Shepherd, Luke

John Bon and Mast person

      London: [J. Smeeton (for Machell Stace)], 1807]. Reprint of the 1548 edition. PRINTED ON VELLUM, one of 12 (?) copies on thus. 4to (24.0 x 18.5 mm). One woodcut; text printed in black letter, roman type for colophon. 4 leaves of type facsimile, plus colophon leaf. Contemporary blue morocco gilt with the arms and initials of Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, 1771-1823, M.P. (Evans sale, 28 May 1824, lot 92, to Rivington, !1.13.0); with the bookplate and signature of Cornelius Paine; and small bookplate of Hans (Jean) Furstenberg, 1890-1982. Lowndes 233 . Fine type-facsimile of the extremely rare 1548 satirical poem on the Eucharist, written by Luke Shepherd (fl. 1550), and originally printed by J. Daye and W. Seres in London. Only two copies of the original are known to exist (the British and Newberry Libraries), and a clue to its rarity may be found in this colophon of Smeeton's facsimile, which quotes a manuscript note by Richard Forster in the copy of the original from which Smeeton reprinted his facsimile: "It is a bitter Satire on the real Presence, Daye the printer of it, and also Seres, were brought into much trouble for printing only a few copies-which were nearly destroyed by the Zealots of the old Religion. There is no doubt but the buying up and destroying those kind of Books (which were obnoxious to Cardinal Wolsey and others) was very common in those days, and made them very rare even in their own time." The vellum issue of Smeeton's superb facsimile is naturally quite rare as well: the British Museum's general catalogue, and Alston (p.35) state that the vellum issue consisted of only 12 copies