£120
8vo, pp. xxxi, [i], 246, [2]. Contemporary calf, boards bordered with double gilt rules. Some foxing and light staining. Sometime rebacked in paler calf, red morocco label, old lather somewhat rubbed, and worn to extremities. Armorial bookplate of Edward Davies Davenport to pastedown with manuscript shelfmarks, substantial manuscript note to rear blank signed Rich. Davenport and dated March 19th 1747.
Despite the title-page this is the first book-form edition of Bolingbroke's treatise on political party identity and how the Tories and Whigs should put aside their differences and oppose Walpole - the preceding edition being its serialisation in The Craftsman between 1733 and 1734. It was immediately reprinted and saw several further editions in subsequent years. This copy bears the bookplate of Edward Davies Davenport (1778-1847) and seems likely to have come to him by descent from his great-grandfather Richard Davenport (1706-1771), who had raised Edward's father Davies after Richard's daughter Phoebe, Davies's mother, died within a month of his birth. Richard had at least some interest in political philosophy - his offer of lodging at Wootton Hall to Rousseau in 1766 enabled the writing of the first part of the Confessions - and he appears to have left a manuscript outline of his own programme of government at the rear of this copy: a list of laws, including 'a law for an established militia', 'for regulating the courts of law', and 'for laying commerce open by destroying the India, Levant, Hudson's Bay or any other exclusive charters' which, taken together 'would make this the most flourishing nation upon Earth'.
