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FIRST LONDON EDITION. 4to, 264 x 197 mms., pp. [iv] v - xii, 166, 124, engraved portrait frontispiece of Cormac Common, engraved head and tailpiece, several engravings in text, engraved plate at end of text block, attractively bound in contemporary mottled calf, with elaborate gilt borders to a floral motif, enclosing a triple gilt rectangular border, with a fan motif at each corner, spine gilt in compartments ( but faded), morocco label; bound without the two pages of music as an appendix, perhaps deliberately, with the binder having neatly excised the catchword and repaired the damage to the paper. Brian Boydell, writing in New Grove, asserts that the Irish antiquary, Joseph Cooper Walker (1761 - 1810), in his book, "though written in a turgid and verbose style, [it] includes much information not available elsewhere, particularlry in relation to the haper Turlouigh Carolan. Five poems and seven airs by Carolan are included in a chapter on his life. It also includes a highly fanciful essay by William Beauford, The Poetical Accents of the Irish, which sought to prove that a system of musical notation was in use in Ireland in the 11th and 12th centuries. In all, 43 Irish airs are included, providing one of the early sources of native Irish music, and a stimulus to its study, which was to bear fruit shortly afterwards in the work of Edward Bunting." Boydell's remarks are not that different in kind from those in the Monthly Review for December 1787: "The present rage for antiquities in Ireland surpasses that of any other nation in Europe. The Welsh who have no contemptible opinion of the antiquity of their poetry and music are left among the children of the earth by Mr. Walker and the writers of the Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis. Indeed, there is no antiquity short of the creation that can justify these authors." Morris, H. B. (2004). Joseph Cooper Walker, Esq. (C. 1761-1810), A Forgotten Irish Bard: A Dissection of His Advertisement as a Map to His Melodies. Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal, 5(1). Seller Inventory # 10480
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