£450
FIRST EDITION, 8vo, pp. [ii], xxxiv, 190. Nineteenth-century half-calf, marbled boards, spine divided by raised bands, second compartment gilt-lettered direct, others with central fleur-de-lis gilt tools, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. A little foxing at beginning, extremities a touch rubbed.
The first printing of this chronicle and reflection on the instability of success by the scholar and statesman Sir John Scott (or Scot) of Scotstarvit (1585-1670), who lost his own positions during the Commonwealth. It takes the form of a series of capsule biographies delineating the falls from grace of figures including Buchanan, Napier, and the Admirable Crichton. The harsh criticism of wealthy and powerful individuals naturally kept the work from being publicly distributed early on, but it circulated in manuscript for decades before Walter Goodall (d. 1766), deputy keeper of the Advocates Library under Thomas Ruddiman, produced this version, following his years of work on the Scotichronicon.
