Observations sur l'histoire de la Grèce

First edition.
Contemporary glazed purple calf binding. Spine with raised bands decorated. Red morocco title label. Triple fillet frame on covers. Beginning of crack to lower joint at head. A slight lack to headcap. Handsome copy despite the noted defects.
These reflections on the customs and government of the Greeks is in fact an enlargement and deepening of a book published earlier (1749): Observations on the Greeks. Mably thus justifies this updated work in his preface: "Il m'arrive souvent aujourd'hui de louer ce que j'ai blâmé dans mes premières Observations, & de blâmer les mêmes choses que j'ai louées; c'est qu'il y a eu un temps où je regardois de certaines maximes sur la grandeur, la puissance & la fortune des états, comme autant de vérités incontestables; & qu'après quinze ans de méditations sur les mêmes objets, je suis parvenu à ne les voir que comme des erreurs que nos passions & l'habitude ont consacrées" ["It often happens today that I praise what I blamed in my first Observations, and blame the same things I praised; it is because there was a time when I regarded certain maxims about the greatness, power and fortune of states as so many incontestable truths; and after fifteen years of meditation on the same subjects, I have come to see them only as errors that our passions and habit have sanctified"].