Author: HOWARD (Charles):
Title: Thoughts, Essays, and Maxims, Chiefly Religious and Political.
Description: London: Printed for T. Lewis...and sold by S. Bladon..., 1768. FIRST EDITION. Small 8vo, 153 x 91 mms., pp. [iv] 3] 4 - 143 [144 blank], contemporary calf, red leather label; top margin of title-page with two small holes, joints slightly cracked, rear joint slightly wormed, but a good copy. Charles Howard, the tenth Duke of Norfolk (1720–1786) was a wealthy landowner, who had began his literary career in 1763, with a short pamphlet about his inheritance. "This was followed by three more works: Considerations on the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics in England and the New-Acquired Colonies in America (1764), Thoughts, Essays and Maxims, Chiefly Religious and Political (1768), and Historical Anecdotes of some of the Howard Family (1769). The last two were influenced by the death of Edward Howard, a nephew of the duke of Norfolk, which left Charles Howard as heir to the dukedom. His publications and impending inheritance probably contributed to his election as FSA on 14 January 1768 and FRS on 24 March 1768. But they did not impress Horace Walpole, who regarded Howard as a plagiarist on the grounds of the extensive quotation from his Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England that Howard used to fill out his account of the poet earl of Surrey in the Historical Anecdotes. In a letter to Horace Mann, dated 27 February 1770, Walpole characterized Howard as 'a drunken old mad fellow' (Walpole, Corr., 23.194) who attended a masquerade ball dressed as a cardinal. Howard's irreverent attitude towards his Catholic faith—he described himself as 'a whig Papist—a monster in nature' (Robinson, 166)—contributed to his lasting reputation for 'eccentric manners and more eccentric habits.'" (ODNB). The Monthly Review in July, 1769, concluded its review with this endorsement: "The whole forms an agreeable miscellany; and will prove particularly acceptable to those who have a taste for research into the history and antiquities of the families of our ancient nobility." The Monthly Review in January, 1768, when the first edition was published, was not quite so enthusiastic: "The world is by no means in want of literary trifles; and we much fear that Mr. Howard's Miscellanies will only serve to add to their number, instead of 'proving of any service or instruction to mankind'; for though we apprehend that he has sufficiently manifested a good heart, and an improved manner of thinking, in the observations here offered to the world, yet, in our judgment, he is not sufficiently qualified for a public writer." This work appears with the title-page in two states: as above, with the word "Essays" (ESTC locates two UK copies and 11 North American copies) and a state in which the word "Essays" is omitted (Two UK copies only). None of the copies would appear to have the genealogies. Among Howard's topics, all treated very briefly, are justice, the poet Churchill, persecution, sanctuaries and asylums, duelling, gaming, entails, etc.

Keywords: anthology essays prose


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