A DISSERTATION UPON THE ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE LATIN TONGUE. Containing a rational and compendious method of learning Latin: taken from The Powers of the Servile Letters, The Uses of the Greek Digamma, and The Causes of the Latin Tongue …

8vo in fours, pp. 'xv' (misnumbered for xvi), 47; a fine copy separately bound in mottled calf, rubbed but sound. From the library at Shirburn Castle, with North Library bookplate. First and only edition of this work by Gregory Sharpe (1713-71), scholar, antiquary and collector. He must have known Charlotte Lennox (and perhaps Samuel Johnson) as he contributed a translation of Aristophanes' The Frogs to her book The Greek Theatre of Father Brumoy (3 vols, 1759); he also published a work by Locke from the original manuscript, and worked on a biography of the first Earl of Shaftesbury. Sharpe became director of the Society of Antiquaries and collected a large library, sold after his death. Up to his death in March the year this book was published, Sharpe was chaplain to Frederick Prince of Wales; from 1762 he was chaplain to Frederick's son George III, and from 1763 he was also Master of the Temple: he was thus very well-connected and had worldly success to match. This work is the fruit of his interest in the origin and structure of classical languages - in 1777 he published a similar work about Greek, and the same year as this work on Latin, he also published a general essay on the origin and construction of languages, which was issued with a new edition of his work on learning Hebrew. Provenance. From the library at Shirburn Castle (Earls of Macclesfield), with bookplate, and blindstamp on the first two leaves.…