Private prayers of the stricken widow whose brewer husband committed suicide; beautiful binding, 1706.

[ALLESTREE, Richard]   Private Devotions for Several Occasions, Ordinary and Extraordinary          

Published by printed by W.N. for E. and R. Pawlet, London, 1706

12mo. [161 x 93 x 14 mm]. [1]f, 98pp. Bound c.1820 in straight-grained blue goatskin, the covers with a gilt fillet border, gilt corners of trailing sprigs, and a gilt fillet panel punctuated with circles and husks, enclosing blind corners and a blind centre-piece composed of sprigs, circles, flower-heads and pointillé gouges. The spine divided into six panels, the bands tooled and flanked with gilt fillets, lettered in the second panel and at the foot, the others tooled in gilt and blind, the corners of the edges of the boards hatched in gilt, turn-ins and matching inside joints tooled in gilt and blind, brown endleaves, gilt edges, pair of silver catches and clasps at the fore-edge. Allestree’s Private Devotions were included in numerous editions of The Whole Duty of Man from 1659.

There were at least seven separate editions, the first dated 1660 (Wing A.1161), followed by two editions of 1706, then 1707, 1724, 1733 and 1740 (though ESTC questions whether the last may be 1704). Of the 1706 editions one has 98pp (Bodleian and McMaster only) and this has [2], 98 pp, and is known only from the Canterbury Cathedral copy.

The text has been interleaved with lined blanks and there are a fair number of manuscript additions including a prayer “under the pressure of violent anguish”, and two poems, “The Shrubbery, written in a time of affliction”, by Cowper, which is signed “E.W. Southill Oct.26 1815” and “An Imitation of Pastor Fido” by Lord Lyttelton, signed “E.W. May 2. 1816, Dover Street”. The E.W. was Elizabeth Whitbread, whose bookplate appears at the front. She was the daughter of Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey and sister of the future Prime Minister, also Charles. In 1788 she married the brewer and politician Samuel Whitbread (b.1764), and the family seat was at Southill Park in Bedfordshire. Samuel committed suicide at their London home, 35 Dover Street, on 6th July 1815. Elizabeth lived until 1848. There are also a few manuscript notes in ink and pencil in the text, and the signature of “Eliz. Crosse” has been cut out and pasted below the bookplate. With the Sotheran ink stamp on the verso of the front free endleaf and Maggs Bros cost code dated 1991 (in the hand of one Edward Bayntun-Coward) at the rear.