Nicetas, or the Triumph Ouer Incontinencie Written in Latin by. F. Hier. Drexelius of the Society of Jesus and Translated into English by R.S

Widow of Nicolas Courant, 1633-01-01. Leather Bound. Very Good. 1633 n.p. [Widow of Nicolas Courant (Rouen, France)], association copy, 4 x 6 full calf bound, blind ruled boards, four raised bands and gilt lettering to spine, engraved title page, [22], 140, 161-426 [i.e. 424], 429-464, [2] pp. (Printer's paging irregularities as noted in ESTC, but the text is collated as continuous and complete.) Lacking engraved frontispiece, but otherwise a complete copy. Negligible rubbing to covers (a modern rebind). Half-inch edge tear to lower margin of front free-endpaper. Title page moderately soiled, with a faded inscription in Latin to the top margin, and a tiny hole and a bit of edge chipping to the fore edge. Creasing to the upper tips of the first few pages. Otherwise, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked. Association copy: 1890 armorial bookplate of Joseph Gillow to front free-endpaper, and signed note by Gillow on the front pastedown facing the title page, identifying the translator of this work from the Latin of Drexelius as Jesuit Fr. Robert Stanford (cf., Allison and Rogers, p. 137) and referring to his entry on Stanford in Gillow's own monumental work, the Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics (5 vols, 1885-1902). Gillow (1850-1921) was an English Roman Catholic antiquary and bio-bibliographer, referred to by Thomas Bridgett in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as 'the Plutarch of the English Catholics.' The English Short Title Catalog (No. S109936) locates copies of this work at only a handful of American institutions: Harvard, Yale, the Folger Shakespeare, Huntington and Newberry Libraries, University of California, and University of Texas. References: STC (2nd ed.), 7238; Allison and Rogers, A Catalogue of Catholic Books in English Printed Abroad Secretly in England, 1558-1640, 285. A scarce title with a fascinating provenance and a splendid shelf appearance. ~UUU~ [1.5P] An uncommon 1633 English recusant translation of a work by Jesuit writer of devotional literature and professor of the humanities and rhetoric Jeremias Drexel (also known as Hieremias Drexelius or Drechsel) (1581-1638), who served for 23 years as court preacher in Munich, Germany to Maximilian I. Drexel gave up preaching in 1621 and devoted himself to writing, producing some 20 works that were widely read and translated. The English translator of this volume, produced during the time of Catholic Recusancy in England, was only identified as R.S., now accepted to either be Robert Sanford or Robert Samber (ESTC). Drexel published this work as Nicetas seu triumphata incontinentia in 1631, and this English translation was produced just two years later and quietly sold to English Catholics in hiding from the authorities. It is an instruction manual on avoiding immorality. Book 1 gives nine chapters on 'invitations' to immorality and three chapters on the effects of such moral weaknesses. Book 2 is 12 chapters on 'antidotes' to the 'invitations' explored in Book 1. In addition to 'sexual incontinency,' or giving in to carnal impulses, other sins discussed include: Eating dainty fare, surfeiting and gluttony; 'impure and obscene Bookes'; dishonest pictures; wandering eyes; 'lascivious and dishonest wordes'; and evil companions.