Quarto in 2s. [8], 30, [3], vi-xxvii, [1]. Bound in a different format from that issued by the press: (a2, h2, h1, A-G2, H1-2 (the latter in fact x2), b-g2. With engraved portrait vignettes (of Hercules to h2r and C2r. Finely bound in contemporary gilt- tooled red morocco, marbled endpapers, A.E.G. With the gilt monogrammed supra-libros - with additional goat's head emerging from a ducal coronet - of Joseph Yates to upper board. Light shelfwear, but nevertheless a stunningly attractive copy. With Yates' bookplate ('Joseph Yates Esq.') to FEP, and two contemporary gift inscriptions to the blank fly (see below for details).

A choice copy, with interesting early provenance, of the finely printed Foulis edition - in Greek, Latin and English - of elegiac compositions by the mid-seventh century BC Spartan poet Tyrtaeus, designed to be sung at military banquets in the context of Sparta's distinct ethic of military nationalism, and dedicated to the to 'the young gentlemen; lately bred at the university of glasgow; at present serving their country as officers of the highland battalions now in america'.

As noted in the English account of Tyrtaeus included in this edition (and 'addressed to the same gentlemen') 'Tyrtaeus, after Homer, and Hesiod, is the most ancient Greek Poet of whom we have any remains. According to the chronology of Sir Isaac Newton, he was born, a few years before the foundation of Rome; about two hundred years before the Peloponnesian War, or Age of Socrates; and, about one hundred years, after Lycurgus had established in Sparta those laws and institutions, for education, government, and war'. The dedication - fitting given the content of the work - relates to the contemporary deployment of three Highland regiments, including the Black Watch (42nd), 77th and 78th Regiments of Foot, which were the first to serve in North America during the Seven Years' War campaigns against France in Canada.

This copy, evidently bound for the Kings Counsel for the Duchy of Lancaster and bibliophile Joseph Yates (1764-1824), was presented to him in 1782 - with a flourishing latin gift inscription - by George Lyttleton (evidently not, given the dates, the statesman and sometime Chancellor), and later presented by Yates to Henry Vaughan. This was almost certainly - given a familial connection - the Henry Vaughan who later became Henry Halford (1766-1844), physician extraordinary to George III between 1792 and 1820, and then to his three successors, and, more pertinently, Yates' brother-in-law.