BURNET, Gilbert (1643-1715)

Some letters . Containing, an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy &c. Written by G. Brunet, D.D. to T.H.R.B

Rotterdam: printed by Abraham Acher, 1686.
8vo: A--T8 V2, 154 leaves, pp. 307 [1] (last page blank). Woodcut device on title, errata on p. 307. Leaf size and condition: 174 x 113mm. Insignificant dustsoling to title. Binding: Contemporary English unlettered blind-tooled calf, double filet borders to sides and spine compartments, acorn tools in corners of sides and a roll-tool close to the joints, gilt board edges, red sprinkled leaf-edges. A little rubbed. Provenance and annotation: Contemporary annotation and underlining; nineteenth-century bookplate of the Earl of Lonsdale. References: Wing B5915; ESTC B5915; Fulton Boyle 345.
One of three editions printed in this year. There was another Rotterdam setting in the same year, and another edition printed at Amsterdam. The Rotterdam editions are distinguished in ESTC on several points, the first of which is that in the present edition A3r line 20 ends 'cere-' but 'ceremo-' in ESTC r223614 (which is much rarer).
§ Burnet's popular letters addressed to 'T.H.R.B.', that is The Honourable Robert Boyle, were written while he was a political exile in Europe. Burnet had met Boyle when he first came to England from his native Scotland in 1663 and Boyle gave him financial support while he compiled his History of the Reformation of the Church of England. After Burnet's return to England, when he became Bishop of Salisbury, he and Boyle became close friends and Burnet delivered the funeral oration for Boyle, considered a classic of the form, and planned a biography of Boyle, though he never completed it. There is a long list of errata on the last page with the excuse of 'The Author's distance from the press and the Printers ignorance of the English tongue'. This is omitted from the Amsterdam edition, which has every appearance of being a piracy, and in which the errata are not corrected.

• GBP 400.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: 13047

• Antiquariat: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)