[12], 335pp, [1]. With an engraved frontispiece. ESTC R26963, Wing T384.

[Bound with:] [TAYLOR, Jeremy]. The rules and Exercises of Holy Dying... London. Printed for J. L. for Luke Meredith, 1695. Seventeenth edition. [12], 259pp, [4]. With an engraved frontispiece and one further folding engraved plate. ESTC R26962, Wing T370.

8vo. Contemporary speckled calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece. Lightly rubbed, small worm-hole to foot of spine. Folding plate a trifle creased, very occasional light spotting.

A devotional work, in the manner of the consolatory death literature tradition, by Chaplain in Ordinary to Charles I, and Church of Ireland Bishop of Connor and Down, Jeremy Taylor (bap.1613, d.1667). Holy Living is primarily concerned with matters of practical morality, advising the reader on the leading of a virtuous life, devoted to piety and lacking in temptation. Holy Dying, derived from the seventeenth century cult of melancholia, was conceived to instruct the pious Christian in preparing for a blessed death. The work had been intended as a tribute to the Countess of Carbery, wife of Taylor's patron; poignantly however she would die in childbirth shortly before the volume's completion. The dedication was instead addressed to the Earl of Carbery, in an attempt to allay his grief; to which Taylor added a personal note regarding his own sorrow over the passing of his own wife prior to publication. Taylor, much admired for his eloquence and poetical imagination, has garnered great praise throughout the intervening centuries; with Coleridge situating him amongst the masters of early seventeenth century literature, alongside Bacon, Milton, and Shakespeare. Both Holy Dying, and its companion work Holy Living, found immense popularity with contemporary Anglicans, with each reaching their nineteenth edition by 1695.