Collation includes final blank leaf
Apparently the third privately printed edition of De statu mortuorum, the first (not in ESTC 1990) being "a few copies printed for the use of [the author] and his friends" and the second (probably ESTC t139812, dated 1720) "25 copies handsomely printed in 4to" for Richard Mead, incorporating editorial blunders by Michael Mattaire (see Nichols, Literary anecdotes, v. 6, p. 221). "Mr. Wilkinson of Lincoln's Inn, who was executor to Dr. Burnet, lent Dr. Mead afterwards a corrected copy, of which Dr. Mead was at the expence of printing 50 copies, with a caution prefixed to those chosen few on whom the book was bestowed, not to suffer it to be translated, or reprinted, and published" (op. cit.). Both the 1720 and 1723 editions have this "Monitum" (p. [iii-iv]) and the printer's ornaments are those used by Mead's friend William Bowyer (the elder). The Wellcome copy of the present edition was presented by Mead to John Evelyn. On the other hand, Leslie Stephen, in his entry for Burnet in DNB, attributes publication of the 1723 De statu mortuorum to the efforts of Lord Macclesfield (Thomas Parker, 1st Earl). This attribution may be a simple error, but both Nichols and Stephen agree Parker was responsible for the private edition of Burnet's De fide et officiis Christianorum liber, 1722, and a copy of the latter at the British Library (695.h.34) shares binding tools with two copies of the present work (BL 678.e.15; Wellcome).
"Ad virum clarissimum A.B. circa nuper editum de Archæologiis philosophicis libellum, authoris epistolæ duæ" has a fly-title and separate pagination, but the register is continuous. Archæologiæ philosophicæ was first published in 1692. This is the first printing of the first letter
Copy 1 Supplier/Donor: Pickering & Chatto Note: Binding: contemp. black morocco, gilt roll-tooled border within fillets on upper and lower covers, gilt-tooled spine, direct short title. Inscribed on front free endpaper "Ex dono Dris Mede Medici / Celeberrimi / JE" (i.e. John Evelyn, 1681/2-1763). With the book-plates of Lady Evelyn and Kenneth Garth Hudson (1926-1987)
