An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times By John Brown, D.D. author of Essays on the Characteristics, &c.

Brown, John, 1715-1766

Edité par re-printed and sold by Green and Russell, at their printing-office in Queen-Street MDCCLVIII [1758], Boston, New-England, 1758

A propos de cet article

[5 ff], 10-110, [2] pp pages; This text quickly went through seven printings in London; although this copy states "The Seventh Edition" on the title page, it is the very scarce Colonial American edition, as confirmed by the imprint at the foot of the title page: " London, printed. Boston, New-England; re-printed and sold by [John] Green and [Joseph] Russell, at their printing-office in Queen-Street., MDCCLVIII." 8vo. Collation: [A] B-O4 (O4 blank). Contemporary plain dark calf, almost certainly the original binding. Minor foxing and toning to the text throughout. There is an old restoration in which the front board has been reattched with a strip of different paper pasted along the inner front gutter hinge. No effort was made to disguise the break at the upper edge of the spine, but no new material has been introduced to the exterior of this binding, which looks much as it might have -- in the late 1750's. With ownership signatures on the front paste down endpaper and head of the title page of John Davis, dated 1785 -- who was soon to be the youngest delegate to the Massachusetts Convention to ratify the proposed U.S. Constitution. Davis, a Harvard graduate [1781] began to "read" the law at the time he signed this volume and would spend over half a century in Federal government, mostly as the longest serving Federal District Judge. The author, John Brown (1715 1766) was a clergyman and writer who achieved significant, but ultimately fleeting, reknown for this book -- to the extent that he was referred to in his time as "Estimate Brown." "An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times" (1757), is Brown's pointed attack on the "vain, luxurious, and selfish effeminacy" of the upper levels of English Society. It was written and printed soon after England lost Minorca to the French at the onset of the Seven Years' War; the brief volume was well-time to catch the attention of his countrymen at a time when they were willing to give new attention to matters relating to statecraft and the ways in which politics of the time was not ideally serving the interest of most citizens. Although the specific circumstances under which this work was written were somewhat different from those which faced the first generations of citizens of the utterly new United States of America -- just to read the sectional titles of the first part of this book demonstrates the profound appeal this text must have made to the twenty-four year old John Davis, who signed this volume in 1785, the same year he began his law studies. "Of the Spirit of Liberty"; "Of the Spirit of Humanity"; Of the civil Administration of Justice"; Of the Ruling Manners of the Times"; "Of the Principles of Religion, Honour, and public Spirit." This train of thought continues in the next section -- "What Constitutes the Strength of a Nation"; "Of the National Capacity"; "Of the National Spirit of Defence"; "Of the National Spirit of Union"; "Of the Consequences of National Disunion."As the youngest delegate selected to the Massachusetts convention to ratify the United States Constitution, John Davis is recorded as a "yes" vote. The outcome was by no means a certainty; the final vote was 187 to 168. Davis was the youngest delegate to this convention, and was certainly among the youngest of any of the new citizens of the United States to ratify the 1787 Constitution. (Davis was over three months younger than Jonathan Dayton, the youngest person to sign the document). He would participate in public life for more than fifty years. After serving in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature, President George Washington appointed Davis Comptroller of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 1795. The following year, President Washington appointed Davis U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts -- whereupon the Judge moved to Boston where he spent the remainder of his long life. Sources differ as to whether Judge Davis remained on the District Court bench until his death in 1847, or resigned his.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times By John Brown, D.D. author of Essays on the Characteristics, &c.
• Éditeur: re-printed and sold by Green and Russell, at their printing-office in Queen-Street MDCCLVIII [1758], Boston, New-England
• Date de parution: 1758
• Reliure: Leather
• Édition: First American Edition.
• État de l'article: Very Good
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Americana and American History
  • 18th Century