[Manuscript:] [Extracts from l'Encyclopédie, &c].

Bookseller Notes

An intriguing manuscript, part text, part illustration. It is not clear whether this intriguing manuscript is a school exercise book, or the work of an autodidact: the period of time taken to write the various parts suggests the latter. The first 3 'cahiers' - roughly half the text contents of the volume - comprise extracts from l'Encyclopdie, with a few interpolations from other sources, such as Voltaire. The later notebooks are thematically arranged: Freemasons, 'phrases dtaches' from 'Disme rfut', and mathematics (including dialling, these with diagrams). The 'Cahier de lettres', has numerous examples of formal epistolary style, and the last - 'Manuel de sant' - contains definitions and cures.The final section is a series of pencil drawings (on different paper), which are charming if somewhat naive. Hinard took the pains to sign some of them, these ones being character studies and caricatures - in the latter category 'Un anglais Paris', a stout man, apparently oblivious to his surroundings, with a huge umbrella tucked under his left arm. Other subjects include French historical figures (from statues, &c) including a sketch of Napoleon at St. Cyr. The last several represent characters and scenes from French classical drama (Molire, Racine), with appropriate quotations from the plays. Perhaps the most interesting, and as it happens best executed, is 'Turner peintre de marine': 'mort 1851' which seems to have been added later. It shows Turner somewhat advanced in years; as in Edward Bird's depiction of him in the British Museum (1819). While Bird's likeliness of the great painter takes the form of a bust; here, he is standing by an easel, brush and palette in hand.