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FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 190 x 110 mms., pp. [xvi], 192, engraved frontispiece (by H. Fletcher after R. Cooper), woodcut illustration on page 83, contemporary (or slightly later) panelled calf, engraved armorial bookplate (possibly that of Sir Paul Methuen) on front paste-down end-paper; top and base of spine chipped, title-page in very fine facsimile, and a very good copy. The dedication is to James Brydges, first Duke of Chandos (1674-1744), perhaps encouraging him to attempt a vineyard at Chandos, his estate in what is now Herefordshire. Although the dedication is signed "S. J.," Blanche Henrey in British Botanical and Horticultural Literature before 1800 contends (II, 450) that the work was probably by Richard Bradley (1688-1732), the botanical writer, because the publisher, Mears, was also associated with a number of Bradley's publications. The ornate armorial bookplate in this copy appears to be Chippendale in style and period, which would suggest mid to late eighteenth century, but it is anonymous. The engraver, however, signs, seemingly, as "I. Parkin, sc.", the "sc" standing for sculptor, meaning the engraver. The cherub to the left of the escutcheon holds a scroll in which a motto appears: "virtus invidiae scopus". The escutcheon displays three wolves' heads erased, and the crest is a single wolf's head erased. The text of the motto and the imagery of the wolves mark this out as a bookplate of someone in the Methuen family. An earlier and well-known plate from this distinguished British family is that of the diplomat Sir Paul Methuen (1672-1757), whose plate is Franks 20431. The Oxford DNB notes that "Methuen died, unmarried, on 11 April 1757, and was buried near his father in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. His heir was his cousin Paul Methuen for whom he bought Corsham Court, in which to place his furniture and valuable collection of pictures." No doubt the books also went to his heir, and to Corsham Court in Wiltshire. The bookplate affixed to this copy of The Vineyard is likely the only anonymous Methuen bookplate recorded in Franks Bequest, namely Franks 20432, described by Howe as "Chippendale pictorial Armorial" and attributed to "I. Parkin, sc." The bookplate present in this copy of The Vineyard is certainly pictorial as well as armorial, with three busy cherubim flanking the escutcheon, and a globe to the left and a book to the right. The escutcheon itself, highly unusually, is depicted with depth, as a three-dimensional thing, with the proportions and monumentality of a large harp. This bookplate is very rare. I have never before handled a book fitted with an example, and the owner is not disclosed in standard works (see E. R. J. Gambier Howe, Franks Bequest; and Henry W. Fincham, Artists and Engravers of British and American Book Plates: A Book of Reference for Book Plate and Print Collectors, p. 73, the latter work recording the Methuen plate by "I. Parkin, sc.", but no other plates by this artist). I would submit that the bookplate is likely that of Sir Paul's heir, Paul Methuen (1723-1795) of Corsham Court, as the dates and style and arms fit. The obvious youthfulness of the cherubim may be meaningful. Sir Paul's earlier Jacobean plate had angels as well, but adult angels, the only anthropomorphic figures in the design. Corsham Court's Paul Methuen may have chosen to include, in the design of his own plate, a nod to being younger, so as to signal, visually, that this is the bookplate of Paul Methuen the Younger in contrast to the plate of Paul Methuen the Elder. Nevertheless, whatever the ages of the angels on the two plates indicate, this later anonymous Methuen plate is a gorgeous rococo tableaux, as beautiful as it is rare. The younger Methuen surely consulted The Vineyard himself, as the great landscape architect Capability Brown created for him an orangery as one portion of his grand landscape work for the grounds at Corsham in the 1760s. In that orangery, Methuen could easily have cultivated just. Seller Inventory # 9259
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