BELLAMY, [Daniel].
Ethic Amusements. By Mr. Bellamy. Revised by his Son D. Bellamy, M.A. Chaplain of Petersham and Kew, in Surry … London, W. Faden, for the Author, 1768.
Large 4to, pp. [vi], iii–ix, [3], 260, with an engraved frontispiece, six engraved illustrations within the text and forty-three engraved plates by George Bickham Sr, including a separate engraved title-page to ‘Aesop at Court’; on fine paper, with a crown and fleur-de-lys watermark; a few leaves slight dusty at the head, some light offset from the plates, but a very good copy in contemporary black morocco, covers gilt with a wide border comprising two rows of columns, vases, and floriate elements, gilt turn-ins, spine gilt in six compartments, alternately diced and tooled, red morocco label (split); armorial bookplate of Charles Pratt, 1st Lord Camden (1713–1794), manuscript shelfmarks to front endpapers.
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Ethic Amusements. By Mr. Bellamy. Revised by his Son D. Bellamy, M.A. Chaplain of Petersham and Kew, in Surry …
First edition, Lord Camden’s copy of the scarce fine paper issue, of a collection of the miscellaneous writings of Daniel Bellamy Sr (b. 1687), edited by his son, also Daniel (1715–1788), and dedicated to the King; it is perhaps best known for the fine plates by George Bickham, which include a suite dedicated to Aesop’s fables as depicted in the fountains of labyrinth at Versailles designed by Le Nôtre.
The contents include a translation of the Consolation of Boethius by Bellamy and William Causton; ‘Marriage, a theatrical Dialogue, between Pamela and Lady Brute’ (riffing on the characters of Richardson and Vanbrugh); translations from Fenelon and of the mock-heroic poem Muscipula by Edward Holdsworth; ‘Aesop at Court; or the Labyrinth at Versailles delineated in English and French’. Charles Perrault’s original guide to the Versailles labyrinth had first been published in 1677 with engravings by Le Clerc, from which the illustrations here derive. ‘Damon and Delia’ is a short cantata inspired by an encounter with the royal princes at Kew Chapel.
Daniel Bellamy (b. 1687) was educated at St John’s, Oxford, but left without taking a degree, published a number of translations (from Greek, Latin and French), poems, and plays to be performed by girls at the schools run by his wife and his sister. His son Daniel contributed to his Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1739–40) and edited the present collection – the Preface mentions an ‘aged parent’, but the date of his death is unknown. In 1770 a supplement under the same title was published with more tales and fables from Fenelon, the subscribers’ list to which names Lady Camden for a fine paper copy.
Provenance:
The lawyer, judge, and politician Charles Pratt (1713–1794), Baron Camden from 1765, was a supporter of Pitt who made him Attorney-General in 1757, and Lord High Chancellor 1766–1770. His moderate stance in libel cases and his defence of John Wilkes earned him some favour with the radicals, and after Pitt’s resignation in 1768 he took a firm position in favour of reconciliation with America, voting in the minority against the continuation of the tea duty, and consistent in his opposition to Lord North in the 1770s. In 1775 he is believed to have worked with Benjamin Franklin on a speech declaring American independence an inevitability.
ESTC T83830 (listing only three copies in fine paper, including those belonging to Queen Charlotte and John Stuart, third Earl of Bute).