9 U.S. holdings.

•  ESTC S107911; STC (2nd ed.) 14831.   Period-style calf framed and panelled in gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels. Lacks initial blank leaf, as is the case with virtually all copies. Two leaves with tattered outer edges, one leaf with small hole affecting a few letters; pages with some moderate offsetting, a few browned.  (25084)

Juvenal was a Roman poet of the early second century A.D. His Satires are a standard of the genre, eloquent, humorous, and rhetorically polished, but revealing a very bitter man. Persius (a.d. 34–62), was a gentler soul than Juvenal, and his poems are more Stoic sermons than satires, preaching a moral life during one of Rome's more corrupt periods and doing so, most remarkably, without a hint of self-righteousness. The two Satyrae are often published together, in contrast and comparison.

This is the first printing at the Hague of this edition with Farnaby's notes, originally printed at London in 1612 and then reprinted in Amsterdam in 1630. The emblematic engraved title-page here was done by A. de Blois; the separate title-page for Persius bears the printer's device.

Provenance:  Front fly-leaf with three generations of early, dated, inked ownership inscriptions: Thomas Mansell, first Baron Mansel (1684); Robert Mansel (sic, 1712); and Thomas Mansell (1730–31).

•  Brunet, III, 631; Graesse, III, 520; Morgan, Bibliography of Persius, 298; Schweiger, I, 511.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Front fly-leaf darkened and engraved title a littlevery little tattered at edges, the first with inscriptions “stacked” as above and the second with old repair. Pages gently age-toned and generally clean, with all edges red.  (25952)