MENCKE, Johann Burckhard. [with] BRADSHAW, William and AMES, William. [and] ANON. [and] N.D.H.F.

£4,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

A highly unusual sammelband of rare and interesting works, including two scarce works by English authors, one an extremely rare Latin paean addressed to James I and dedicated to Prince Henry, the other containing works of Puritan theology by William Bradshaw (1571-1618) and William Ames (1576-1633). Britannia Triumphans is the first and only edition of an anonymous Latin prose paean to James I, dedicated to his son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died in 1612 and was succeeded by the future Charles I. Since the work is designed to be an ‘icon’ of James’s kingship, the dedicatory epistle to Henry invokes ancient, monumental effigies of kingship, including the colossi of the ancient Egyptians and the Greek painter Apelles’ portrait of Alexander the Great. The author suggests that as the ‘coin’ of his father’s image, he will one day accede to James’s greatness, as the conjunction of Mars and Hercules. The paean itself praises James’s unifying of the English and Scots, which his accession had achieved in 1603. The author invokes Britain’s ancient Trojan origins, the Roman invasion and wars with the Picts, as well as the Norman conquest of the Anglo-Saxons, thus praising Britain’s mixture of Greek, Roman, Celtic, Saxon and Norman virtues, embodied by James, a Scottish king of England with a French grandmother. At the end is a short Latin poem by the author addressed ‘Ad Cryptaeus’, possibly the creator of a medallion or other portrait of James. The other English book is the

• Binding: Hardcover

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