PUBLICK EMPLOYMENT AND AN ACTIVE LIFE PREFER'D TO SOLITUDE, AND ALL ITS APPANAGES, SUCH AS FAME, COMMAND, RICHES, CONVERSATION, &C

London: Printed by J. M. for H. Herringman, 1667. FIRST EDITION, First Issue (without the errata slip found below the imprimatur in the second issue). 154 x 92 mm. (6 x 3 5/8"). 8 p.l., 120 pp.
Early (probably 18th century) inexpensive (perhaps even temporary) vellum-backed marbled paper boards, small paper label at bottom of spine. Front pastedown with armorial Macclesfield bookplate; A1 (imprint) and title page with the small embossed armorial stamp of the Macclesfield Library. Front flyleaf with three-line annotation in an early hand. Keynes 85; Wing E-3510. Thin diagonal crack across spine in one place, lower joint with one-inch crack at bottom leading to a half-inch chip to the vellum, corners rather worn and paper covers rather chafed, as expected, but the fragile binding still solid and really quite appealing as an unlikely survival. Final leaf a trifle foxed in upper margin, but AN ESPECIALLY FINE COPY INTERNALLY, unusually fresh, clean, and bright, and with deep impressions of the type.

As observed in the early annotation on our front flyleaf, the present work is a cordial attack, made without passion, on George Mackenzie's "A Moral Essay Preferring Solitude to Publick Employment," published in 1665. As Keynes indicates, Evelyn and Mackenzie were congenial adversaries in the debate over the best way to lead one's life, partly because Evelyn was of two minds about the matter. Keynes says, "Evelyn's advocacy of an active life might seem at variance with his known delight in country solitude and pursuits, and in truth his attack upon Mackenzie is but a half-hearted affair." In any case, the book is worth reading, if only for the amusing caricatures of country pleasures and types. Best known as a diarist and as founder of the Royal Society, Evelyn (1620-1706) published a number of important books (either original works or translations from the French) on architecture, arboriculture, gardening, and navigation. The internal condition here is remarkably fine, as is typical of most books from the great library of the earls of Macclesfield, which was sold in 12 sales at Sotheby's (from 16 March, 2004, to 2 October, 2008) for some £22 million (approximately $40 million at the time). The library was dispersed when the 9th Earl Macclesfield, Richard Timothy George Mansfield Parker (b. 1943), who was described by the "Independent" as leading an "unconventional lifestyle," was forced to leave his 14th century Shirburn Castle after a protracted family dispute. Called by the paper "a sleeping beauty," his crenellated home had a moat, a drawbridge and, at the time of the Earl's departure, a repair bill of approximately £2.6 million. Despite the building's dilapidation, the books in the very large library were distinguished for being uniformly well preserved, were almost always in their original bindings, and were a sensation at auction for more than four years..