The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro.
Translated, adornd with Sculpture, and illustrated with Annotations, by John Ogilby.
London: Thomas Warren for the Author, 1654.
Tall paper copy, early issue. Colombier quarto (443 x 288 mm overall,
the pages 430 x 272 mm). Later mottled calf covers tooled in blind, outer
frames of double rules with small palmette roll, polished inner panel
framed with elaborate floral roll and large corner fleurons, rebacked
spine in eight compartments, one gilt-lettered, the others with large
gilt central device between gilt rules and rolls. Collates 2 ll. (portrait,
frontispiece), 4 ll. (title, dedication, life of Virgil, = [A]4), 1 l.
(first plate of Bucolicks, inserted before B1), B4-Dddd4, 1 l. (plate
inserted after Rr3), 2 ll. (map inserted after Pp1 rather than after Y1):
pp. [vii], 1-586 (i.e., 576 pp., the pagination jumping from 488 to 499
between Qqq4 and Rrr1; Zzz2 plate bound after Zzz3 text; Ddd2 bound after
Ddd3), complete with all leaves, with additional [2 ll.] front and [2
ll.] back (new binder's blanks and marbled endleaves in French curl design).
Engraved portrait of Ogilby by William Faithorne after Peter Lely, engraved
frontispiece by Pierre Lombart after Francis Cleyn, double-page etched
map by Wenceslaus Hollar of Aeneas's route from Troy to Ostia and 101
full-page etched and engraved illustrations (19 without text on reverse),
of which 42 are signed by Hollar, 29 by Lombart and one each by Faithorne
and William Carter after Cleyn’s designs (Lombart signed another
seven alone; three are signed by Ludwig Richer alone; and 18 are unsigned).
Fine etched or engraved initials, headpieces and tailpieces (many repeated),
some by Hollar. Overall very good condition, sympathetically rebacked
with older (not original) spine preserved on paper backing and loosely
laid in, covers with old varnish, stains and scratches, darkening of inner
margins of covers from old rebacking, corners restored, some edgewear,
occasional browning, particularly to quire B, insect tracks in outer margin
and gutter of Cc-Mm not touching any content, various mostly clean edge
tears here and there, split on lower fold of map in lower text box, neatly
repaired tear within content on B1, small piece of lower corner of last
leaf torn off, infrequent negligible foxing, spots and soiling, ink manuscript
owner's name crossed through on frontispiece, opening of Bucolicks and
last page (accompanied by ink manuscript motto in latter two instances),
the book block tight, square, strong and flat-opening, the pages generally
bright, the plates overall very good to superb impressions, the letterpress
printing incisively and deeply.
This edition, Ogilby's masterpiece illustrating his 1649 translation of
Virgil, was financed by subscription to the personages whose arms and
dedications embellish the full-page plates. Ogilby’s creditable
mastery over the heroic couplet is set in fair commonplace English, much
closer to the words of Virgil than Dryden's. Ogilby’s version remained
the standard until Dryden's appeared, itself borrowing the “sculptures”
of the 1654 edition. The plates comprise the chief illustrated work of
Cleyn (1582-1658), German painter and illustrator who became the chief
designer of the Mortlake Tapestry Factory under Charles I and the Commonwealth.
Pennington (infra) assessed that just the 42 large plates (all
after Cleyn) and map signed by Hollar were executed wholly by him, along
with inscriptive parts of 11 others and some mostly signed headpieces
and initials. Recent investigations at the Folger Shakespeare Library
using microphotography have suggested that Hollar also etched the landscape
backgrounds of many of the plates signed by Lombart before Lombart added
engraved foregrounds and staffage. See Richard Pennington, A Descriptive
Catalogue of the Etched Work of Wenceslaus Hollar 1607-1677 (Cambridge,
1982), pp. 39, 43; Rachel Doggett et al., Impressions of Wenceslaus
Hollar (Washington, 1996), pp. 35-39.
This tall copy is printed on fine laid paper having at least four different watermarks (prevalently fleur-de-lis, cf. Heawood 1506, conjugate with IV; also grapes on stem in at least two configurations, bend) and represents an early issue with strong plates, perhaps next in line after the copies printed for the dedicatee-patrons. Notably, the title has "adornd" for "adorn'd"; the pictorial “P” opening the Life, [A3]r, has the shepherd, dog and sheep; the headpiece on p. 29 shows putti with gardening tools; there are no cancel slips over words in the text. While other early copies show changes in the dedications of plates to reflect changes in the dedicatee's circumstances, no plate in this copy shows any such alteration. A bibliographic analysis comparing four copies and a discussion of the binding are available upon request.
The ink manuscript on the opening page of the Bucolicks reads "Francis
Burdett Booke [scribbled over in lighter ink] / Quisque suos patimur manes."
("We each bear our demons": Aeneid VI, 743.) The Francis Burdett
of the inscription might be of the Birthwaite, Yorkshire line (descending
from Sir Francis Burdett, 1st Bt., 1642-1719) or of the Bramcott, Warwickshire
line (descending from Sir Francis Burdett, 2nd Bt., 1608-1696).
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