The Second and Last English Advice to the Freeholders of EnglandAuthor: Charles Hornby
1723 first edition s.n. (London), 3 3/4 x 6 inches tall hardbound, marbled paper-covered boards over leather spine and tips, 89 pp. Covers lightly soiled and quite rubbed and edgeworn, with chipping along board edges, especially at tips. 2 1/2-inch cracking to top front edge of leather spine, which appears to have been a crude replacement for the original. Volume gapes open slightly. Cracking between front and rear pastedowns and adjacent pages, with a crude repair to blank front free-endpapers along inside gutter. Vintage 3/4-inch stamps ('Edin SS Library' - perhaps Edinburgh Sunday School Library) to title page and first page of text. Edge-chipping to front free-endpapers, and the volume lacks the blank rear free-endpaper. Moderate to heavy soiling to title page and several other pages, not interfering with text. One-eighth-inch hole to top of first leaf of text, interfering with one word on the first line of text on page 2 ('the'). Scattered mostly light foxing throughout, with a bit of edge chipping to a couple of pages. Nonetheless, despite all these detractions, still a decent reading / reference copy of this scarce work, complete.
The English Short Title Catalog locates only nine copies worldwide - four in the UK (National Library of Scotland, Oxford University Bodleian Library and University of London Senate House Library), and six in North America (two at Harvard and one each at University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Colorado, University of Texas and University of Toronto).
Reference: Catalogue of the Goldsmith's Library of Economic Literature, 6255.
An anonymous work, credited to Charles Hornby (d. 1739), an English antiquary. In Rapin de Thoyras' An Abridgement of the History of England (Volume III, 1747), there is an entry at mid-January 1715, the year Hornby issued (also anonymously) his first English Advice to the Freeholders of England, a pro-Whig parody of Francis Atterbury's tract of the same title: 'A proclamation is published, offering a reward to any one who should discover the author or printer of a pamphlet intitled [sic] English Advice to the Freeholders of England. Charles Hornby, Esq. is later taken for it in custody.'