HALL, Joseph (1574-1656). The Shaking of the Olive-Tree, London, 1660, 4to, folding engraved frontispiece portrait, modern calf, new endpapers. FIRST EDITION.

HALL, Joseph (1574-1656).  The Shaking of the Olive-Tree. The Remaining Works ... With Some Specialties of Divine Providence in his Life. Noted by His own Hand. Together with His Hard Measure: Written also by Himself. London: Printed by J. Cadwel for J. Crooke, 1660. 4to (213 x 160mm). Folding engraved frontispiece portrait of the author, title within double rule border, initials and ornaments, one-page of publisher's advertisements at the end (lightly spotted, stained and browned, mainly at margins). Modern calf, new foliate endpapers printed in colours. Provenance: Eric Gerald Stanley, Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor, University of Oxford (label); some sparse old annotation and amendments to the text. FIRST EDITION of this collection of posthumous writings by an author renowned, amongst other things, for his innovative satires based on Latin models. Among the other more notable pieces included here are 'The Womens[sic] Vail: or a Discourse Concerning the Necessity, or Expedience of the Close-Covering of the Heads of Women ... Occasioned by an offence unjustly taken at a Modest Dresse', 'Certain Irrefragable Propositions worthy of Serious Consideration' and the autobiographical 'Observations Of some Specialties of Divine Providence in the Life of Jos. Hall, Bishop of Norwich' and 'His Hard Measure'. Thomas Fuller wrote of the author in his Worthies of England: "He was commonly called our English Seneca, for the purenesse, plainnesse, and fulnesse of his style. Not unhappy at Controversies, more happy at Comments, very good in his Characters, better in his Sermons, best of all in his Meditations." "As a theological writer Hall occupies a middle place between Bishop Andrewes and Jeremy Taylor. He had somewhat of the pungent quaintness of Andrewes, without being so grotesque; and much of the eloquence and power of learned illustration of Taylor ... He was not free from the tendency to scurrility when arguing against the Roman church, though he did much to raise the tone of the English controversialists against Rome" (DNB). Lowndes IV, 979; Wing H416; not in Brunet.