Contents:
It deals with the natural magic of herbs and stones, magnetism, talismanic magic, alchemy, numerology, the elements, and biographies of famous adepts from history. But, as to what concerns the power of the stars, I am unwilling, as neither dare I, according to my own liberty, to extend the forces, powers, or bounds of the stars beyond or besides the authority of the sacred text, which faith it being pronounced from a divine testimony that the stars shall be unto us for signs, seasons, days, and years: by which rule, a power is never attributed to the stars, that wine bred in a foreign soil, and brought unto us from far, doth disturb, move, or render itself confused: for, the vine had at some time received a power of encreasing and multiplying itself before the stars were born: and vegetables were before the stars, and the imagined influx of these: wherefore also, they cannot be things conjoined in essence, one whereof could consist without the other.
Yea, the vine in some places flowereth more timely; and, in rainy, or the more cold years, our vine flowereth more slowly, whose flower and stages of flourishing the wine doth, notwithstanding, imitate; and so neither doth it respect the stars, that it should disturb itself at their beck.
In the next place, neither doth the wine hearken unto the flourishing or blossoming of any kind of capers, but of the wine alone: and therefore we must not flee unto an universal cause, the general or universal ruling air of worldly successive change; to wit, we may rather run back unto impossibilities and absurdities, than unto the most near commerces of resemblance and unity, although hitherto unpassable by the schools. All rights reserved.
Printed on whove paper with '' water-mark, the portrait on laid-paper. Some leaves misbound, p.
Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spine with 5 raised bands and with gilt-lettering, gilt ruling and a Scottish coat-of-arms stamp, ed-sprinkled edges upper joint repaired, corners bumped, boards scratched and partly brown-stained. Internally generally crisp and clean with only very minor, mostly marginal, browning and minor occasional spotting, plate facing p.
Provenance: Bibliotheque de Lagrange shelf-mark sticker to front pastedown ; Francis James Mathew, second Earl of Llandaff judging from coat-of-arms with motto "Y fino du 'wy fud". A handsome, clean and well-margined copy of this classic with the demon portraits in fresh and vibrant hand-colouring.
This is the true first edition and not the reprint of c. Our copy includes the publisher's advertisement leaf lacking in most copies and with Cassiel, angel of Saturday, hand-coloured.
A series of potted biographies of 'great magicians' completed the work. There was stuff aplenty for the aspiring magi, as well as for the gothic novelists who were a part of the same reaction against classicism and pure reason" Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment, p The book includes 4 fascinating hand-coloured plates with portraits of demons.