FLYING IN THE FACE OF DEATH
HEINSIUS, Daniel.
Poematum editio nova; accedunt praeter alia libri, De contemptu mortis antehac una non editi.
Leiden, [Isaac] Elzevir and Jean Maire, 1621.
Two parts in one vol., small 8vo, pp. [viii], ‘474’ (recte 478), [2 (blank)], [viii], ‘167’ (recte 165), [19]; text printed in Latin and Greek, part-title and colophon printed in red and black, woodcut ‘non solus’ device to title and part-title, copper-engraved portrait medallion to p. 264; occasional light foxing, a few inconsequential paperflaws (touching pagination on 2 ff.), very neat old marginal repair to N8; bound in early nineteenth-century English straight-grained red morocco, likely bound by Roger Payne (see below), borders roll-tooled in gilt, spine gilt in compartments and lettered directly in gilt, edges gilt over earlier red speckling, marbled endpapers sewn with orange thread, green ribbon place-marker; very slightly rubbed at extremities, nonetheless an excellent copy; modern pictorial bookplate of Robert J. Hayhurst to front pastedown, with his pencil notes.
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Poematum editio nova; accedunt praeter alia libri, De contemptu mortis antehac una non editi.
First Elzevir edition of the poems of Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), expanded to include his didactic epic De contemptu mortis, on facing death with courage, our copy in a handsome red morocco binding attributed to Roger Payne from the celebrated library at Syston Park.
Heinsius’ De contemptu mortis was first published in quarto in the same year and is here included among his poems for the first time. In four books and over two thousand lines of hexameter, De contemptu mortis mingles Classical and Christian thought on the subject of death, from Plato’s philosophy in the first book to Christ’s victory over death and the martyrs freed from fearing it in the fourth; the second book presents proofs of the immortality of the soul and prescribes preparations for a good death, and the third argues that soldiers should be raised knowing that they will one day die for their country.
Provenance:
From the celebrated library at Syston Park, formed by Sir John Thorold (1734–1815) and his son, Sir John Hayford Thorold (1773–1831). Sir John had two copies of the 1621 Poemata, both bound in red morocco by Roger Payne: the first, a smaller copy bound in three volumes and disposed of as a duplicate, subsequently belonged to William Beckford and was sold with his library (Sotheby’s, 13 December 1882, lot 655, £6 6s to Quaritch); the other appeared in the Syston Park sale as a ‘very large and fine copy in red morocco, g. e. by Roger Payne’ (Sotheby’s, 16 December 1884, lot 892, £3 3s to Ellis).
STCN 832974838; USTC 1028184; Sellin, Daniel Heinsius and Stuart England 11; Willems 187.
