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HOPE, Sir William. A New, Short, and Easy Method of Fencing: Or, The Art of the Broad and Small-Sword Rectified and Compendiz'd. Edinburgh: James Watson, 1707.
4° (204 x 153mm). Errata leaf. One folding letterpress leaf "A Scheme of Laws..", one folding engraved plate at back. Contemporary speckled calf, titled in gilt on spine (spine and extremities lightly rubbed). Provenance: Trotter, Barons of Mortonhall, Mid-Lothian (armorial bookplate).
A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. "In these islands the great advocate and exponent of French fencing at the end of the seventeenth and in the early eighteenth century was Sir W. Hope, of Balconie, at one time Deputy-Governor of Edinburgh Castle. He ... was instrumental in endeavouring to push through Parliament a Bill for the establishment of a 'Court of Honour', the office of which was to have been the deciding of honourable quarrels, if possible, without appeal to fencing skill. The House, however, being at the time ... busy on the question of the union of England and Scotland, the Bill never became Act" (E. Castle. "The Story of Swordsmanship" in The National Review, May 1891). Thimm p.139.
4° (204 x 153mm). Errata leaf. One folding letterpress leaf "A Scheme of Laws..", one folding engraved plate at back. Contemporary speckled calf, titled in gilt on spine (spine and extremities lightly rubbed). Provenance: Trotter, Barons of Mortonhall, Mid-Lothian (armorial bookplate).
A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. "In these islands the great advocate and exponent of French fencing at the end of the seventeenth and in the early eighteenth century was Sir W. Hope, of Balconie, at one time Deputy-Governor of Edinburgh Castle. He ... was instrumental in endeavouring to push through Parliament a Bill for the establishment of a 'Court of Honour', the office of which was to have been the deciding of honourable quarrels, if possible, without appeal to fencing skill. The House, however, being at the time ... busy on the question of the union of England and Scotland, the Bill never became Act" (E. Castle. "The Story of Swordsmanship" in The National Review, May 1891). Thimm p.139.