Le Pot-pourri, épitre à qui on voudra ; suivie d'une autre épître.

[Masson de Pezay] and [Claude-Joseph Dorat]. Le Pot-pourri, épitre à qui on voudra ; suivie d'une autre épître, par l'auteur de Zélis au bain Geneva and Paris, Sébastien Jorry, 1764; 12mo of 53 pp.. Contemporary full calf, smooth spine with title label, decorated with compartments, blind-tooled fillet frames on the boards. Some rubbing and abrasions. First edition of this "charming, very elegantly illustrated volume" (Cohen, 796), with 2 frontispieces, 2 vignettes and 2 tailpieces engraved by Aliamet, Le Mire and de Longueil after Eisen. A small poetic collection attributed to Claude-Joseph Dorat, sometimes associated with the Marquis de Masson de Pezay for the second epistle. The work belongs to the light, worldly literature of the 18th century, typical of the spirit of the aristocratic salons. It consists of two poems in the form of verse letters, in which the author adopts an elegant, often ironic and frivolous tone to evoke the manners and social life of his time. The title "pot-pourri" well reflects the mixture of subjects and tones that characterises the text. More than a philosophical work, it is a piece of entertainment, representative of the gallant and satirical taste of the cultivated society of the Enlightenment, and it is valued today as much for the quality of its illustrated editions as for its literary content.