8vo, [ii], xviii, 264, [2] pp., engraved portrait, contemporary red morocco, covers gilt in the Harleian style, spine gilt in six compartments, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, an exceptionally fine and attractive copy, from the library of the dedicatee, Thomas Parker, first Earl of Macclesfield.
THE DEDICATION COPY. First edition of the last published work by Whitelock Bulstrode (16521724), administrator and religious writer. Bulstrode had a strong interest in science and alchemy; his first publication was An Essay of Transmigration, in defence of Pythagoras, or, a Discourse of Natural Philosophy (1692), a wide-ranging work which drew particularly on alchemical sources. The essays in the present work are mainly on moral and religious issues, but include one on plant and animal generation.