Ars Catchpolaria, or the art of destroying mankind, intended as a vade-mecum or pocket companion to messengers and other executors of the law... Subscription money is taken in voraciously by the Author himself, and by all others intrusted with proposals subscribed by him.

Bookseller Notes

James Wilson (1730-?87) further expounded his pseudonym in others of his publications: 'that noted poet Claudero, son of Nimrod the Mighty Hunter, and late Secretary to the Chevalier Taylor, His Majesty's Oculist, and Ophthalmiater Pontifical, Imperial and Royal, to all the Crowned Heads and Sovereign Princes in Europe, Noble and Citizen of Rome.' ESTC lists 18 works by him (some of them broadsides), of which this is the penultimate: the last is Poems, pastoral, moral, religious, and political. By James Wilson, Newcastle, 1778, the only work with his real name on it, and one of only two not printed in Edinburgh (the other being Poems, London, 1765). All of his works are rare: of the present title ESTC records Advocate's Library, NLS, and BL only. The law is the object of Wilson's satire in the first half; the second is taken up with A Poem on the Lamentable Destruction of the Sign-Posts in Edinburgh, Leith and Canongate, 1771, hanging signs having been outlawed; this results in a veritable Grand Tour of the pubs and shops of old Edinburgh.Sir William Fettes Douglas (1822-1891), painter, antiquary, and curator, 'acquired an important library which reflected his serious interest in history, particularly that of Scotland. After his death his collection of antiquities and fine art was sold at auction over four consecutive days and his library over five' (ODNB). There is a neat pencil note on a fly-leaf, possibly in Douglas's hand, comparing this copy with that in the BM, which, though in its original wrappers, is considerably smaller than this copy, and it has a misprint in the dedication not present here.It is hard to tell what precisely has happened to this copy, and this binding. The damage to the last leaf suggests that it was not originally in any binding at all, and the fact that it is padded out with blanks (those at the front watermarked 1808, those at the rear unwatermarked) speaks of a remboitage.