Susanne Schulz-Falster Catalogue Eighteen - International League ...

With Striking Illustrations
53. HILL, John. Decade di Alberi curiosi ed eleganti piante
delle Indie Orientali, e dell’America ultimamente fatte gia note ...
dall’idioma Inglese, ridotta all’Italiana favella, col lasciare intatta la
descrizione Latina, e corredata di alquante note. Rome, Stamperia
Salomoni, 1786. £1,750
4to, pp. [viii], 31, [1] imprint, with ten hand-coloured engraved plates
by Bianchi after Majoli; paper with light marginal spotting; but a fine
copy in contemporary marbled boards.
First edition in Italian of John Hill’s A decade of curious and elegant trees
and plants Drawn after Specimens Received from the East Indies and America
in the Year 1772, first published in folio in London in 1773. Ten plants
are introduced, each with its name given in English, Latin, and Italian,
with information on habitat and characteristics, and extensive footnotes by
the translator. They are illustrated on the striking hand-coloured botanical
plates by P. Maioli (Majoli) engraved by Giuseppe Bianchi. Amongst the
plants included are a number of the unusual American plants, such as the
‘Venus Fly Trap’, from the swamps of Carolina and Pennsylvania, and
‘Yellow American Water-Lilly’, from the North American lakes.
John Hill (1714–75) botanist, actor and prolific writer in natural history,
is also known for his famous scientific spoof Lucina sine concubitu, (1750),
arguing that intercourse is not necessary for conception, which was written
as hoax on the Royal Society, after Hill had been rejected as a candidate for
membership.
Hunt 679; Nissen 878, Pritzel 4076; see Ebert 9715.
54. HOCQUART, Edouart Auguste Patrick. L’art de juger du
caractère des hommes sur leur ecriture. Avec vingt-quatre planches
représentant les écritures de divers personnages célèbres, gravées
d’après les originaux autographs. Nouvelle edition augmentée. Paris,
Saintin, 1816.
[bound with:] [ANON, Mme de G***.] Les sympathies, ou, L’art
de juger, par les traits du visage, des convenances en amour et en
amitié. Seconde Edition. Paris, Saintin, 1817. £900
Two works in one volume, small 8vo, hand-coloured frontispiece,
pp. 78, with two engraved plates and twenty-two lithograph plates;
79, [1] advertisement; with ll. 32 of hand-coloured plates, one bound
as a frontispiece; some spotting and browning, due to paper quality;
contemporary half roan over marbled boards; gilt-lettered spine label.
Two charming spin-offs of Lavater’s works on physiognomy, an early
work on graphology, and a ‘couple physiognomy’. A brief introduction
to a ‘scientific’ interpretation of hand-writing, which appears to contain a
susanne schulz-falster rare books catalogue eighteen
large number of modern criteria, such as dimension, form, pressure, speed,
etc., is followed by the analysis of twenty-two engraved plates of autograph
samples. Included are autographs of famous public figures, such as Marie
Antoinette, Racine, Mme de Maintenon, Frederick the Great, Benjamin
Franklin and the philosophers Voltaire, Pascal, Condillac, and D’Alembert.
Two plates showing alphabets for the deaf and dumb are also included.
Together with Lavater, Hocquart (1787–1870) can be seen as one of the
founders of the science of graphology.
The second work contains a physiognomy for couples, illustrating matching
couples on opposite plates. For each character trait or temperament,
both the male and female versions are depicted on the thirty-two handcoloured
plates.
Wellcome III, 280; see Babier I, 289.
55. HOYLE, Edmond. The Polite Gamester: containing short
treatises on the games of whist, with an artificial memory, quadrille,
backgammon, piquet and chess. Together with an essay towards
making the doctrine of chances easy to those who understand
vulgar arithmetick only. To which are added, some useful tables on
annuities for lives &c &c. Dublin, George and Alexander Ewing,
1761. £900
12mo, pp. [ii], [iv], 56, 12, 23,[1], 47,[1], 34,[2],58; in six parts, each
with separate title page (except for piquet), pagination and register, and
are respectively dated (apart from piquet) 1762, 1762, 1754, 1753 and
1761; tables and figures in the text; clean and crisp in contemporary full
calf, spine in compartments, gilt-lettered spine label, faded and chipped;
early ownership inscription to title.