About this Item
FIRST EDITION, with an added engraved portrait as frontispiece, errata slip pasted to blank verso of last leaf, tear in inner margin of title, without the initial blank, pp. [x], [3-] 121, [1], 8vo, contemporary calf, double gilt fillets on sides, spine gilt in compartments, red lettering piece, split in the upper joint (3 of the 5 cords holding firm), corners worn, inscribed by the author's son on the fly-leaf (see below), good. The fly-leaf is inscribed: 'This Book was Published by my Father Jos. Smith, DD, Provost of Queen's College, A[nn]o 1754 when he was Eighty Four years old. Jos. Smith.' Below this is the later signature of J.S. Hargrave, and there is a further signature on the title-page of Capt. Downman, Roy. Horse Art[iller]y. Joseph Smith Jr. has also listed at the end his father's other works (3 of them, though curiously neither of the 2 mentioned in ODNB), and has corrected the errata. Joseph Smith Sr., known as 'Handsome Smith', was in 1730 'elected provost of Queen's College, succeeding John Gibson. He enthusiastically set about trying to reform the academic standards of the college. By 1731 he had drawn up a detailed theological curriculum and in 1744 he composed a comprehensive list of disputation questions on logic, ethics, science, and theology. Reading lists were attached to each list but there is no evidence that they were used in Queen's or adopted elsewhere in the university. Smith involved himself in the gradual construction of the classical front quad that had begun in 1719' (ODNB). The portrait added is posthumous. (ESTC T64414, BL, Bodley; Boston Athanaeum, Missouri). Seller Inventory # 52708
Contact seller
Report this item
