Author: CAMPBELL (George):
Title: The Philosophy of Rhetoric.
Description: London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell...and W. Creech at Edinburgh, 1776. FIRST EDITION. 2 volumes. 8vo, 203 x 123 mms., pp. xv [xvi blank], 511 [512 Errata]; vi [vii Errata, viii blank], 445 [446 blank, 447 - 448 adverts], including half-title in each volume, contemporary tree calf, gilt rules, red leather labels; bookplates removed from front paste-down end-papers, spines rubbed and darkened, but a good to very good set, with the ownership inscription "John Charles Jones/ Shrewesbury, !822" on the recto of the front free end-paper in each volume The importance of Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric was recognized immediately. Writing in The Monthly Review, October 1776, William Enfield claimed that Campbell had "discovered a clearness of discernment and accuracy of observation, which justly entitle him to be ranked among the most judicious critics." Adam Smith was also aware of its merits but was dubious about its popularity. He wrote to the publisher William Strahan, on 6 July 1776, that "There is good sense, and learning, and philosophy in Campbells Book. But it is so unfashioned that I am afraid you will not be a great gainer by it." In some sense, Smith was right: no second edition appeared in Campbell's lifetime. It was only five years after Campbell's death in 1796, and twenty-five years after the first edition, that a second edition appeared in 1801. Thereafter, some 40 editions were published in the 19th century and it was widely used as a textbook. In the 20th century, William Samuel Howell, in Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (1971), asserted that, "Campbell's Rhetoric must be called the leading British, and indeed the leading European, work on its subject to appear in the eighteenth century."

Keywords: rhetoric philosophy prose Scottish Enlightenment


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