La friponnerie laïque des pretendus Esprits-Forts d'Angleterre: ou remarques de Phileleuthere de Leipsick sur le discours de la liberté de penser

First French edition translated by Arnaud de la Chapelle. Title page in red and black.

Later 19th-century full red morocco binding with straight grain (Russia leather) signed by Thouvenin at tail. Spine with raised bands decorated with compartments framed by gilt fillets. Title and date in gilt. Gilt fillets framing the boards with trefoils in the corners. Inner gilt fillet. All edges gilt. Spine slightly faded. Rubbing to headcaps, joints and corners. Upper joint narrowly split at tail for 3 cm. One tear on p. 274, another on p. 302, both in the middle of the page. Despite some defects, a handsome copy.

    
20th-century engraved bookplate of E. Crawshaw.         

Response to Collins' book: A Discourse of Free-Thinking which aroused great indignation in ecclesiastical circles.

In the preface, the publisher emphasizes that the title is his own creation, but that he found it more accurate than the author's simple Remarks, because it refers directly to the formula that Collins had used in his book, that religion & ecclesiastical knavery are two synonymous terms; and Collins had already written before: Ecclesiastical knavery carried to its height. Thomas Bentley was not the only one to write a response to Collins' work, but this is the work whose critique is the most structured and rigorous, and where the author seeks to methodically destroy any legitimacy of thought in Collins, ruining his references, reducing his Discourse to a crude satire.