Remarks on forest scenery, and other woodland views, (relative chiefly to picturesque beauty) illustrated by the scenes of New-Forest in Hampshire. In three books

London: printed for R. Blamire, Strand, 1791. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. First Edition of this seminal work, complete in two volumes. Tall 8vo's: [4],vii,[1],328,iv,7,[1]; [4],308,iii,[1],xxpp, with 32 leaves of tinted aquatints and soft-ground etchings by Samuel Aikin. Recent cinnamon ribbed cloth spines stamped in gilt, beige paper-covered boards. Remarkably well-preserved set: bindings pristine, pages fresh, clean and completely free of foxing with only light offsetting from the plates. Provenance: bookplates of Walter Charles James (1816-1893), 1st Baron Northbourne, laid in. James was elected to the House of Commons for Hull as a Tory. He acquired Betteshanger House, in Kent, in 1850, and commissioned George Devey to oversee extensions and alterations. James was a friend of William Ewart Gladstone and in 1884, during Gladstone's second term as Prime Minister, was raised to the peerage as Baron Northbourne, of Betteshanger in the County of Kent. Abbey (Scenery) 149. Henrey, pp. 531-34. Barbier, pp. 79-81 Lowndes II 895. Cox, Travel III, p. 37. Three "books" in two volumes, with two in volume one. Trees as singular objects—specimens—the "foundation of all scenery," are the subject of book one. The second book considers trees in groups, "under their various modes of composition, from the clump to the forest." The third book offers a lengthy appreciation of the New Forest, the tract extending from southwest Hampshire into southeast Wiltshire, created as a royal forest by William I in about 1079 for the hunt. In the eighteenth century, plantations were created there as a source of timber for the Royal Navy, after some 4,000 oak were lost In the Great Storm of 1703. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed.