“I HAVE BEEN… WITNESS TO TWO OTHER REVOLUTIONS… I SEE THE ARDOR FOR LIBERTY CATCHING AND SPREADING… THE DOMINION OF KINGS CHANGED FOR THE DOMINION OF LAWS…”: 1789 FIRST EDITION OF PRICE’S DISCOURSE ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY, FAMOUSLY ATTACKED BY BURKE AND DEFENDED BY PAINE AND WOLLSTONECRAFT

PRICE, Richard. A Discourse on the Love of Our Country, Delivered on Nov. 4, 1789… to the Society for Commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain. With an Appendix. London: Printed by George Stafford for T. Cadell, 1789. Slim octavo, period style half brown calf and marbled boards; pp. 4], 51, [1], 13, [3]. $7500.

First edition, first impression, of one of Price's most important and famous works, his controversial and incendiary sermon on the revolutionary progress of human rights from England's 1688 Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions. The first edition sold out within days and ignited the British pamphlet war over the French Revolution known as “the Revolution Controversy.” The work provoked Edmund Burke's strong attacks on Price in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and eloquent defenses of Price in Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and Paine’s Rights of Man (1791).

Political philosopher and minister Richard Price (1723-1791), a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, was "the most influential British advocate of American independence" (Howes P586). His 1776 work Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America was one of the most important and frequently reprinted works of the period. In November 1789, within months of the start of the French Revolution, Price stood before a London meeting of the Society for the Commemoration of England's 1688 Glorious Revolution and, with this provocative Discourse in praise of revolution, triggered a war of words that sparked Edmund Burke's incendiary refutation in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), which prompted defenses of Price in Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), the first part of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791), and notable works by Catherine Macaulay, Joseph Priestly, William Godwin, and others.

“In its earliest stages the French Revolution excited no alarm in England, and in fact no widespread interest until the fall of the Bastille [on July 14, 1789]. Thereafter the survivors of the earlier reform movement in England stirred themselves. They discerned a connection between what was happening in France and what they thought needed to be done in England… Dr. Price was one of the most enthusiastic [of the reformers], and it was with his sermon, as the saying goes, that the French Revolution in England began… [Price’s Discourse] helped raise a storm of controversy. It swept England for three years and kept the printing presses busy turning out pamphlets written to support or refute the reforming ideas Price and others advanced… The Discourse was published immediately. Two editions appeared before the end of 1789, four more in 1790, and the pamphlet was reprinted in Boston, Dublin, and in Paris in translation… [A] terrible storm was brewing. England’s mightiest penman was preparing a verbal damnation of Price, of the reformers of England, and of the revolution in France… A pamphlet war, the literary expression of the movement for political reform, broke out… Price’s Discourse stated the reformers’ side of the argument. Burke’s Reflections, prompted in part by the words of Price, expressed eloquently the ideas, the prejudices, and the fears of those who opposed constitutional change. Others jumped into the dispute, and after the death of Price, Tom Paine… became to the conservatives the living symbol of the horrors of extreme democracy. On October 4, 1792, the Morning Chronicle reported that never before had such a flood of pamphlets swept over England” (Cone, Torchbearer of Freedom: The Influence of Richard Price on Eighteenth-Century Thought, pp. 177-191).

In this work, Price triumphantly traces the course of human rights furthered by revolution—from England's Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions. "I have lived to see a diffusion of knowledge, which has undermined superstition and error—I have lived to see the rights of men better understood than ever; and nations panting for liberty… After sharing in the benefits of one Revolution, I have been spared to be a witness to two other Revolutions, both glorious.—And now, methinks, I see the ardor for liberty catching and spreading; a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience. Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom," he writes. "Behold, the light you have struck out, after setting America free, reflected to France… Tremble all ye oppressors of the world!… You cannot now hold the world in darkness." Above all, Price's Discourse remains a powerful and eloquent "essay on patriotism, its true nature, its rights and duties. According to Price our paramount duties are to enlighten our fellow men as to the proper functions of religion and government, to inculcate the virtues, and to assert and defend our rights and liberties. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was justly celebrated because it established the principles of the Constitution: 'First; The right to liberty of conscience in religious matters. Secondly; The right to resist power when abused. And, Thirdly; The right to chuse [sic] our own governors; to cashier them for misconduct; and to frame a government for ourselves'… [In] November Price prepared the text of the sermon for publication. Publication day was 5 December and the whole of the first impression of the first edition sold out. A second ‘edition’, a reprint from standing type with one minor correction, appeared on 11 December" (Thomas, p. 150). The appendix contains a printing in English of the French Declaration of Rights, a piece by Price about the population of France, and a statement of principles of the Revolution Society. First impression, with “Marmontel” on page 14, line 6 (corrected to “Fenelon” in the second impression). Copies of the first edition are quite scarce; though many are held by prominent institutions in the UK and US, copies rarely appear on the market or at auction. Complete with scarce half title and rear ad leaf promoting other works by Price; appendix page [4] is blank as issued.
ESTC T31992. Thomas, Stephen, and Jones, A Bibliography of the Works of Richard Price , 38a. Kress B1697. Goldsmith I:14055.

Text fresh with only light scattered foxing. A fine wide-margined copy, handsomely bound.