Author: BIGLAND (John):
Title: Essays on Various Subjects.
Description: Doncaster: Printed by and For W. Sheardown; Longman, Hurst, RAeese, and Orme...; Williams and Smith..., 1805. FIRST EDITION. 2 volumes. 8vo (in 4s), 208 x 118 mms., pp. xiii [xiv - xv Contents, xvi blank], 257 [258 colophon];[iv], 259 [260 blank], including list of subscribers, handsomely bound in full contemporary tree calf, gilt rules across spine, red morocco titling labels, small green oval numbering labels. A fine to very fine set, in "Colquhon" condition, with a slightly later autograph and presentation on both title-pages: "Jane Humphrey/ April 2d 1838/ From Aunt Eliza." The schoolmaster and author John Bickland (1750–1832) commented in his Memoir (1830) that "I soon discovered, that by persevering in some sort of composition, there was a prospect of acquiring, in time, both reputation and emolument—and the pursuit would then be more beneficial, as well as more pleasant, than the irksome and embarrassing business of keeping a school." It's not difficult to ask oneself how many school teachers today feel the same way. The Eclectic Review for 1806 was impressed with the "useful tendency" of the essays and with their "agreeable stile" and "public approbation." The reviewer, however, takes him to task for exhibiting "the Christian religion as a system so sublime, as not to be intelligible to the untutored poor." Bigland's essay topics include happiness, religion, conscience, "Ecclesiastical Emoluments," education, superstition, omens, ghosts, sorcery, friendship, company, fame, exercise, emigration and colonization, optimism, etc.

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