Sales catalogue 503: Maggs Bros

Date:
1928
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/61
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 503: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    512/516 (page 454)
    1277 EupHurEs THE ANATOMIE oF Wit. Corrected and Augmented. London, Printed by John Haviland, 1636. 1278 London, John Haviland, 1636. Together both parts in 1 vol., small 4to. | Handsomely bound by Riviere in full levant morocco extra, g. e. £28 LYNDSEY (Sir David). ANE Satyre oF THE Ture Esrairs, in commendation of vertew and vituperation of vyce. Title within woodcut border. Small gto. Handsomely bound in full levant morocco gilt, @. €. Dy INIVIELC. Edinburgh, Printed by Robert Charteris, 1602. (See ItLustraTion, Piatt No. LIU.) £150 A very fine tall copy of an excessively rare book. Sir David Lindsay, the Scottish Poet (born 1490, died 1555), was a satirist, powerful in invective, fluent in style, and abounding in proverbial philosophy. His poems were of local, and to a large extent of temporary interest. Yet these very limitations gave them an immediate fame and more extensive currency than the works of any other early Scottish poet, and render them invaluable to students of the time of James V. It passed into a proverb for what was not worth knowing, ‘You will not find that in David Lindsay,’’ and his writings were at one time in the library of every castle and the shelves of many cottages of Scotland. This book, ‘‘ Ane Satyre of the Three Estates,’”’ is his principal work. It is divided into interludes, the earliest form of the drama, and was intended for dramatic representation. At least three performances of it are recorded, at Cupar, Linlithgow, and Greenside, then a suburb of Old, now part of New Edinburgh, on the low ground below the west slope of the Calton Hill, where the spectators pro- bably sat. Mr. Chalmers thought the first representation was at Cupar in 1535, but reference is made in it to the battle of Pinky Cleuch, which was fought on 10 Sept., 1547, and Whit-Tuesday is mentioned as falling on 7 June, from which it follows that the Easter when it was played was on 17 April. The true date of the Cupar representation thus seems to belong to 1552. The first representation was probably at Linlithgow on the feast of the Epiphany, 6th Jan., 1540. Sir William