Scott, Robert. Cowper, William.

John Gilpin. Iter Johannis Gilpini. Carmen latinum. Auctore Roberto Scott ... Edited by J.P.M. [i.e. James P. Muirhead.]

1897. [London?]: Privately printed, 1897.

Slim sm. 8vo, 35pp. Old half green calf, marbled boards,gilt top, backstrip lettered in gilt.

§ Finely printed edition on hand-made paper. Inscribed “C.H.W. from A.J.M. [presumably one of Muirhead’s children] Haseley Dec: 13 : 1925”. A scarce translation into Latin of Cowper’s “John Gilpin”, first issued in wrappers in 1834-35 in the "Oxford University Magazine". DNB notes: “Muirhead married Katharine Elizabeth (d. 1890), second daughter of Matthew Robinson Boulton of Tew Park and Soho, Birmingham. His wife shared his classical and literary tastes, but she found the climate of Edinburgh so trying that in 1846 Muirhead gave up a promising career at the Scottish bar, and settled eventually (in 1847) at Haseley Court, Great Haseley, Oxfordshire, which belonged to his wife's family. While still at Oxford he had become acquainted with James Watt jun. of Aston Hall, Birmingham, who later decided to commit the writing of a memoir of his father—the great engineer—to Muirhead. Muirhead's first endeavour in the field was the translation from French of D. F. J. Arago's Historical Eloge of James Watt, which had been read before the Académie des Sciences in 1834: published in 1839, it was the first biography of James Watt, but was brief and adulatory, concentrating essentially on Watt's development of the steam engine... In 1854 Muirhead published his three-volume work The Origins and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt.... He continued to publish privately similar works until his death at Haseley Court on 15 October 1898.”. Item #107147

Price: $125.00