An engraved frontispiece of Ptolemy done by Menzel opens the volume; the main title-page is printed in red and black, with an engraved allegorical vignette.

Provenance:  Title-page verso with intaglio-printed armorial ex libris, printed directly on the leaf (not a bookplate that was glued on): “Ex Bibliotheca Friederici Roth-Scholtzii.” Friedrich Roth-Scholtz (1687–1736) was a prominent Nuremberg printer and publisher, as well as the author of Icones bibliopolarum et typographorum de republica litteraria and the Bibliotheca chemica; there are several reported examples of such bookplates in his books.

•  Recent quarter calf and speckled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped author, title, place, date and gilt-ruled raised bands. Volume a little cocked. Endpapers soiled; some pages with mild offsetting, and text otherwise clean.  (25490)

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•  Gamba 2323; not in Brunet. Contemporary vellum over paste boards, outer edges yapp, spine with hand-inked title; vellum torn and partially lost over lower edge of front cover, with signs of wear and small spots of staining elsewhere. Ex-library, front pastedown with Italian institutional bookplate; yet volume otherwise free of markings. Title-page verso with affixed scrap of paper. Intermittently occurring light dampstaining in upper margins; otherwise clean.

There were two editions printed: This, with the pagination as above and with the title-page sporting a double-rule around the text area, and another with only 32 pp. and no border on the title-page. Precedence apparently not established.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 711/177; Goldsmiths’ 4837; Kress 2743; ESTC 46891. Not in Sabin. Uncut, some chipping of edges. Recent, slate-grey light boards. Some cockling and staining. Six-digit number stamped on half-title. A good+ copy.

Merlin also printed a duodecimo edition in 1767; in the present edition, “Fragmens de philosophie morale” is found on pp. 273–340, followed by the Addition and Approbation.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with gilt-stamped armorial bookplate of notable 19th-century book collector Edward Hailstone, gilt-stamped “I.T.” bookplate with motto “Inter folia fructus,” and bookplate of Sir Montague Shearman.

Binding:  Contemporary crimson morocco, covers framed in gilt triple fillets; spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather labels, board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls. This volume (complete in itself) seems at one time to have been part of a set of Marmontel's works, and bears an (unnumbered) spine label reading “Oeuvres de Marmontel.”

•  Brunet, III, 1440; Cohen de Ricci, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, 688; Graesse 406; Tchermezine 455.   Binding as above, with edges, extremities, and joints showing minor rubbing. Front pastedown with bookplates as above; front free endpaper with affixed slip of early cataloguing; rear pastedown with small chip out of paper. Light spots of foxing, slightly heavier around plates. All edges gilt.  (25776)

Provenance: 19th-century ownership signatures on front pastedown or front fly-leaf of John T. Wait (Dec. 14, 1839), Luther Spalding (undated), and W.H. Richards.

•  Evans 29025; ESTC W29507; Sabin 44848. On Cobbett, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, XI, 142–45. Contemporary sheep, framed in blind with a roll of a rope design, spine with gilt-stamped title-label; leather worn at edges and front cover expertly reattached, spine worn with chipping. Ownership inscriptions as above. Minor spotting and offsetting.