Sylva, or the wood. being a collection of anecdotes, disertations..

London: Society of the Learned. T. Payne & Son, 1786. FIRST EDITION. Contemporary calf-backed marbled boards, front board detached; interior very clean with only a few pencil annotations., ownership inscription of Ed. Gosse on front paste-down and of James Grasse on the verso of the fly-leaf. First edition by an ingenious English divine and miscellaneous writer who published many pamphlets anonymously. He moved to London as assistant preacher at Lincoln’s Inn and cultivated learned society.

In this work, Heathcote (1721-1765) writes on subjects such as old age and against the marriage of old men, on government and its various forms, on electioneering and on laws, on love and life and on human perfection. In addition he discusses the love of money, of great men such as Samuel Johnson, on David Hume’s moral character, and so much more. His other works include a history of astronomy in 1746 and in 1767 an anonymous letter to Horace Walpole on the dispute between Hume and Rousseau, which was attributed to Walpole himself. In the present book he brings us up to date on the dispute, which is the title of the final chapter of Sylva.