Sale 2468 - Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books, March 8, 2018

90 c HORATIUS FLACCUS, QUINTUS. Opera. 8 plates, including frontispieces, and a profusion of illustrations, head- and tailpieces, and ornamental initials. [30], 264, [2]; [22], 191, [14] pages. Contents entirely engraved throughout by John Pine. 2 volumes. 8vo, 233x141 mm, 18th-century French dark green morocco, spines richly gilt, slight surface wear on covers, cover corners rubbed; scattered minor marginal spotting, small wormhole through blank gutter of first several leaves in Volume 1; morocco-edged marbled board slipcase. London, 1733-37 [3,000/4,000] first pine edition , “the most elegant of English eighteenth-century books in which text and illustrations alike are entirely engraved” (Ray); second state of page 108 in Volume 2, with “potest” in the numismatic headpiece. Ray, The Art of the Illustrator and the Book in England, page 3. the french statesman and political scientist alexis de tocqueville ’ s set , which he received as a 17-year-old student from his father, with the latter’s inscription in Volume 1: “Donné à mon fils Alexis le 5 septembre 1822, jour où il a obtenu le prix d’honneur en Rhétorique, le premier prix en version Latine, le second prix en discours Francais, et quatre accessit Metz, le 5 septembre 1822 le C[om]te de Tocqueville.”