£400
8vo, pp. [viii], xxxvii, [iii], 421, [3, blank], 152. Contemporary panelled calf, edges sprinkled red. Extremities rubbed, front joint splitting at head. Embossment of the Earls of Macclesfield to first two leaves, bookplate of the North Library of Shirburn Castle to pastedown with ink and pencil shelfmarks, errata corrected in an early hand and noted as such on the errata leaves.
The much-expanded second edition of the precocious scholar William Wotton's (1666-1727) important contribution to the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, 'a reasoned analysis of the merits of the ancients and moderns in different branches of literature and learning... taking the side of the moderns' (ODNB). Notable for its judiciousness, it was not the knockout blow to William Temple's arguments for the Ancients that Bentley provided with his dissertation on Phalaris, but has been called 'one of the first historical accounts of the growth of scientific ideas' (Hunter, Robert Boyle by Himself) - and this second edition is made much larger in part by reprinting Bentley's contributions to the battle at the end. Wotton himself adds over 50 pages of additional text, and these additions were also printed separately in 1698 (with Bentley's work) so that owners of the first edition could 'complete' their copies to match this one.
