CAESAR, Gaius Julius.
[Opera] quae extant.
London, J. Brindley, 1744.
Two vols, 12mo, pp. I: [2], 192, [25], [1 (blank)], II: [2], 232, [31], [1 (blank)], with 2 folding copper-engraved maps by Richard Parr; titles copper-engraved with device (Prince of Wales’s feathers); an excellent set in contemporary red morocco, borders and board-edges filleted in gilt, spines ruled in gilt and lettered directly, edges gilt, marbled endpapers, sewn on two sunken cords; light dust-staining to top-edge, minimal bumping to corners; ‘S.G. Campbell’ inscribed in pencil to front flyleaves, modern private collector’s bookplate to upper pastedown vol. I.
An attractive set of Brindley’s duodecimo Caesar, edited by the Irish classicist Usher Gahagan. The Caesar is one of several small-format classics published by Brindley in 1744, for which Gahagan was employed as editor. He subsequently produced versions of Quintus Curtius and Catullus, Propertius, and Tibullus, and translated three of Pope’s works into Latin, but fell into bad company and criminality and was hanged for coin-clipping in February 1749.
