Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera.

London: John Pine,, 1733-37. Pine's Horace in red morocco First edition, first printing, with the reading "post est" in the left hand medallion on p. 108, vol. II. A tour-de-force of bookmaking, Pine's Horace is entirely engraved, both text and illustration, and liberally supplied with initials, head- and tailpieces and vignettes, exhibiting a harmony and delicacy reminiscent of the best French printing of the period. "John Pine (1690-1756) may well have been the pupil of Bernard Picart, the great French engraver at Amsterdam; he was the best English engraver of the century. His edition of Horace is engraved throughout... The results are a unity between decoration and text which at times suggests Didot's Horace of 1799; a contrast between thick and thin strokes in the letters which naturally follows from the engraving process but which foreshadows the type design of Baskerville, Bodoni, and Didot; and the wide 'leading' between the lines of text which did so much to give their pages a brilliant effect" (Printing and the Mind of Man, Exhibition of Fine Printing, no. 105 - "a very exquisite performance"). The variant printing with "Post Est" amended to "Potest" at vol. II. p. 108, listed by Rothschild as a second issue, is now regarded as a later printing of 1757 from the same plates (see Michael Suarez's 2015 Lyell Lecture). The subscriber list in volume 1 lists Frederick, Prince of Wales, William, Duke of Cumberland, and William IV, Prince of Orange, alongside subscribers from Great Britain, Paris, Amsterdam and Vienna. That of volume 2 is a testament to the work's growing popularity and includes George II of Great Britain, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and Louis XV of France amongst other leading figures of Europe. In total, more than 1,000 people subscribed to this edition. Two volumes, octavo (229 x 141 mm). Superbly bound to style in full red goatskin, spine gilt in compartments, sides with gilt border enclosing central frame, board-edges and turn-ins decorated in gilt, antique laid paper binder's blanks with L V Gerrevink watermark, green silk doublures, buntpapier flyleaves, gilt gauffered edges. Volumes individually housed in 18th-century calf book-form pull-off cases, spines gilt, marbled paper linings. Without the List of Antiquities in Vol. I, as often; engraved text and illustrations throughout. A fine copy, in well-preserved boxes. Updike II, p. 138; Blumenthal, Art of the Printed Book 72; Ray, England p. 3; Rothschild 1548.