Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall. Consisting of Several Essays on the First Inhabitants, Druid-Superstition, Customs, and Remains of the most Remote Antiquity... With a Vocabulary of the Cornu-British Language.
London: Printed by W. Bowyer and J. Nichols: for S. Baker and G. Leigh, 1769. Leather. Very Good. Item #12280
Second Edition, Revised, with several Additions, by the Author. Folio. Pp. xvi, 464. With 2 copper-engraved maps (1 folding), 25 engraved plates (1 folding), and 10 engravings in the text. Bound in contemporary mottled calf with double gilt-ruled border, recently rebacked to style with double gilt rules flanking raised bands, black label, gilt, corners renewed. Surfaces and extremities of boards worn, title a little dusty, some offsetting from engraved material, but on the whole a nice clean copy, in a suitably restored binding. First published in 1754, this is the Second (and best) Edition, adding a folding map of Cornwall and two extra plates. Along with William Stukeley (1687-1765) and Henry Rowlands (1655-1723), William C. Borlase, an English antiquary and naturalist, was one of the principals involved in the eighteenth century revival of interest and research into the Druids and their megalithic remains in the British Isles. "He was an acute observer and a careful draughtsman, and his observations, albeit sometimes of a too fanciful character (especially when he approaches the subject of the Druids), are often interesting and original." (DNB). Burdened with the religious preconceptions of his time, he divined a Hebrew origin for the Celtic language, and speculated that the ancient Celts had migrated from the East after the collapse of the Tower of Babel. He further concluded that most of their religious beliefs and practices, including the erection of stone monuments, were of Eastern, and more specifically Persian derivation. Despite his wilder flights of imagination, he made many useful observations regarding the stone monuments and their purpose, and was the first to propose a calendrical significance to their arrangement, a suggestion which proved especially fruitful to later research.
Price (CAD): $2,000.00