Splendid copy in contemporary red morocco, bound for the French King Louis XV, containing the first edition of a geometrical treatise on a new method of drawing and projecting conic sections (circles, ellipses, parabolas, hyperbolas). Hugh Hamilton (1729-1805), was a descendant of a Hugh Hamilton who settled in Ireland in the time of James I. He studied at Trinity College in Dublin, was appointed Erasmus Smith's professor of natural history in the University of Dublin in 1759, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy and member of the Irish Royal Academy. He later fulfilled several posts as vicar and dean and in 1799 he became bishop of Ossory. Hamilton published several learned treatises, of which the present was the most valued, as it contained several new theorems. The new analytical system of conic sections and the drawing of their projections is mainly taught by means of propositions and problems, all clearly illustrated on the large engraved plates. The present first edition was published simultaneously in both Dublin and in London. Although the book was reprinted several times it seems to be very rare today.
A small blank area on the title-page cut out and restored, not approaching the text, presumably to remove an owner's name. Magnificent copy, with the coat-of-arms of Louis XV. Sotheran II, 8850; Poggendorff I, col. 1009; for the armorial binding: Olivier XXV, plate 2495, 12.