PARR, Samuel.

£250 · Offered by Peter Harrington

A Free Translation of the Preface to Bellendenus; First edition in English of Parr's preface, constituting a strident, popular and highly controversial attack upon Pitt's government. "Henry Homer, a classical scholar, wished to publish a new edition of three treatises by William Bellenden, a sixteenth-century Scottish professor and diplomat, and asked Parr to write a Latin dedication and preface for the book. Bellenden's unfinished treatise 'De tribus luminibus Romanorum' suggested to Parr that Britain had its own luminaries, and Homer agreed that the venture should be used to support the contemporary Whig cause by having the treatise dedicated to the 'tria lumina Anglorum' - Burke, North, and Fox. The preface was then enlarged into a political tract supporting the coalition of these three politicians and attacking the younger Pitt and his government. The Praefatio ad Bellendenum appeared anonymously in 1787, but gradually the authorship became known first to scholars and then was more widely publicized when the work was translated into English" (ODNB).

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