Rush-Light, 31st March, 1800. Being the Fourth Number of Volume I.
Item #75274
[COBBETT, William]. The Rush-Light, 31st March, 1800. Being the Fourth Number of Volume I. A Peep into a Pennsylvanian Court of Justice. [London: 1800]. [161]-208, [2 blanks as issued]. Caption title [as issued]. LATER 3/4-gilt-ruled red morocco, raised spine bands. Extra-illustrated with a frontis. portrait of Benjamin Rush. With the bookplate of noted collector Frank C. Deering on front free endpaper. Light scattered foxing, top free corner missing from blank page at rear, very old small waterstain to head of exterior leaves, not affecting text, else very good. Gaines 54a. "One of Cobbett's greatest enemies was the eminent Philadelphia doctor, Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and ardent Jeffersonian, and a distinguished physician who had demonstrated his personal courage by remaining in Philadelphia to minister to the sick during the yellow fever epidemics which swept the city in 1791 and 1797. Cobbett devised a serial publication, The Rush-Light, simply to attack Rush. In the fifth number, in April of 1800, he went too far, accusing Rush of using the yellow fever epidemics as a cover for killing off his political opponents while pretending to treat them. Rush sued him for libel and won a settlement of $5000, which Cobbett did not have, accordingly, he fled back to England"-Reese The Federal Hundred 57. "Discussed are the prejudicial Judge's charge and other legal matters in the suit of Rush against Cobbett. `Revenge' and `Tragedy', in verse, concerns Rush. `A Portrait' is an attack on Governor M'Kean."-Gaines.
Price: $450.00