The title-page appears within a very fine copper-engraved architectural and allegorical frame. This copy bearsinteresting evidence of early readership, with inked marginalia in a very neat hand and underlining in both black and red.

Binding:  Contemporary alum-tawed pigskin, covers elaborately tooled and embossed in blind with resulting concentric compartments (one roll being pictorial representations of the virtues).

•  Brunet 21364; VD17 12:116615R.   Binding with some portions darkenedor rubbed, spine leather with numerous small cracks, clasps now absent; front hinge (inside) repaired, and binding strong. Title-page and first dedication page each with reasonably unobtrusive institutional pressure-stamp. Pages age-toned, with annotations as above. A solid, engaging copy.  (26927)

•  ESTC R16460; Wing (rev. ed.) C1225; Vancil 46; Lowndes 386; Dibdin, I, 31–35. On Castell, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   18th-century speckled calf, covers bordered with a darker calf band blind-rolled and then framed with single gilt fillet; spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, darker-leather raised bands gilt-stamped/blind-tooled, and compartments gilt- and blind-tooled enclosing gilt-stamped floral decorations. Binding rubbed, with leather significantly lost in top compartment and and lost also at foot. All edges marbled. Front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription as above dated 1837; title-page with old institutional pressure-stamp. Frontispiece with outer margin reinforced some time ago. One leaf slightly oversized and creased, intermittent soiling in many upper margins, one leaf with text affected but not obscured, small sections with light waterstaining to outer or upper margins; over all, a book both impressive and pleasant. Columns erratically numbered, text complete.  (25792)

•  Not in Palau who notes only later compilations. Wrappers. Some worming in margins.

In this edition the legal text is surrounded by commentary, to which supplementary side notes have been added. It is printed with an ornate, very large woodcut printer's device on the title-page, and historiated woodcut initials.

•  On Boniface, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, II, 671–73. Half vellum over green paper with a brown leatherette title label. Title-page has a tear from the base of the page into the imprint information, repaired on the verso with paper. Inked marginalia in one place, fol. *2r. Occasional spots of foxing and staining, most noticeably on the title-page and first few leaves.

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Burghers (1653–1727) was born in Amsterdam, worked initially at Utrecht, and fled to England after the capture of Utrecht by the French in 1672; he settled in Oxford in 1673. There he worked under David Loggan and succeeded him as engraver to the University.

The volume closes with “A Chronological Table of the Three First Ages of the Christian Church,” which has a separate title-page dated 1686, but is paginated continuously with the preceding work.

Cave, a Church of England clergyman whose scholarly interests were primarily patristic, also wrote Primitive Christianity, or, The Religion of the Ancient Christians in the First Ages of the Gospel as well as Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum historia literaria; the DNB notes that his works “follow the tradition of Christian bio-bibliography that in late antiquity and into the medieval period had such a long and rich history.”

•  ESTC R26585; Wing (rev.) C1592; Lowndes 395; Allibone 356–57. On Cave, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent quarter calf with marbled paper–covered sides, leather edges tooled in blind, spine with gilt-stamped author and title labels and gilt-stamped decorations between raised bands. Half-title with inked ownership inscription in upper outer corner.  (24886)

Provenance:  Late 17th-century ownership inscription at top of title-page of “T. Engle”; 18th-century ownership inscription below that of “E. Ward”; on endpaper, “December, 1787,” with lines in French in an 18th-century hand.

•  Rius 11; Peeters-Fontainas 227; Suñé Benages 15; Palau 51988.   Contemporary limp vellum, soiled, ties perished; Don Quixote inked on spine, faded. Lacking one leaf of text, continuity supplied although not in facsimile from this edition (pp. 575–76). First and last gatherings guarded with strips of Renaissance vellum manuscript.  (23423)

The main title-page is printed in red and black; the separate title-page for the Psalter has a neat woodcut printer's vignette and blazons (in Greek type) Psalterion prophetou kai basileos tou Dabid. The elegant Greek type is set in double columns, with some nicely laid in typographic ornaments and decorated capitals. The signing is erratic, but the collation of this example matches most recorded descriptions: Leaf α1, apparently a cancel in a few copies but lacking in most reported examples and not present here, was a supplemental title-page giving Biblos dēmosiōn euchōn, kai leitourgēseōs mystēriōn; Griffiths calls for only one preliminary leaf, as is found here, with the other leaf in the gathering being a blank. Leaf 1C2 is a cancel.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of Twistleton Fiennes, with that family's motto: “Fortem posce animum”; front free endpaper rubber-stamped “Birch” and front fly-leaf inked “Tho.s Birch e Coll. Herts. Oxon.” (apparently neither the historian nor the marine painter); title-page with inked monogram (obscure).

•  ESTC S108726; STC (rev. ed.) 16432 & 2353; Griffiths, Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer, (Other Languages) 45/2. Psalter: Darlow & Moule 4683. See: Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer 57.   Contemporary speckled calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets, rebacked with speckled calf quite plainly (without labels but with gilt-dotted raised bands); corners rubbed, original leather showing expectable acid-pitting. One preliminary blank (only) lacking; title-pages trimmed closely at outer edge, affecting typographical border and (on main page) one letter of publication information. Ownership marks as above. Pages lightly age-toned, otherwise clean; tiny spot of worming in lower inner margin, not affecting text. A handsome and evocative little book.  (26373)

Provenance: Fore-edge painted with “Elizabeth Smith, 1680"; front fly-leaf with inscription recording the birth of William Rice in 1681 and with inscription of Charles Knowlton, dated 1738; fly-leaf verso with early inked genealogy describing the Smith-Rice-Knowlton descent.

Binding: Elaborate Restoration binding: black morocco framed in gilt semi-circle and strawberry rolls surrounding a broken panel design of red-inlaid scalloped corners decorated with floral-dotted volutes, containing a bouquet of tulips and other flowers with red and citron morocco inlays; the upper- and lowermost tulips each with a smaller gilt-stamped flower and leaf tool inside, spaces filled with small flowers and dots. Spine gilt extra using cover rolls and additional floral decorations, with two decorated compartments of red morocco; board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls. The tools used do not appear to be an exact match to any binder represented in Bennett, Nixon, or Maggs: Bookbinding in the British Isles, although the tulip with superimposed small flower is reminiscent of the binder Nixon identifies as the Small Carnation Binder. All edges gilt. Fore-edge painted with name as above, surrounded by hand-painted floral decorations.

•  BCP: Wing (rev. ed.) B3659B. Not in ESTC; not in Griffiths (see 1680/5 for a very close example). Bible: ESTC R215858; Wing (rev. ed.) B2308A; Herbert 758. Psalms: Not in ESTC, not in Wing.   Binding as above, front joint cracked (sewing holding) with corners/edges rubbed; spine leather with small cracks and head chipped, small area darkened. BCP lacking A1, either a blank or a licence and much more likely an initial blank; title-page repaired at one corner. Elsewhere, one leaf with tear from outer margin, extending across one column without loss; page edges with occasional small smudges from fore-edge decorations; some faint spotting and foxing. Now housed in a café au lait morocco slipcase mistakenly giving 1630 as year of publication, based on misleading print impression on title-page. A good and interesting book apart from its extraordinary binding, charming fore-edge treatment, and multi-generational provenance.  (25925)

The Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical was an assemblage of rulings given equal force with the canon law, although the rulings themselves were not based on canon law.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 10076; ESTC S101555.   Removed from a nonce volume. A very nice, clean copy with an array of marginal markings — Xs, asterisks, “vid.,” and the odd hand-with-pointing-finger. (21226)

Both works are printed in roman type with large woodcut initials featuring cherubs and each has its title-page printed in black and red. The Examen is divided into two parts, each with its own collation and pagination, with the second part being “Sanctae romanae ecclesiae bibliothecariorum catalogus, iuxta chronologicum ordinem. . . .”

Evidence of readership.  In the first part of the Examen an early reader has underlined in sepia ink passages or phrases s/he found significant but added no marginalia.

•  Contemporary vellum. Bookplate removed from front pastedown. Very good copies of both titles.

•  Wing (rev.) C4589. Removed sometime from a nonce volume and now contained in a cloth-covered clamshell case with gilt-stamped leather spine label. Lacks the title-page; otherwise complete, with small loss of paper (not nearing text) at inner lower corners and one leaf with “chip” (only) of lower outer corner torn away (this perhaps in fact a paper flaw, and, again, far from type). One page with early monogram inked in upper outer corner; last page with neat stamp marking institutional deaccession (ex-Folger Shakespeare Library).

Provenance: Howard Osgood.

•  Brunet, IV, 683.   Contemporary calf, spine elegantly gilt extra, board edges with gilt rolls; leather acid-pitted, edges and extremities a bit rubbed. Title-page with small inked owner's name and institutional pressure-stamp. Damp-spotting to first and last few pages; some leaves starting to separate, many with lower outer corners crumpled. Intermittent underlining and marks of emphasis in red pencil throughout. (20861)

Uncommon.  OCLC and ESTC report only seven holdings of this edition, including the present, properly deaccessioned copy.

•  Wing (rev.) C5468; ESTC R1768; Allibone 417. On Comber, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Contemporary mottled sheep, sometime rebacked and spine with blind-tooled floral decorations; binding worn and scuffed overall, joints starting from foot, corners and spine extremities rubbed, spine with inked call number. Front free endpaper (separated) and two pages with private collector's pressure-stamp, back pastedown with institutional rubber-stamp; the odd library pencilling. Imprimatur leaf with ownership inscription dated 1850 and with early inked inscription. Pages age-toned.  (24340)

Cowley’s Pindaric odes are present here, as are the Davideis and Davideidos;also set forth are the “delightful little prose Essays (with verse interwoven)” for which The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature believes Cowley will most ultimately be remembered. Some sections have separate title-pages, bearing the same publisher and date information as the main title-page but lacking the printer attribution.

Provenance: Front pastedown with small armorial bookplate and with bookseller’s ticket from Cambridge, England.

•  ESTC R29730; Wing (2nd ed.) C-6652. On Cowley, see: Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, 351–52. 17th-century mottled calf, rebacked at some point in the 19th century and again more recently with hinges carefully reinforced (inside); spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title label, covers showing the predictable acid-etching. Varying degrees of browning to pages; scattered incidents of worming in lower inner and outer margins, almost never affecting text. A handsome book in a binding both sturdy and attractive.