Polygraphy, or Short-Hand made easy to the meanest capacity: Being an Universal Character fitted to all languages: which may be learnt by this Book, without the help of a Master: Invented by Aulay Macaulay.

MACAULAY, Aulay. Polygraphy, or Short-Hand made easy to the meanest capacity: Being an Universal Character fitted to all languages: which may be learnt by this Book, without the help of a Master: Invented by Aulay Macaulay. 24mo, contemporary crimson morocco, gilt decorated borders (rebacked; new label, engraved frontispiece, 1 p.l., pp. viii, 119, a.e.g., marbled end papers, engraved throughout. London: Printed for the Author, and sold by him in the square Manchester: Also sold by [9 others], November 30, 1747.

First Edition. Printed from engraved copperplates. The frontispiece represents a preacher at a pulpit above a group of men and women taking notes in shorthand. With the author's authenticating signature on verso of title. There was demand for a second edition, also dated November 30th, and a third edition in 1756. Aulay Macaulay (d. 1788) was a Manchester tea dealer whose "shorthand system was the first English system to include written vowels; and he was the first to intend his system for other languages. Within his book, he used his system to write a psalm in 8 different languages." Gift inscription on binder's leaf: "R. Bennett from Edgar Vincent Xmas 1900," presumably a gift from the 1st Viscount d'Abernon (1857-1941), diplomat, politician, art collector and author. Brown & Haskell, The Shorthand Collection in The New York Public Library, p. 196, records two copies in that library's collection, both of which lack the preliminary leaf with George II's coat-of arms over his "Royal Privilege & License for ye sole printing & publishing ye said work for ye term of fourteen years...By His Majesty's Command, Holles Newcastle." Minor browning; frontispiece and title moderately so. Alston VIII-201.