Sales catalogue 461 : Maggs Bros

Date:
1925
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/33
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 461 : Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    324/326 page 276
    % of the miserable estate of the worlde. First compiled in the Schottishe tongue, by Syr David Lyndsey Knight, (a man of great learning and science) nowe newly corrected, and made perfit Englishe, pleasaunt & profitable for al estates, but chiefly for Gentlemen, and such as are in authoritie. Thereunto are anexid certaine other pithy pieces of woorkes, invented by the said Knight, as that largely appeare in the table after folowing. The reverse of title occupied by Thomas Purfoote’s large device, and the text adorned with a number of woodcuts. Black Letter. Small gto. zune Copy in full morocco, g. e. London, Thomas Purfoote and William Pickering, 1560. (SEE ILLUSTRATION, FRONTISPIECE). £125 ** This is the First London Edition of the Monarchie of Sir David Lyndsey. It includes the Dialogue of the Courtier, The Dreme, Death of Queen Magdalene, Testament and Complaynt of our Soverane Lordis Papyngo, Tragedy of the Cardinal David Beton; An Exhortation from the King, etc. He was a satirist, powerful in invective, fluent in style, and abounding in pro- verbial philosophy. His poems had an immediate fame and more _ extensive currency than the works of any other early Scotch poet, which render them in- valuable to students of the time of James V. It passed into a proverb for what was not worth knowing, ‘‘ You will not find that in David Lyndsay,’ and his writ- ings were at one time in the library of every castle and the shelves of many cottages of Scotland. His ‘‘ Dialogue betweene Experience and a Courtier ’’ seems to have been suggested by Lyndsey’s perusal of the translated Scriptures, of which it is largely an epitome. Opening with a discussion of the moral reasons for human sufferings and misery, it includes an argument for the circulation of the Bible in the vernacular. The Dreme’’ is introduced by an episode to King James, and a prologue, which represents the poet overcome by Morpheus on a wintry and stormy night, when ‘‘ Dame Remembrance ”’ conducts him, like Dante, through earth to the lowest hell, from hell to purgatory, thence to earth, and finally to heaven. His requests that he might remain in heaven is refused, and the vision takes a rapid survey of the kingdoms of the earth, closing with a description of Scotland. with great boldness the abuses of the court, prelates, and nobles.
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