WITH LETTERS FROM JOHN ADAMS
[DISNEY, John].
Memoirs of Thomas Brand-Hollis Esq. ...
London: Printed by T. Gillet ... 1808.
4to., pp. vii, [1], 60, with frontispiece portrait of Brand-Hollis, and nine plates (one folding) illustrating the Hyde at Ingatestone, Essex, its grounds, and its antiquities; some foxing, otherwise a very good large clean copy in later half calf and cloth sides, rebacked; the Signet Library copy, with armorial stamp on the sides.
Added to your basket:
Memoirs of Thomas Brand-Hollis Esq. ...
First edition of a privately printed memoir of Thomas Brand of the Hyde, who assumed the name Brand-Hollis on inheriting the Dorset estates (and library and collection of sculpture) of his friend the ‘Republican’ Thomas Hollis, the Whig bibliophile. The author, John Disney, a close friend of Thomas Brand, inherited both estates on Brand’s death and unhesitatingly retired to a life of literary leisure, of which this was an early and grateful product.
The Hyde, which was demolished after a fire in 1982, is here presented in a view from the south east, and two plates (one folding) of the magnificent hall and staircase built by Sir William Chambers in 1761. Also illustrated are the Greek and Roman sarcophagi, a figure of ‘Liberty, or Britannia’, the Hyde Hermitage, ‘the water and grounds at the Hyde ... taken from one end of the Shrubbery Walk’, and the monument to Brand-Hollis erected by Disney in the chancel of Ingatestone Church.
An interesting feature is the series of letters to Brand-Hollis from John Adams, future President of the United States. Adams and Brand-Hollis became friends after Adams was appointed ambassador to London when peace with England was re-established. He visited the Hyde in the summers of 1786 and 1787. Disney writes ‘his correspondence … on the subject of government [is] interesting, and his thoughts less desultory than we often find in the epistolary correspondence between friends. More ample extracts therefore from his letters than from those of others will be found in the notes. They may contain knowledge, at the same time they will be sure to gratify curiosity.’ There are also letters from Mrs Adams.
You may also be interested in...
THE MIRACULOUS ‘SWEDISH POWDER’ [MIRACLE CURE.]
Poudre suédoise.
Seemingly unrecorded pamphlet extolling the virtues of ‘Swedish Powder’, sold at the Hôtel du Grand-Cerf on the rue Saint-Denis for the treatment and prevention of several ailments, but especially for the ‘most unfortunate symptoms of venereal disease’.
UNIQUE? [BEWICK, Thomas?]
Twenty-six rubbings from engraved woodblocks of the heads of Kings and Queens and England, apparently never published in this form.
Twenty-six apparently unrecorded wood-engravings – heads of the monarchs of England from William the Conqueror to George III – these images taken by rubbing from the blocks rather than printing. The engravings bear strong similarity to the 26 which appear in An Abridgement of the History of England … by Dr. Goldsmith … with Heads by Bewick (London, 1803), of which Thomas Bewick apparently bought a copy on 20 April of that year: his account book records a ‘Parcel / Goldsmith Hisy Engd / Grafton Piccy 4s d.’ (A Provisional Checklist of the Library of Thomas Bewick, by David Gardner-Medwin, item 1, online).