HARRINGTON, James.

The art of law-giving: In III Books. The first, shewing the foundations and superstructures of all kinds of government. The second, shewing the frames of the commonwealths of Israel and of the Jewes. The third, shewing a model fitted unto the present state, or balance of this nation. To which is added an appendix concerning an house of peers.

London, J. C. for Henry Fletcher, 1659. Three works bound together, small 8vo (145 x 90 mm), pp. [xii], 35, [1] blank, [vi], 104, [ii], 143, [1, errata]; [iv], 73, [3, blank]; [vi], 50; titles a little soiled, occasional light spotting; early nineteenth-century calf, gilt; tiny worm-hole at foot of upper joint; book-label (dated April 1808) recording that this book had belonged to Elizabeth Hastings, countess of Moira (1731–1808, literary patron and moderate sympathiser of the Irish patriots: see Oxford DNB). First editions of three works by England’s premier civic humanist and Machiavellian, whose Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) depicted England as ‘a classical republic and the Englishman as a classical citizen’ (Pocock p. 15). The Art of lawgiving, written as the English Commonwealth began to disintegrate after the death of Oliver Cromwell, is ‘a methodical digest of the whole of his teaching in and since Oceana, and one should note the explicitness with which he makes clear that the imaginary history of that republic is indeed the history of England. Aiming directly at his contemporaries as he had not done when [Cromwell was] Protector, Harrington now sought to tell them exactly where England stood and exactly what the moment called for. What was needed was legislation, in the classical sense of founding a state or giving the body politic those orders which were its soul; and while false legislation was the giving to the body orders which did violence to its nature, true legislation involved giving such orders as were so fully in harmony with the natural condition of the body that all cause of violence was removed. It was thus necessary to convince the potential legislators of England . . . of two things: first, that changes in the balance of property meant that England could be nothing but a commonwealth; second, that legislating a commonwealth was a matter of adjusting debate to result, the aristocratic to the democratic component. Because Charles I had failed to realise the first principle, the tower in Siloam had fallen upon him; should the commonwealthmen of 1659 fail to implement the second, the tower stood to fall again. Harrington could feel its shadow’ (Pocock pp. 105–6).The other two works are spirited replies by Harrington to critics of Oceana. Pian piano takes issue with criticisms expressed privately by the royalist churchman, Henry Ferne, who had been sent a copy of Oceana by Harrington’s sister. Harrington ‘forced him to repeat his criticisms and defend them in a formal epistolary debate, which – with no sign that he had secured Ferne’s consent – he published under the title of Pian piano, with a Latin tag indicating that deranged stars were following their own momentum. There can be no doubt that this lay beyond the limits of literary courtesy as then understood’ (Pocock pp. 77–8). Politicaster is a response to Monarchy asserted (1659) by Matthew Wren, who is also criticised in the the Art of lawgiving (see Pocock p. 105).Pocock, Political works of James Harrington pp. 599, 369, 705; Wing H806, H817A, H818A.

• GBP 4,250.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: T2132

• Antiquariat: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)