A General History of the Science and Practice of Music

London: Printed for T. Payne and Son..., 1776. FIRST EDITION. 5 volumes bound in 10. 4to (235 x 195 mms.), pp. [x], lxxxiv, 259, 251 - 465 [466 blank]; [ii], 250, 251 - 544; [ii], 234, 235 - 535 [536 blank]; [ii], 254, 255 - 548; [ii], 258, 259 - 483 [483 - 511 Index, 512 Errata], engraved frontispiece (off-setting onto title-page), engraved portrait of Hawkins and 5 other engraved plates in volume 1, numerous musical illustrations and engravings as part of registration throughout all 5 volumes, contemporary half calf, spines richly gilt, red and black morocco labels, marbled boards (slightly rubbed); some slight wear to bindings, but generally a very good and attractive set, somewhat curiously bound and with less than generous margins (a large-paper copy is 280 x 255 mms.). From the Easton Neston Library, with library label for shelf mark and the armorial bookplate of Sir Thomas Hesketh, Bart., Rufford Hall Lancashire on the front paste-down end-paper. Sir John Hawkins (1719 - 1789) was famously dubbed, according to Fanny Burney as a "most unclubbable man"; in the same conversation Johnson said that he believed Hawkins to be "an honest man at the bottom; but to be sure he is penurious, and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a degree of brutality, and a tendency to savageness, that cannot easily be defended...." Nevertheless, he admired Hawkins' history of music, though Johnson himself seems to have had cloth ears. Much of the research for this work was done in the British Museum, and Hawkins had an extensive collection of manuscripts as well. The work attracted very favourable reviews when it was published. Charles Burney was rather less admiring and managed to get his journalist friends to carry out attacks on the work. But, as New Grove records, the two works are "complementary rather than conflicting. Hawkins's contains valuable information about early 18th-century musical society in London, largely collected from survivors of the period, and emphasizes the achievement of the 16th- and 17th-century composers, who were treated condescendingly by Burney." Hawkins' work was, however, reprinted in 1853 and 1875, while Burney's was never reprinted.