Meditations and Contemplations, Containing Meditations Among the Tombs, Reflections on a Flower Garden, A Descant Upon Creation, Contemplations on the Night and Starry Heavens, and a Winter Piece, together with A Life of the Author

xxxii, 367pp. Illustrated with numerous engraved plates from 'original designs'. Fully bound in original calfskin leather, with gilt decorations and lettering, red leather spine label. (Boards heavily worn all over and rubbed at edges, with leather cracked and frayed at corners and spine points and joints). Previous owner's inscription on front paste down endpaper, dated 1817 and on half title page. Pages mildly spotted in places, worn at edges, some creasing and corner curls, first few pages fragile in binding. Hervey was Rector of the Weston-Favell parish in Northamptonshire; the content of his meditations and contemplations with largely devotional literature but none the less also an interesting insight into his life and times. It is particularly notable for his tract vindicating the prophecy of Noah, in response to Lord Bolingbroke's earlier expose. 8vo.