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satire on the alleged propensity of Irish fortune-hunters to seek marriage
with the rich ladies of England, prompted, one presumes, by the case of
Edward Hussey, Earl of Beaulieu, the Irish husband of an English
heiress. It “begins with a spoof president’s speech to the Hibernian
Society, ‘advising a speedy draught of their members to be imported into
England for the service of the English ladies. ‘ This will ‘reduce our
present calamities by cultivating those valuable talents which nature has
kindly provided us with’, thus counteracting ‘the miserable state our
dear nation is reduced to by the great number of absentees now residing
in England, who spend their fortunes there … regardless of their
country’s ruin’. England has to offer ‘hundreds of widows and maiden
ladies of very great fortune [who] lie unoccupied and neglected’, and
who might ‘by the most prevailing means’ be married and forced ‘to
come and settle among us … And that you may flourish according to
the dimensions of your different parts and capacities, they [the ladies –
not the parts!] are distinnguished by their classes’. ‘The classes comprise
11 dowager duchesses, two dowager marchionesses, 15 dowager
countesses,27 widow ladies (all peeresses), 34 baronets’ widows, 62
maiden ladies (all titled), 106 widows (all commoners), and 538 misses.
Addresses, mainly in London, are provided for all, which justifies
Horace Walpole’s description of the pamphlet as ‘one of the most
impudent things that ever was printed’. It concludes with ‘Orders and
resolutions of the Brave and Heroic Society of Adventurers at Dublin
for incorporating … British commodities. ’” – Malcomson, The Pursuit
of the Heiress, 103.
€500-€700 (£400-£560 approx.)
938
.
IRISH TONTINES.
A list of the persons on whose lives
the sum of 175000l. was subscribed, pursuant to an act of
parliament in the kingdom of Ireland (in the 15th and 16th years
of the reign of his present majesty George the Third, King of
Great Britain, etc.) for granting annuities in the manner therein
provided. Disposed into the three separate classes, agreeable to
the alphabetical order of their names: and shewing the sum
subscribed on the life of each respective person, the number of
lives, and total subscription in each class. To which are annexed,
extracts from the act of parliament: with forms and directions
relative to different cases which may occur in the future in the
progress of that business. [Dublin:] Published by order of the
Right Hon. Nathaniel Clements, Deputy Vice-Treasurer of
Ireland. 1777. [with:] ATKINSON (Richard) “Life annuities
established in Ireland by act of parliament Session 1775. “
[and:] STANDISH, (F.) Life annuities, 1775. An account of the
nominees whose deaths are come to knowledge, and also of the
nominees of shares forfeited by the proprietors having neglected
to demand their dividends for the space of three years; together
with states of the funds accrued thereby in the different classes
respectively. N. B. The nominees of the forfeited shares are
denoted by the Italian characters with which their names are
inserted. Dublin Castle,25th December, 1816. [and:] GAYER
(W. Watts) and GAYER (Edward). Irish life annuities. An act to
remove certain doubts which have been conceived concerning
the construction of the three several acts of parliament, passed
in this kingdom, in the reign of his present majesty, for granting
annuities to such persons as should voluntarily subscribe the
sums therein respectively mentioned. London: Couchman,
Printer, Throgmorton-Street. Broadside. n. d. [c. 1816?]
Three printed and one manuscript item together in a 4to
volume, pages (4), 76: (3): (1), oblong 4to broadside: (1), roy
8vo, broadside, the ms is in the hand of Richard Atkinson: five
members of the Atkinson family are listed in the third class of
investors and a ms annotation opposite their printed names in
the List gives the number of their certificates and “dead” is
written alongside two of them, contemporary quarter calf,
marbled boards, contemporary ms inscription on upper board
“Irish Tontines”: in nice state throughout.
The first item, Dublin 1775, is represented in ESTC by three copies only
(one imperfect): O (wanting pp 69-76), Di & Lpro: not in Black, Kress
or Goldsmiths’. The great majority of names are of women, including
Marie Antoinette, Present Queen of France, Mary Allen, wife of Ralph
Allen of Bath (Henry Fielding’s patron), Anne Raikes, daughter of
Robert Raikes Printer of Gloucester, Eleanor Charlotte Rivington,
daughter of Charles Rivington, printer etc. etc. A tontine is described by
Palgrave as “an annuity shared by subscribers to a loan, with the benefit
of survivorship, the annuity being increased as the subscribers die, until
the whole goes to the last survivor... The principle was in former times
frequently applied in Great Britain, sometimes to assist private
enterprises, more frequently to raise funds for the government. The
speculative element was an attraction for many, the investor staking his
money on the chance of his own life or that of his nominee being better
than that of his neighbours. “ Palgrave quotes an example of a survivor
of another 1777 tontine, set up by the government to secure a loan taken
out at the time of the crisis of the American war of independence,
under which, in the last year of his life (1870), the beneficiary was
receiving nearly £8,000 p. a.
ALSO WITH THIS LOT:
H. (W. H.).
Waifs of Conversation.
By W. H. H.
Belfast: James Magill,
1876
FIRST COLLECTED EDITION, pages 113, (3),
16(advertisements), 8vo, original cloth, gilt, by Wm. M.
Downing & Co. of Belfast, with their ticket: a very good copy.
Reminiscences of the north of Ireland, originally published serially in
the Belfast News-Letter, and here “with considerable additions of
anecdote and incident”. Not in NUC or NSTC. COPAC has Dt only,
though there are copies in L and NLI.
(2)
€800-€1,000 (£640-£800 approx.)
939
.
[ITALIAN WRITERS]. Classici Italiani. The Collected
Works of various Italian authors from antiquity to 1800.
Milano, dalla Societa Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani
. 1807
Uniform 19th century half calf. A very good to nice collection
of 64 volumes. (64)
€300-€400 (£240-£320 approx.)
940
.
JACKSON (Charles).
A narrative of the sufferings and
escape of Charles Jackson, late resident at Wexford, in Ireland,
including an account, by way of journal, of several barbarous
atrocities committed, in June, 1798, by the Irish rebels in that
town, while it was in their possession, to the greater part of
which he was an eye-witness.
Printed, for the Author, by H. L.
Galabin, and sold by J. Wright, C. and F. Rivington, J. Hatchard, and
J. Fairburn,
1798
FIRST EDITION, pages (2), viii, (1), 4- 82 and errata leaf, small
8vo, recent paper wrapper, with the fore and lower edges uncut:
a nice copy.
Published shortly after the rebellion, this provides a harrowing account
of several weeks imprisonment in Wexford On 20 June a mob had
surrounded his prison and were calling for him by name but fortunately
they did not know him. ‘During this time there was indeed a man
among the rebels who saw and knew me, and made signs to me to be
silent. This man was a black, and had been servant to a gentleman in
the town of Wexford’.
€180-€250 (£144-£200 approx.)
941
.
JACKSON (John L.).
The Art of Riding; or,
horsemanship made easy: exemplified by rules drawn from
nature and experience. By J. L. Jackson, Esq;
London: Printed for
A. Cooke, in Fenchurch-street,
1765
FIRST (ONLY) EDITION, with an engraved frontispiece of
“The Manage or Riding House”, pages iv,54, without the advert
leaf at end found in some copies, 12mo, full polished calf, gilt,
gilt spine, with labels, gilt, inside gilt borders, edges gilt, by
Zaehnsdorf, both boards loose: the lower margin on eight pages
225