Discourses concerning Government.: Publish'd from an Original Manuscript. The Second Edition carefully corrected. To which is Added, The Paper He deliver'd to the Sheriffs immediately before his Death. And an Alphabetical Table.

London: printed by J. Darby,, 1704. One of "the intellectual foundations of the Declaration of Independence" (Jefferson) Second edition, corrected, of this major text of republican theory, a significant influence on the American Declaration of Independence. "The Discourses places Sidney alongside Milton as the master of republican eloquence. It is the power of its prose, as much as any aspect of its content, which helps to account for the work's exceptional subsequent impact in Britain, continental Europe, and America. Polemically a refutation of Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha (1680), the practical purpose of the Discourses is again to argue for armed resistance to oppression... for subsequent influence in Enlightenment Britain, America, the United Provinces, Germany, and France, he had no seventeenth-century rival except John Locke" (ODNB). Thomas Jefferson was one of many influenced by Sidney's ideas. In 1804, he wrote of the Discourses: "They are in truth a rich treasure of republican principles, supported by copious & cogent arguments, and adorned with the finest flowers of science. It is probably the best elementary book of the principles of government... which has ever been published in any language" (Sowerby III: J6). "Jefferson identified Sidney as one of four writers who provided the intellectual foundations of the Declaration of Independence" (A Covenanted People, 56). The work was first published in 1698, but was written between 1681 and 1683 and originally circulated as a manuscript. While still unpublished, the Discourses was used against Sidney in his trial and subsequent execution for his complicity in the Rye House Plot, the indictment citing sentences saying that the king is subject to law, is responsible to the people, and may be deposed, as a "false, seditious, and traitorous libel" (Sabine, 512). With the bookplate to front pastedown of William Markham (1719-1807), at his Becca Lodge estate in Yorkshire; Markham served as Headmaster of Westminster 1753-1765, Dean of Christ Church in Oxford 1767-1776, and Archbishop of York from 1777 until his death. Loosely inserted is an unsigned manuscript note "To Mr Markham. Keep this Book for my sake & as often as you look into it, think of yr old Whig friends". Folio (314 x 199 mm). Contemporary panelled calf, later red morocco label. Portrait frontispiece. Joints and extremities expertly restored, bottom forecorner of two front free endpapers restored a little crudely, minor wax mark to pp. 266/7, contents otherwise crisp and clean. A very good copy. ESTC T113295.