RULES OF GOOD DEPORTMENT, OR OF GOOD BREEDING

Edinburgh, 1835. Second Printing. ONE OF ONLY 45 COPIES (though not stated thus). 212 x 164 mm. (8 3/8 x 6 3/8"). 2 p.l., iii, [9], 136 pp.
Period brown crushed morocco, raised bands, compartments with gilt floral motif, black morocco label with gilt lettering, gilt turn-ins, all edges gilt. With frontispiece of a gentleman bowing courteously to a lady. A Large Paper Copy. Front pastedown with bookplate of Philip Shirley. Heltzel (Newbury Library Courtesy Books) 1135; Lowndes III, 1842. ◆A little wear to joints and extremities (well hidden by refurbishment), a few superficial marks to covers, otherwise a perfectly sound and not unattractive binding. Offsetting from frontispiece onto title, a few other imperfections in the text (small spots, short tear to one leaf), otherwise a nearly fine copy internally, with thick paper that is fresh and clean, with deep impressions of the type, and with vast margins.

This is a very pleasing copy of a work consisting of 15 chapters containing a great many admonitions relating to what is proper with regard to clothing, walking and travelling, visits, gratitude, salutations, speech, writing, eating and drinking, "marriage and uncleanness," plays and recreations, acts of justice, observation of the Lord's Day, "carriage in the Church," gift giving, and commerce. As the 1835 preface tells us, "Petrie, who has been facetiously called the Scottish Chesterfield, is generally understood to have begun life as a domestic tutor in the family of Sinclair of Stevenstoun, and to have ended it as a parish schoolmaster in East Lothian. His 'Rules of Good Deportment' may be taken as the result of his artless observations upon the manners of a class of society, to which he was probably admitted only as a humble spectator. From the manifest sincerity, however, of his delineations of 'Good Breeding,' and the graphic character of many of his scenes, it may fairly be presumed that they were painted from nature--and they present probably less of a caricature of Scottish manners, early in the [18th] century, than might at first be imagined." It is known that Scott had begun (but did not finish) the project of reprinting this work for the Bannatyne Club, and the frontispiece prepared for that edition is used here. Both the first edition of 1720 and this 1835 reprint are infrequently encountered on the market..