CARVE, Thomas. Lyra Sive Anacephalaeosis Hibernica, In qua De Exordio, seu Origine, nomine, moribus, ritibusque Gentis Hibernicae Succincte tractatur; cui quoque accessere Annales Ejusdem Hiberniae, Nec non Rerum gestarum per Europam ab Anno 1148. Usque ad Annum1650.

CARVE, Thomas. Lyra Sive Anacephalaeosis Hibernica, In qua De Exordio, seu Origine, nomine, moribus, ritibusque Gentis Hibernicae Succincte tractatur; cui quoque accessere Annales Ejusdem Hiberniae, Nec non Rerum gestarum per Europam ab Anno 1148. Usque ad Annum1650. Editio secundo ... Authore R.D. Thoma Carve, de Mobernan Tipperariensi, Sacerdote & Notario Apostolico. With seven plates, including one additional portrait of Charles I. 140 LARGE PAPER COPY Sulzbaci: Typis Abrahami Lichtenthaleri, 1666. Quarto. pp. [46], 455, [1], 6 (plates). Errata on verso of final leaf. Includes index. Bound by Bedford in full green morocco, covers decorated in gilt, spine divided into six panels by five gilt raised bands, title, place of publication and year in gilt direct in the second and third, the remainder tooled in gilt to a centre-and-corner design; board edges ruled in gilt; turn-ins gilt; comb-marbled endpapers. Minor rubbing to joints and extremities. All edges gilt. A fine copy of an exceedingly rare book.

"COPAC locates 10 copies only. WorldCat 6. Sweeney 856 lists the first edition.

Thomas Carve [Carew] (c.1590-1672), was born at Mobarnan, Fethard, County Tipperary. He was proud to claim lineage with his famous Anglo-Norman namesake who in the fifteenth century held high office and great influence in Munster. He stated that his brother Sir Ross Carew was married to Clarendon's sister, Lady Hyde. Carve's claim to this distinguished family was questioned by his opponent the Irish-born Franciscan, Anthony Bruodin, who believed his surname was Carran - Carve acknowledged that the Irish for his name was O Carrain. His sympathies were in many respects anti-Irish, and, though skilled in his native tongue, professed his preference for English. His mother was probably a Butler of Ormond, and his early years were spent among the Butlers, to whom, he says, he owed everything. Walter Harris in his edition of Ware's Writers of Ireland asserts that Thomas was educated at Oxford. Following his ordination for the diocese of Leighlin, he left Ireland around 1624 and went to Germany as Chaplain to Walter Butler, Colonel of a Scotch and Irish regiment in the army of Frederick II of Austria and saw service in the many campaigns of the Thirty Years War.

Carve returned to Ireland to visit his friends. In 1630 he rejoined Butler this time for two years, leaving around the time of the death of Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Lutzen. On Colonel Butler's death in the autumn of 1634 he became chaplain to his successor Col. Walter Devereux who was the 'honoured' murderer of Wallenstein. Carew accompanied Devereux and his regiment throughout Germany and following Devereux's death in 1640, he was appointed Chaplain General of all the English, Scots and Irish forces. This work was first published in 1661 when Carew was in his sixties.

As a piece of book production, this later edition is much more desirable than the first edition. Not only does the text extend the narrative which commenced in the year 1148 on beyond 1650 but it is surely one of the very finest printings of any Irish-authored seventeenth century book. It conjured up a lyrical response from Dibdin. It is also illustrated, and amongst the six engravings is an evocative depiction of the author in old age, all the more valuable because we so seldom get a good likeness of the author in Irish books of this era. The others show the harp, the national symbol; an allegory of Ireland; Charles I; Donatus O'Brien on horseback against a Limerick background; and an adaptation of Hollar's plan of St Patricks' Purgatory, i.e. Lough Derg." 1666 CARVE, Thomas.

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