The Moral Characters of Theophrastus. by Theophrastus - 1714: Translated from the Greek, By Eustace Budgell, Esq.

[Theophrastus] The Moral Characters of Theophrastus. Translated from the Greek, By Eustace Budgell, Esq; Reddere persone scit convenientia cuique. Hor. London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, at Shakespeare's Head, over-against Catherine-Street in the Strand, 1714. [engraved frontispiece by Lud. Du Guernier deli & Sculp; vi; life of Theophrastus xvi; the preface viii; 80; iv] 12mo. The introduction begins the text on page 1, chapter 1 begins on page 5; erratum on page 80, advertisements for Jacob Tonson's books 4 pages. Page 79 mis-numbered as "89." Bound in blind-stamped eighteenth century calf, re-backed, six raised bands. Book plate and embossed stamp of the Sondley Reference Library 1879 – 1919, City of Asheville, North Carolina. Ownership signature of Henry Reid above the book plate. With the bookseller's tag of Joseph McDonough Rare Books, Albany, New York.

The fraught history of the Sondley Library, its holdings, its generous benefactor and its eventual piecemeal dispersal is a cautionary tale to any benefactor who might assume economic conditions and local politics will leave his/her bequest unaltered and intact in perpetuity. In the late nineteen-eighties, the trustees of the Sondley Library authorized the sale of those books they deemed irrelevant to the Pack Memorial Library's purposes, namely North Carolina history.

Jacob Tonson, the printer, is mentioned in Howe's List of London Bookbinders 1648 – 1815. "From his will it appears he was a bookbinder, a stationer and a printer, as well as a bookseller, d. 1735." Lowndes, Vol. IV, 2663b, "Of this translation, Addison, in the Lover, remarked, 'it was the best extant of any ancient author in the English Language.' "