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FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, 202 x 128 mms., pp. [iii] - xvi, 359 [350 Errata], 19th century calf, rebacked, with spine gilt in compartments, a very good copy, with the distinctive armorial bookplate of John Sheepshanks, dated 1852, on the front paste-down end-paper. The collector John Sheepshanks (1787 - 1763) built a collection of fine books, prints, and pictures. The author, politician, and nephew of John Hope, Second Earl of Hopetoun, John Hope (1739 - 1785) began writing in 1769. The Monthly Review in 1763 remarked, "This eccentric writer, whose thoughts seem to be expressed with the same undisguised freedom that they presented themselves to his own mind, has blended with his singularity a considerable portion of good sense. Though many of the pieces in this volume will no doubt be thought trivial and uninteresting, yet there are scarcely any in which the reader will not meet with something to entertain him." The London Magazine for 1780 also reviewed the work, taking Hope to task for not indicating when and where many of the pieces were first published, but later declares that "there are many curious, interesting, and entertaining pieces in this volume" and concludes with the inevitable pun: "Hope is a flatterer, delusive, uncertain, inconsistent; but a cheerful, entertaining companion.". Seller Inventory # 7945
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