Terence Comedies, Delphin Edition 1709 - P. Terentii Carthaginensis Afri Comoediae Sex : Interpretatione & Notis Illustravit Nicolaus Camus...in Usum Serenissimi Delphini. Juxta Editionem Novissimam Parisiensem.

London: Typis Benj. Motte : Apud J. Nicholson, B. Tooke, J. Sprint & M. Atkins,. Good with no dust jacket. 1709. Leather. [10], clxii, 288, [88] pp. Added frontis illustrated plate. Red and black title page. Octavo in full leather. Spine in 5 compartments with gilt decoration, title panel missing. Smooth calf boards with blind stamped rectangular cartouche with fleurons at the corners. Corners bit rubbed, spine leather starting to crack. Interior no end papers, nice old signature on the second blank (unreadable) with a date of January 1730, text is clean and unmarked. Page cxxxiii/cxxxiv is out of order in the Prologue, but otherwise everything else is good. Entirely in Latin, nice printing. Text surrounded by commentary, followed by Index Vocab. The Delphin editions were designed to help the heir to the French throne - the Dauphin -- learn his Latin classics; each classic was edited, emended, commented upon and here, also put into an easier prose translation as well, by the most eminent classical scholars of the times. Terence was one of Rome's greatest playwrights; who wrote amusing and affecting plays in a beautiful Latin style, direct and mellifluous and still very enjoyable today. They were popular throughout Medieval Europe and throughout the Renaissance. Terence was probably a native of Carthage, was a slave in the family of a Roman patrician. Because of his witty conversation and graceful manners, he became a favorite in fashionable Roman society and received his freedom. His sayings have become the general property of mankind: "Many men, many minds!" "I consider nothing human alien to me," and "While there's life there's hope." It is through Terence, more than any one else, that the traditions of comedy can be traced back to the New Comedy of the Greeks. The beautiful plate is signed Michael Vandergucht (or van der Gucht; 1660 – 16 October 1725) , a Flemish engraver who worked for most of his career in England. The same year he engraved this plate, he was also carving a frontis for Shakespeare's The Tempest. OCLC 85877450.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 288 pages .