Memoirs of the Life of The Rev. Richard Price, D. D. F. R. S.

London: Printed for R. Hunter..., 1815. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, 213 x 124 mms., pp. [iii] i viii, 189 [190 blank, 191 adverts, 192 blank], contemporary half calf, marbled boards (rubbed and worn), red leather label; end-papers a little soiled, joints cracked, extremities worn. In his ODNB entry on Richard Price (1723 - 1791) D. O. Thomas describes him as philosopher, demographer, and political radical. He was that and more, and one sentence from his political writings about the natural rights of human beings has timeless validity and importance: "First, the right to liberty of conscience in religious matters; secondly, the right to resist power when abused; and thirdly, the right to chuse our own government, to cashier them for misconduct, and to frame a government for our selves." The British Critic, and Quarterly Theological Review, opened its review with the assertion, "No great injury, we think would have been done to the republic of letters, or to the interests of mankind, if the subject of these Memoirs had been suffered to rest in oblivion..... Those persons, however, who inherit Dr. Price's sentiments, (which, we trust, for the honour and safety of our country,) will probably be delighted with Mr. Morgan's tribute to his uncle." The reviewer adds that those "deluded contemporaries" who shared Prices' views must be delighted with the results of the French Revolution, "with all its delightful appendages of murder, sacrilege, and rapine...."