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or ‘Select Passages in the Old and New Testaments, represented by Emblematical Figures, for the Amusement of Youth.
Published by Thomas Hodgson (London)
The date of the first edition is not known because no copy has been found. The second to twentieth editions appeared between 1784 and 1812.
These later editions, of which this is probably one, are essentially reprints of the 1784 version with some additions.
The current view is that the likely author is Thomas Bewick's brilliant but short-lived younger brother John (1760–1795). He was noted as an engraver so accomplished that his apprenticeship (with his brother and Ralph Beilby) was concluded early. He then went to London where he worked, amongst other publishers, for Thomas Hodgson who was responsible for this volume.
This particular volume was kindly donated in 2016 by a Mr Gilbertson in memory of his parents.
HEXAB5157
“with the Addition of many remarkable Parts of Scripture, and other great Improvements”
Pages 1–130 are intact, though 1–9 and 129–130 are damaged with losses at the outer edges. Page 1 had Psalm XC [90]; pages 128, 129, 130 have engravings of the Evangelists, St Matthew, St Mark, and St Luke who looks over his shoulder in surprise to see St John has been torn away.
No endpapers survive except perhaps a torn slice at the back. Both boards have inscriptions but these are difficult to read, partly because they are poorly written and partly, apparently, because earlier inscriptions have been crossed out or erased (or scraped?) to make way for later ones to the disadvantage of both. Patience might produce more but the front board writing, all in ink, seems to include ‘1872 | Mary Ann Bell’; and the back board, mostly in ink, has in pencil at the foot ‘Mary Thom [as??] | Book’.