octavo,  7 l., 1-88; 6 l., 1-76; 4 l., 1-72; 3l., 257-312; 3 l., 313-346 pp., lacking portrait, re-bound in recent period style full calf, leather spine label, untrimmed, some light staining and foxing to text, occasional marginal ink and pencil marks, else very good.

This copy bears the contemporary ownership signatures of two early Americans;  James Graham (1656-1700) Attorney General of New York and of his son-in-law Lewis Morris (1671-1745) chief-justice of New York and royal governor of New Jersey.  Presumably Morris inherited this book upon the death of his father in law in 1700.

Robert Filmer, who was knighted by Charles I at the beginning of his reign, was a strident defender of the absolute divine right of kings, founding his theory upon the idea that the government of a family is the true original model for all government. He articulated his theory in a number of works, the 1648 Anarchy of a Limited or Mixed Monarchy, (included in the present work), which was an attack on Philip Hunton's treatise on monarchy, which held that the king's prerogative is not superior to the authority of parliament. The pamphlet, The Power of Kings, and his 1652 Observations concerning the Original of Government, (included in the present work), which includes observations on Aristotle, Hobbes's Leviathan, Milton, Grotius and Hunton. In The Free-holders Grand Inquest, he asserted that the Lords only give counsel to the King, the Commons only perform and consent to the ordinances of Parliament, and the King alone is the maker of laws, which proceed purely from his will. The most complete exposition of Filmer's views is to be found in the 1680 Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings. John Locke singled out Filmer as the most remarkable of the proponents of Divine Right and rebutted his arguments in great detail in the Two Treatises of Government.

Lewis Morris' great wealth and social status propelled him to the forefront of political affairs in New York and later in New Jersey. Morris had one of the largest libraries in colonial America, and in 1723 at 3000 volumes only Harvard had more books. Morris was a firm believer in privilege and an elitist and was a staunch defender of the royal prerogative, against legislative encroachments. However on occasion he could when roused act otherwise. In 1733 Morris assumed the role of a country party leader in opposition to the arbitrary rule of Governor William Cosby. Morris was dismissed from the New York Supreme Court in April 1733 for opposing Cosby's attempt to settle a legal dispute with New York councilor Rip Van Dam by circumventing the jury system. Morris responded by forming the most radical country party in New York before the American Revolution. Denouncing Cosby as a despotic governor who threatened the constitutional liberties of New Yorkers, Morris won election to the New York Assembly and helped to launch the New York Weekly Journal. The first avowedly opposition paper in New York, the Weekly Journal called for an independent judiciary, a legislatively independent council, and a stronger assembly, all the while arraigning Cosby and his closest supporters for being on the wrong side in the age old contest between power and liberty. But the Morrisites could not break Cosby's control over the New York Assembly. In November 1734 the governor struck back by having the printer of the Weekly Journal, John Peter Zenger, arrested on a charge of seditious libel. Morris determined to outflank Cosby by undertaking a mission to London in 1735-36, which proved unsuccessful in his efforts to oust Cosby as governor and his restoration as chief justice. However, he obtained support which resulted in his appointment as royal governor of New Jersey in 1738.

Morris's political career came to a stormy climax when he reverted to the role of defender of the royal prerogative against legislative encroachment during his gubernatorial administration in New Jersey. Morris was concerned about the governor's excessive dependence on the Assembly for financial support. Morris informed the legislature in 1738 that henceforth as governor he would be the ultimate arbiter of the public good in the colony and that the provision of revenue for the government would no longer be contingent on prior gubernatorial approval of popular legislation. Morris's efforts to reinvigorate royal authority in New Jersey ran afoul of the province's longstanding drive for greater autonomy. Morris soon found himself involved in a succession of increasingly bitter disputes with the assembly over his refusal to approve popular laws that ran counter to imperial policies, his vigorous support for imperial military expeditions against Spain in the West Indies and the French in Canada, and his staunch defense of colonial subordination to Parliament. Ultimately, in 1744, the New Jersey Assembly refused to provide any further revenue for his administration unless he first approved a number of popular acts, one of the few times in colonial history an assembly took such a drastic step. Rather than compromise, Morris appealed to the imperial administration for the passage of an act of Parliament to make him and other royal governors in America financially independent of their legislatures- a plea imperial officials ignored because of their preoccupation with the war against Spain and France. Thus Morris and the New Jersey Assembly remained deadlocked until his death. Morris died near Trenton, New Jersey, but not before he had sown one of the seeds of the American Revolution with his call for radical parliamentary intervention to shore up royal authority in America.

Filmer's works were important, Thomas Jefferson owned copies of Observations concerning the Original and Various forms of Government... London: 1696 and Patriarcha...London: 1680, see Sowerby, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 2328, 2329