LUCRETIUS (94-55 BC). De rerum natura libri sex.

LUCRETIUS (94-55 BC). De rerum natura libri sex. Ad optimorum exemplarium sidem recensiti. Accesserunt variæ lectiones, quæ in libris MSS. et eruditorum commentariis notatu digniores occurrunt, edited and translated into verse by Thomas Creech. London: Sumptibus ... Jacobi Tonson, 1712. 4to (294 x 230mm). Engraved allegorical frontispiece, historiated initials, and 6 engraved plates, one of which folding, illustrations and vignettes (folding plate cleanly torn without loss and repaired on verso with adhesive tape, variable browning and staining, but plates generally clean). Contemporary vellum ruled in green, spine with 5 raised bands and author's name applied in black ink (a little bowed, head of upper joints splitting, some staining, corner excised from front free endpaper). Provenance: F. B. Hacket and G. A. B. D. Hacket (two armorial bookplates); later signature on front free endpaper; The Vicarage, Erdington (stamp on front free endpaper); from the Library of the late Sir George Engle. FIRST TONSON ILLUSTRATED EDITION IN QUARTO. Brunet III, 196: “Edition belle et correcte du texte de Creech, avec des variants …”; Gordon A Bibliography of Lucretius 502; PMM 87 (citing a Paris edition of 1563): “In [De rerum natura] the atomic theory, the most vivid and tender depictions of nature, and a sense of the beauty and rhythm of words which triumphs over the early unsophisticated form of the Latin hexameter, all these combine in the most astonishing way to produce one of the grandest and most moving poems in the Latin language.”