8vo. v, [1], 216pp; iv, 279pp. Contemporary gilt-tooled calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-pieces. Rubbed and marked, small loss to head of each spine. Manuscript shelf-marks to both FEPs. Armorial bookplate of James Street to FEP of vol. I, with his inked ownership inscription of to head of p.5, vol.Il. Endpapers browned, very occasional light spotting.

The first edition of the collected prose and verse of physician and poet John Armstrong (1708/9-1779), including the work for which is best known, the blank-verse georgic The Art of Preserving Health, first published in 1744. Over four books, on air, diet, exercise, and the passions, the poem eloquently considers the effects of disease upon the body. Though the practical directions for treatment are of little value, the macabre beauty and forceful phrasing of Armstrong's verse, particularly in his description of the plague, have been highly praised. David Hume said the poem was 'truly classical; the most Augustan thing we have in English'. It was frequently reprinted well into the nineteenth-century.