pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

to readers of Hermetic books, the explanation of the synonyms and common
words used in a peculiar way found in these books... But after all one does not
feel the diYculties of the Hermetic writers much diminished by the author’s
explanations’. (Ferguson, ii, p. 182, with a long account of the author’s life
and work.)
152
PETTuS, John, Sir (1613–1690)
Fodinae regales. Or the history, laws and places of the chief mines
and mineral works in England, Wales, and the English pale in Ireland.
As also of the mint and mony. With a clavis explaining some diYcult
words relating to mines, &c.
London: printed by H[enry]. L[loyd]. and R[obert]. B[attersby]. For
Thomas Basset, 1670.
Folio: p2 (–p1 blank) A–2I2 , 65 of 66 leaves, pp. [14] 108 [8] (errata on
last leaf, verso blank). Woodcut headpieces and initials, two circular
engraved coats of arms (dia. 124mm) printed on pp. 22 and 23, the
latter with a printed slip pasted beneath it, ‘This Coat is blazoned in
Page 24, and the other Coat in Page 23. above it.’
3 engraved plates: portrait frontispiece signed ‘W. Sherwin ad vivum
facibat’ and two plates with letterpress captions on the versos (folded
in; bound at p. 34 as directed on the plates).
287 x 175mm. Occasional foxing and waterstains on a few leaves;
worm tracks in blank upper outer corners; plates at p. 34 soiled and
frayed in the outer margins, the Wrst with slight loss and a clean tear
reparied.
Binding: Early nineteenth­century polished calf, elaborately blindtooled
sides and spine. Joints and corners worn.
Provenance: Inscription on title ‘Jacobi Chase ex dono ingeniosi [?]
authoris’, the word ‘ingeniosi’ and the following word inked out.
First edition. The Wrst part was reprinted in duodecimo in 1706. Wing
P1908; ESTC R190; Hoover 634; Duveen p. 468; Goldsmiths’–Kress
1930.
The standard seventeenth­century English treatise on mining. Besides the
abstracts of legal documents and acts, it contains considerable technical
information on mining, metallurgy and coinage. Pettus writes of the vast
range of metals and chemical products obtained from the mines. ‘In short’, he
says ‘From these Metals and Minerals digged out of the Subterranean world,
may be studied the greatest part of NATuRE, all Arts imployed, Labours
encouraged, and the chiefest Sciences demonstrated’. For further reading,
Pettus recommends Pliny, Ercker (whose work he was to publish in English
in 1683), Agricola, Jean d’Espagnet and Basilius Valentinus. For the better
understanding of these authors he says he is preparing ‘a Dictionary of such
words as concern the Metallick and Chemick Arts with their Interpretations;
a Specimen whereof is at the end of the Book’ (C2r). For Pettus the art of
metals was wholly a matter of chemistry, but though the translation of Ercker