Latin trans. of English originals, 1841. Hering

May 11, 2022

Lot 36

Latin trans. of English originals, 1841. Hering

Estimate: $400 - $600

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About this Lot

Description

Henry HERING (binder). - Sir Alexander James Beresford BERESFORD HOPE (1820-1887, contributor & owner). - Rev. Henry DRURY (1812-1863, compiler & editor).

[A collection of well-known poems, verses, psalms and nursery rhymes, in English (and, occasionally, Greek), together with their translations into Latin (and, occasionally, Greek) by alumni of Cambridge University]. Arundines Cami sive musarum Cantabrigiensium lusus canori collegit atque edidit Henricus Drury, A.M. Cambridge: Typis Academis excusus veneunt apud J. J. Deighton … et J.G. Parker, Londini, 1841. Octavo (7 7/8 x 5 3/8in; 200 x 137mm). Pp. [i-vi; i-]vi-xiv; [1-3-]-211[-212]; [213-215-]261[-262]. Printed in red and black, with parallel texts in English (or Greek) on the left-hand page and the Latin (or Greek) translation on the right-hand. The source or author of each original piece is identified, with the initials of the translators given underneath their work. Presentation leaf inscribed by Drury to Beresford Hope, errata leaf, 1p. key to the initials, occasional small manuscript corrections to text. Contemporary dark green morocco gilt by Hering of Newman St., London, with their stamp to front pastedown, gilt turn-ins, cream glazed endpapers, gilt edges. (Some scuffing, extremities and joints rubbed, small split to the upper hinge, some discoloration).

Provenance: Sir Alexander James Beresford Hope (editor’s presentation inscription, armorial bookplate); Fanny Armatt Logan (d.1898, of Philadelphia, USA, booklabel).

A ‘contributor’s copy’ (possibly one of 26), from the rare first edition which “was published in a beautiful form in 1841, …. four subsequent editions appeared during Drury's lifetime; a sixth, after his death, was edited by Mr. H. J. Hodgson in 1865” (DNB). Here bound by Hering, the famous London binders.

The English sources are eclectic: Tennyson, Grammar Gurton, Scott, Milton, Old Ballad, Ben Jonson, Cowper, Shakespeare, Burns (e.g. The Groves of Sweet Myrtle, translated by Benjamin Hall Kennedy, and titled ‘Ad Joannam), Heber. There are 26 translators listed, including Henry Arthur Hallam, Rev. Samuel Butler, Bishop of Lichfiled, Francis Wrangham and, of course, Rev. henry Drury and Beresford Hope

Sir Alexander Beresford Hope, author, art collector and M.P., is represented in the present work by Latin translations of the following: a Jacobite song ‘The Battle of Gladsmuir (p.61); Coleridge’s The Knight’s Grave (p.137); and Psalm 137 ‘By the Waters of Babylon’ (pp. 239 and 241). Some tangential but nevertheless interesting information: in later life Beresford Hope became a strong supporter of the American Confederacy, and maintained a sporadic correspondence with Jefferson Davis for over 20 years.

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