THE WORKS OF VIRGIL

Glasgow: Printed by Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1769. Very good plus.. Lovely three-volume pocket edition of Dryden's translation of the AENEID, ECOLOGUES, and GEORGICS, printed by the famed Scottish Enlightenment printers, the Foulis brothers. Virgil, the great epic poet of Rome, flourished in the midst of Augustus's reign, when the Roman Republic had just become the Roman Empire. In need of appropriate founding mythology, the author put to verse the story of Aeneas as he fled the fall of Troy, loved and left Dido of Carthage, descended into the Underworld, and finally came to Italy. Virgil was required reading for intellectuals of 18th-century Scotland, just as he is for Latin students today. He was a regular source of inspiration and imitation for major Scottish artists and philosophers of the era: David Hume "devoured" him, while Robert Burns disliked the AENEID but adored the GEORGICS, which "filled my head with a thousand fancies of emulation" (letter to Mrs. Dunlop, May 1788). A pocket edition such as this captures the everyday influence of the poet 1700 years and 1500 miles away.
An uncommon edition of Dryden's translation (first published in 1697), in a beautifully preserved contemporary binding. Three 32mo vols, 4.75'' x 3'' each. Full contemporary calf, raised bands, red goatskin spine labels, spines elaborately stamped in gilt. Red speckled edges, blue silk ribbon markers. Illustrated with frontispiece portrait of Virgil in vol. I, and folding map in vol. II. Publisher's ads at rear of vols. I and III. [4], xxxx, 158, [2]; [4] 224; [4], 245, [1], [2] pages. 2'' closed tear to folding map. Light rubbing and edgewear; interiors clean. Hinges strong.