Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney; with Remarks, by Miss Porter PORTER, [Jane].

Two vols, 12mo, pp. I; [iii] vi, xv, [1], 222; II: [iii] vi, 225, [1 (ads)], with an engraved frontispiece in each volume by Freeman after Robert Porter; a fine copy, bound without half-titles, in contemporary half speckled calf, pink marbled paper sides; from the library of the Marchioness of Downshire, with monogram to spines.First edition, uncommon, of a collection of aphorisms and observations drawn from Sidney's prose works, edited and with additional commentary by the novelist Jane Porter (1775 1850). Sidney had been favoured childhood reading for the Porter family, and her runaway success Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) had been dedicated to Sir Sidney Smith 'under the Hope, that as Sir Philip Sidney did not disdain to write a Romance, Sir Sidney Smith will not refuse to read one'. The Aphorisms was intended to be followed by editions of Sidney's Poems and Arcadia, and a Life, none of which were realised. It was a family project, and her brother the artist and diplomat Sir Robert Ker Porter (1777 1842) provided the frontispieces; the work was dedicated to Gustavus IV Adolphus of Sweden, who had knighted Robert Porter in 1806. Seeing in Sidney 'an example of how happy and how admirable virtue can render a man.' Porter culled from his works a series of political and moral aphorisms organised by subject ('Man', 'Freedom', 'Cowardice', 'Prudence', 'Friendship', 'Woman', etc.), interspersed with Remarks in which she drew parallels with classical history and contemporary politics and society, and quoted Hume, Locke, Burns, and others. Tyranny and mob rule are particular obsessions, as reflective of her age as Sidney's. Language: English