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Hophni et Phinees, sive impietas sacerdotum publicae impietatis causa. Concio habita in templo B. Mariae pro gradu S.T.B. Jul. 19 1729 ...

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First edition of a sermon on clerical impiety by the Oxford scholar and clergyman John Burton (1696–1771), published by Mary Fletcher.

Burton was a student and then Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and delivered this sermon in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin for his Bachelor of Divinity degree, which he was awarded in 1729.

Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were two badly behaved priests at the sanctuary of Shiloh, described in 1 Samuel; they are thus an appropriate pair to evoke here in a discussion of clerical vice prompting public impiety. Burton was an able tutor of Greek and the text here is liberally sprinkled with quotes from the Greek New Testament.

The Oxford bookseller and publisher Mary Fletcher (active 1729–1758), who lived near St Mary’s Church, was the widow of the Oxford and London bookseller Stephen Fletcher (1680–1727). Stephen receives a scathing obituary in Thomas Hearne’s Remarks and Collections. Recording his death from a ‘violent feaver’, Hearne writes: [Fletcher] ‘betook himself to bookselling, and marrying a good natured young Woman, he first lived by the Turl Gate in Oxford, & afterwards removed to St. Marie’s Parish. He was a very proud, confident, ill-natured, impudent, ignorant Fellow, peevish and froward to his Wife …, a great Sot, and a whoring prostituted Wretch, and of no Credit, tho’ he always made a great Stir & Bustle’ (vol. IX (Oxford, 1914), p. 348). Sounds like Mary was better off without him.

Mary’s trade networks are evident from the imprint here, which records that copies could be had of James Knapton and Charles Rivington in St Paul’s Churchyard, Charles King in Westminster Hall, and Cornelius Crownfield in Cambridge.

ESTC T12033.