Joseph Addison (1753)
Book Summary
12mo, later tan cloth; brown leather spine label, gilt. 328, (8) pages, including 62 woodcut illustrations of ancient coins. Near fine. A classic essay, in Volume III of the collected 1753 edition of Addison's Miscellaneous Works, in Verse and Prose. A defense of numismatics written in the form of a discourse between Cynthio, Eugenius and Philander, followed by three series of woodcut plates of Roman coins, and preceded by Alexander Pope's "Verses Occasion'd by Mr. Addison's Treatise of Medals." Two other essays are also included. Addison was one of the most important English essayists, and was, through The Spectator (which he published with Richard Steele), one of the guardians of good taste at the time. His opinions on the merits of coin collecting mattered. Dekesel A49. Hirsch 2 (1726 edition). Lipsius 4 (1726 edition).
