THE WORKS OF ALGERNON SYDNEY. A New Edition. [Edited by Thomas Hollis].

Printed by W. Strahan Jun. for T. Becket and Co. and T. Cadell in the Strand, T. Davies in Russel Street, and T. Evans in King Street, London: ., 1772 pp. (8), 540, (2), 22, 56, 57, 65 , 32, 33 + A handsome bust portrait engraved by Basire, after Cipriani. Portrait offset on to the unusual title page. Some old foxing. Large 4to. 295 mm. x 240 mm. Modern plain full leather binding. Hardbound. Very good. ** WITH AMERICAN CIVIL WAR ERA (1863) MANUSCRIPT NOTES AND ANNOTATIONS. Edited by the great 'Republican' Thomas Hollis, with additions and corrections by Joseph Robertson, this edition includes: Memoirs of the Life of Algernon Sydney; Discourses Concerning Government; Letters of Algernon Sydney, taken from Thurloe's State Papers; The Protector's Advice to Algernon Sydney; Letters of Algernon Sydney, taken from the Sydney papers; Letters of A. Sydney to Henry Savile, Ambassador in France; The Trial of A. Sydney; The Apology of A. Sydney in the Day of his Death; and A General view of Government in Europe. This is an important book in the history of the ideas that founded the American republic, but what is perhaps most interesting about this copy are the manuscript notes and annotations written, in a careful small hand, in America, during the Civil War (1863). A few of these struck our eye, and we're glad to reproduce a few selections here: "I have lately undertaking to read Algernon Sydney on government. There is great difference in reading a book at four and twenty and at eighty eight. As often as I have read it and fumbled it over, it now excites fresh admiration that this work has excited so little interest in the literary world. As splendid an edition of it as the art of printing can produce, as well as for the intrinsic merits of the work, as for the proof it brings of the bitter sufferings of the advocates of liberty from that time to this, and to show the slow progress of moral, philosophical, political illumination in the world, ought to now be published in America" - John Adams to Thomas Jefferson 17 September, 1823. ".the danger in America. arises from (1) the indifference of the people to the character of their deputies; (2) the disinclination of good men to go as deputies; (3) and the inclination of bad men to go as such. The rottenness of our law making bodies has reached such a point that if it shall not soon be cured it can not longer endure." - 1863. "Among the causes, which have brought the USA to their present unhappy condition, may be reckoned, as a leading one, the predominance in their councils of mere municipal lawyers. The low morals and the crass ignorance (of these) are not equal to the work of government, filched by them from a blindly confiding people. A profession proverbially selfish and dishonest can not produce statesmen, however fecund it may be of politicians. The conduct of government is the work of statesmen - of unselfish, honest, high-hearted, great-minded men = that class has disappeared and has given way to small country lawyers whose minds exercise only upon petty squabbles of the neighborhood, incapable of grasping the vast concerns of a nation. Bad as this is, there is something worse. and that is that the profession of the law is every year sinking lower in ignorance and in contempt, while at the same time it is rising in power." - 1863. These manuscript annotations make this copy UNIQUE, and very worthy of further study. W150. **PRICE JUST REDUCED! Language: eng. Hardcover. Very Good.