A DISSERTATION ON READING THE CLASSICS, and forming a just style. Written in the year 1709, and addressed to. John Lord Roos, the present Marquis of Granby. The second edition, with large additions.

12mo, pp. [ii], xx, [xiv], 274, [2] advertisements; contemporary panelled calf, morocco label, a very good copy. Second edition: expanded from the first of 1713, which had only 228pp. of text. Henry Felton (1679-1740) had been in charge of the English church at Amsterdam (1708-9) and became domestic chaplain to three successive Dukes of Rutland. He had been educated at Westminster under Richard Busby, whom he quotes on several occasions here, and indeed he seems to have been very interested in educational theories, which take up a good portion of the book. The emphasis at first is primarily on the ancient writers, but in the latter part of the book Felton considers English poets,including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Cowley, Milton and Dryden; and among contemporary writers he also praises Addison, Phillips, Prior and (p. 252) his patron's 'favourite Author, the grave and facetious 'Squire Bickerstaff, who hath drawn Mankind in every Dress'. It should also be noticed that in a very early appreciation of Pope in the preface, Felton praises 'the ingenious Author of the Essay upon Criticism, [who] demonstrates the Justness of his Remarks, by the Goodness of his Writing' (pp. xi-xii). Provenance. Early armorial bookplate of John Mordaunt Cope esq: this must be Sir John Mordaunt Cope (1731-79), bt, who succeeded his father as 8th baronet in 1763, so othe bookplate must date from before that event.…