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[xiv], 227, [1]pp., 12mo. A little minor spotting, but an excellent copy in gilt-ruled mottled sheep antique, spine gilt, by Bernard Middleton. "The Archetypally Second Edition," but there is no "first," nor any other edition. A wild, irresistible spoof of the heavy-handed divine John Norris s Essay Towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World (1701-1704), the author skewers Norris s theories - derived from and continuing the arguments of Malebranche in particular - interweaving his parody with amorous and other verses, such as "Pope Joan s Kissing-Dance, A Ballad," and prose excursions like "The Life and Exploits of Sancho Pansa, after his Master s Decease." There are quite learned discussions of ancient and modern philosophy, but over and over the author returns to the absurdity of Norris s argument that the intelligible world is the mind of God, and that it is perceived through the divine light rather than man s own mundane and fleeting eyesight. Thus section XXXI here: "The Raree-Show describ d according to the Author s Innate Idea. . . and a Parallel introduc d between the Raree-Show and the Ideal World." One could go on and on. Sometime towards the end of the nineteenth century this work came to be attributed to Thomas D Urfey, but I am unable to find any explanation for how or upon what basis. Thomas Warton described this work as "a scarce little book of universal burlesque, much in the manner of Tom Brown" and remarked on its inclusion of a Latin poem by Milton "as a specimen of unintelligible metaphysicks." (See, e.g. Poetical Works of Milton, ed. Hawkins, 1824, Vol. IV, p. 342). A notice in The Gentleman s Magazine, II, 980 (1732) attributes the work to a "Mr. Gregory," and the first edition of Lowndes Bibliographer s Manual (1834) simply lists it under the "John" pseudonym, noting it as "a whimsical work, from which Sterne took the idea of his marbled pages." But by 1882 Halkett and Laing s Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature had, without explanation, assigned it to Thomas D Urfey, an attribution worthy - in this cataloguer s opinion - of a second look. Sometime catalogued in Wing, Short-Title Catalogue 1641-1700 at D2721, since cancelled. An excellent discussion of this work can be found in John Hoyles. The Waning of the Renaissance 1640Ð1740: Studies in the Thought and Poetry of Henry More, John Norris, and Isaac Watts (The Hague, 1971) pp. 88-91. Seller Inventory # 12778
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