A very rare anthology of English literature, translated into French, which includes the first recorded French translations of the first three of David Hume's "Essays, moral and political", originally published in Edinburgh in 1741. The three essays translated are: 'Of the delicacy of taste and passion', 'Of the liberty of the press', 'Of impudence and modesty'. The translator "Madame B****" was Octavie Guichard Durey de Meinieres (1719-1804), who at the time this work was published was known as Madame Belot, being the widow of a Parisian lawyer Charles-Edme Belot. Madame Belot was an author in her own right as well as a translator of Samuel Johnson's "Rasselas", Sarah Fielding's "Ophelia", and in 1763 and 1765, of the first two parts of Hume's history of England. She appears to have been in correspondence with Hume and most likely met him when he was living in Paris in the 1760s. It is not clear why she chose to translate only three of Hume's essays for this volume. She may have been discouraged from doing more by Hume himself, or she may have felt these were the most important ones and sufficient for the anthology, which also includes translations of excerpts of works by Samuel Johnson, Matthew Prior and Edmund Burke. The Hague place of publication, given in the imprint of the Parisian bookseller Prault Fils, is probably false and was probably used to circumvent French government censorship; unsurprising given that one of the works translated concerns Hume's thoughts on freedom of the press.

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