WITH EARLY NOTICES OF THE WORK OF JOHN GLOVER AND WILLIAM WESTALL

22. GLOVER, John.

British Institution for promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom…

Quarto, 28pp., uncut; light pencil sketches on final page; original plain paper wrappers. London, W. Bulmer, 1817.

Very rare original documentation of works exhibited at the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts (usually known as the British Institution), which had been founded in 1806 as a private club for connoisseurs, and to exhibit the works of both contemporaries and Old Masters. Admission cost a shilling. These exhibition catalogues are only very rarely offered for sale, and are scarce in libraries. Works by both John Glover and William Westall are recorded in this catalogue for 1817, at which time both men were living in London. The catalogue records respectively two and four paintings by them, alongside works by Turner and Constable.

The notes on the artists appended to the catalogue give Glover’s address as Montague Square. Glover, who had begun exhibiting at the British Institution in 1810, showed two paintings in the annual exhibition for 1817, listed as ‘A Farm Yard’ and ‘Cephalis and Procris’ (Cephalis, properly “Cephalus”, was the mythological figure given a javelin that always hit its target by the goddess Eos, with which he accidentally killed his wife after a misunderstanding). To an Australian audience, of course, Glover’s importance lies in the work he did after his arrival in Hobart. Glover arrived in 1831, having followed his three sons, who had sailed for Van Diemen’s Land in 1829.

Also in the same exhibition are paintings by William Westall, who is listed as residing with his brother Richard, in either Bedford Square or Lake Grasmere. Westall was famous for his work as landscape artist on Matthew Flinders’ exploration of Australia aboard the Investigator, and it was the same brother Richard who restored many of his pencil-and-wash drawings after they were damaged in the wreck of the Porpoise. William had returned to London in 1805, where he established himself as an associate of the Royal Academy in 1812, and where he was commissioned to paint nine pictures to illustrate Flinders’ A Voyage to Terra Australis of 1814. The exhibition catalogue here lists four paintings by Westall, a ‘Distant View of Lake Windermere, from the Road between Troutbeck and Kirkstone’; a ‘View in the Garden of Corpus Christi College, Oxford’; ‘View from the garden of a Mandarin on the river beyond Canton in China’; and ‘Lake Windermere, with Stone Hall’. $1250 [3712441 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at

Grant On Bass Strait And The Hunter

23. GRANT, James.

The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery…

Quarto, with a large folding plate, a folding chart, a coloured plate and five other engravings; with the uncommon leaf headed ‘List of Encouragers’; contemporary half calf restored on original marbled sides. London, C. Raworth, 1803.

First edition: one of the most important of the early Australian coastal voyages. The Lady Nelson was the first ship to be built with sliding keels to facilitate the exploration of shallow waters. Grant brought the Lady Nelson out to Australia, in company with HMS Porpoise, in 1800 as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He sailed her through Bass Strait, the first to do so from the west and, on arrival at Sydney, he discovered that he had missed Flinders to whom he was to deliver the ship and was sent back to survey the south-western coast of the continent, a task in which he was assisted by Francis Barrallier. However, because of the lateness of the season, the survey, which took place from March to May 1801, concentrated on Bass Strait and the Victorian coast instead. The chart of Bass Strait here was the first to be published of the newly-discovered Victorian coast.

On his return to Sydney, Grant was sent to examine the Hunter River, and it was as a result of his report that Newcastle was established. Two engravings in this book illustrate the exploration by the Lady Nelson of the Hunter River: they were probably engraved after sketches by the colony’s first professional artist, John William Lewin, who accompanied the expedition. The finest is the handcoloured plate depicting the “Fringe Crested Cockatoo”, which is present here in particularly fine condition. There are also portraits of the Aborigines Pimbloy (an alternative spelling of Pemulwuy, the great warrior) “in a canoe of that country” and Bennelong.

Davidson, ‘A Book Collector’s Notes’, pp. 125-6 (‘rare and most desirable’); Hill, 718; Wantrup, 75.

Provenance: Private collection (Sydney).

$12,250 [4504286 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at

CHINA AND JAPAN; OPIUM AND RELIGION

24. GUTZLAFF, Charles (Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff).

Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China in 1831, 1832, and 1833…

Octavo, with an engraved frontispiece of Gützlaff’s residence in Canton and a folding map, a fine copy in a handsome early binding of polished calf, marbled edges and endpapers. London, Frederick Westley and A.H. Davis, 1834.

A scarce book. This is an enlarged version of the author’s “Journal of Two Voyages…” published the previous year, now adding Gützlaff’s third voyage “from the province of Canton to Leaou-Tung in Mantchou-Tartary; 1832-33”, as well as the Rev. Ellis’ essay on “the policy, religion, etc of China”.

Charles Gützlaff (1803-1851) went to the South Seas in 1826, in his early 20s, with the Netherlands Missionary society. He had medical training and a gift for languages and by 1830 had established himself and his young wife in Bangkok, moving on to China following the death of his wife and child. One of the voyages described here was aboard a vessel involved in the opium trade. He worked on a translation of the Bible in Chinese, published a Chinese monthly magazine, and was a chief negotiator during the opium war of 1840-1842.

Gützlaff’s book is also of Japanese interest: “As a member of the London Missionary Society, [Gützlaff] engaged in missionary work in the Orient, including in Thailand and China. This book is comprised of the records of his three voyages to areas off the coast of the East China Sea. During his second voyage, Gützlaff’s delegation departed the port of Macao, made a port call at Naha Port of Ryukyu Islands in August 1832, via a few other countries and regions including Taiwan and Korea. In the island, which was under the influence of the anti-Christian element of Japan’s seclusion policy at that time, Gützlaff managed to present three Bibles to the Ryukyu king. Gützlaff interacted with the Ryukyu people and observed their politics, religion, and language.

“Gützlaff later boarded the American merchant ship Morrison as an interpreter and visited the coast of Uraga and the Kagoshima Bay. Gützlaff was evicted when the ship was bombarded under the Japanese feudal government’s Edict to Repel Foreign Vessels (Morrison Incident, 1837), and thus failed to make a landing in Japan. He learned Japanese in Macao from Japanese castaways, such as Otokichi, and translated Yohane Fukuin No Den [The Gospel of St. John] (1837). This is known to be the oldest remaining Japanese translation of the Bible”. (Japan Foundation Library, online resource).

Cordier, 2111.

Provenance: James Blyth (with 19th century armorial bookplate, incorporating the motto “Persevere”).

$1850 [5000852 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at

CHINESE LUTHERAN: “PARSON, PIRATE, CHARLATAN AND GENIUS, PHILANTHROPIST AND CROOK”

25. GUTZLAFF, Charles (Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff).

China Opened, or, a display of the… Chinese Empire…

Two volumes, octavo, folding engraved map with outline colouring, and a folding plate of Chinese characters; in a handsome contemporary binding of neatly diced dark green calf, spines decorated in gilt and blind between raised bands, double brown labels, marbled edges and endpapers. London, Smith, Elder and Co, 1838.

Soon after the period described by Gutzlaff in his Journal of Three Voyages, the missionary and traveller had been persuaded by William Jardine of Jardine, Matheson & Co. to interpret for their ships’ captains during coastal smuggling of opium, with the assurance that this would allow him to gather more converts. A gifted linguist, he mastered several Chinese dialects. He was also a central figure in the first opium war and funded his missionary work by drug-running. Although, as he has been described, he was ‘a cross between parson, pirate, charlatan and genius, philanthropist and crook’, he is regarded as the founding father of the Chinese Lutheran church.

Perhaps surprisingly, his writing is said to have influenced both David Livingstone and Karl Marx. It was after reading one of his missionary works that Livingstone decided to become a medical missionary, though the outbreak of the First Opium War made China too dangerous for that to happen. Marx went to hear him speak when Gützlaff was fundraising in Europe in 1850, and used his many writings as sources for his articles on China for the London Times and the New York Daily Tribune in the 1840s and 1850s, all of them anti-imperialist and anti-religion.

This speaks to the enigma that history suggests: recruited by Jardines despite being a missionary, involved with the opium business, Gützlaff did a deal of Christian good, training many Chinese, but nonetheless ending up fat rich and secular in Hong Kong - Charles Taylor in his “Five Years in China” reporting that by 1848 in Hong Kong Gützlaff had turned his back on being a missionary and had become a corpulent figure enjoying a large civil service salary. He left an enormous estate valued at £30,000 and was buried in Hong Kong Cemetery.

Cordier, 74, etc.

Provenance: James Blyth (with 19th century armorial bookplate, incorporating the motto “Persevere”). $3400 [5000853 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at

THE IMPRIMERIE ROYALE EDITION OF HORACE, WITH ALLEGORICAL TITLE-PAGE BY POUSSIN

26. [HORACE] HORATIUS FLACCUS, Quintus.

Opera.

Folio, engraved allegorical title-page after Poussin, with 11 fine engraved headpieces and initials and four culs-delampe; with the half-title; final blank leaf discarded; early pigskin-backed glazed brown boards. Paris, Typographia Regia [Imprimerie Royale], 1642.

A grand edition of the works of Horace, set in a large typeface and with an elegant pictorial titlepage engraved by Mellan after Nicolas Poussin. Poussin’s drawing was owned by George III and is in the Royal Collections today (Blunt, The French Drawings in the Collection of His Majesty The King at Windsor Castle, Oxford and London, 1945, 249).

The French Royal Press at this time was renowned for its elegant and careful productions, particularly of the classics. As Moss, the bibliographer of classical authors, noted, this was “A very magnificent and rare edition; it is one of those which were executed at the Louvre”.

Brunet, III/317; Moss, II/15.

Provenance: Early presentation inscription dated 1679 on half-title.

$2200 [5000760 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at

BENTLEYS HORACE: THE BEST EDITION

27. [HORACE] HORATIUS FLACCUS, Quintus.

[Opera, ed. Richard Bentley].

Quarto, with fine engraved frontispiece and vignette on title (title printed in black and red), contemporary panelled calf. Amsterdam, apud Rod. & Gerh. Wetstenios, 1713.

The improved second edition of Bentley’s celebrated Horace, preferred to the Cambridge first edition of 1711. Although controversial and the cause of much scholarly debate at the time, this important edition by the young Richard Bentley, eventually acclaimed by Dibdin as “Princeps criticorum”, was hailed for its hugely extensive notes but questioned for its “conjectures”.

“A few days after its initial publication Thomas Hearne observed, on 29 January 1712, ‘Dr Bentley’s Horace is much condemn’d for the great Liberty he hath taken in altering the text’ (Remarks, 3.273), and pamphlet attacks soon followed. With more than 700 changes from the vulgate, this was indeed ‘unlike any edition of a Latin author ever before given to the world’ (Monk,1.316). Few of Bentley’s conjectures are accepted, but many of his accepted emendations began as conjectures before he found support in manuscripts consulted for his notes. Confident in his own divination, Bentley emended ‘anything inconsistent with the harmonious measures of classical poetry’ (Pfeiffer, 154). Yet, even where his solutions are wrong, Bentley’s grasp of textual problems and the learning he brings to bear on them are quite extraordinary. The much quoted note on Odes, book 3, ode 27, line 15 ‘To us reason and common sense are better than a hundred codices’ significantly continues, ‘especially with the added testimony of the old Vatican codex’“ (DNB).

Brunet II, 318f. (“une des meilleures éditions que l’on ait de ce poëte… on préfère l’édition d’Amsterdam, 1713”); Dibdin II, 101-105.

Provenance: Edward Henry Cooper (1827-1902), Landowner, Lieutenant-Colonel, Grenadier Guards, and Conservative politician; MP for County Sligo (armorial bookplate as “Colonel Cooper”).

$1500 [5000761 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at