S. puffendorfii de officio hominis et civis juxta legem naturalem libri duo

Londini [i.e. London]: Typis M. J. Impensis Jacobi Knapton, 1708. [24], 162 [i.e.164]pp, [4]. With two final leaves of publisher's advertisements. Contemporary panelled calf. Extremities worn, surface loss to spine, upper board detached, lower joint starting. Later inked ownership inscription of 'P King E. D. B. A.' to FEP, recent ink-stamp of Ben Damph Forest Library to recto of FFEP, near contemporary inked ownership inscriptions of Benjamin Andrews of Magdalen, Oxford (one dated 1712) to recto of front blank fly-leaf and title page, short tear to head of title page, very occasional inked underlining. An early eighteenth-century edition of German jurist, political philosopher, economist, statesman, and historian Baron Samuel von Pufendorf's (1632-1694) De officio hominis et civis (1682), a compendium of political theory which 'seems to have functioned as an academic primer for the study of natural law at Cambridge University' (Baldwin, G.P., 'The Translation of political theory in early modern Europe', in Burke and Hsia, Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, 2009. p.107.) From the recently dispersed library of the Lovelace family, the inscriptions suggest that this was first owned by Benjamin Andrews (presumably the student at Magdalen Hall and later rector at Ockham, Surrey, c.1695-1736), before passing into the possession of one of the numerous Peter Kings of the early eighteenth-century; 'E.D.B.A.' presumably short for ex dono Benjamin Andrews. Given his appointment as the first Baron King of Ockham in 1725, this may have been Sir Peter King, 1st Baron Lovelace, Lord Chief Justice (1714-25) and Lord Chancellor (1725-1733). ESTC T115951.. Editio septima, [i.e. seventh edition]. 8vo.