WESLEY AS SCHOOL-TEACHER
[WESLEY, John (editor).]
Excerpta ex Ovidio, Virgilio, Horatio, Juvenali, Persio, et Martiali: in usum juventutis Christianae. Edidit ecclesiae Anglicanae presbyter.
Bristol, typis F. Farley, 1749.
12mo in 6s, pp. 242; a very good copy in contemporary calf, spine gilt-ruled in compartments with gilt red morocco lettering-piece; rubbed, lower joint partially split.
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Excerpta ex Ovidio, Virgilio, Horatio, Juvenali, Persio, et Martiali: in usum juventutis Christianae. Edidit ecclesiae Anglicanae presbyter.
First edition of one of the textbooks that Wesley compiled for the school that he founded at Kingswood, Bristol, in 1748. Finding contemporary textbooks inadequate, he published an astonishing number of works for his pupils – grammars, editions of classics, and other introductions to learning. His first concern was purity of thought (there are, for example, only brief, cautious extracts from Ovid, while Horace gets more than half the volume), but also the purity of Latin style. There are runs of his textbooks at Wesley House, the John Rylands Library, and in the Frank Baker collection at Duke, but, as is wont with schoolbooks, most are now very rare.
Baker 130; ESTC T183605, locating four copies only (Duke, Glasgow, and two at Rylands).