18mo. 4 volumes in 1: (IV),107;120;130;90 p., frontispiece. Half calf. 13.5 cm (Binding scuffed, back strip gone. Lacking 4 engravings, and the 27 p. at the end of the 4th volume with the score of Étienne-Nicola Méhul and Luigi Cherubini to some poems of Anacreon) (Volume 1 & 2 contain the Greek text and Gail's French translation, including also a Latin translation. Volume 3 contains 'Notes critiques sur les Odes d'Anacréon'. Volume 4 contains Gail's treatise 'Sur les Thiases des Anciens', and 'Observations sur les grandes parties de la musique et de la poésie chantée'. § Jean Baptiste Gail, 1755-1829, was a celebrated French Hellenist. 'In 1791 he was appointed deputy, and in 1792 titular professor at the 'Collège de France'. During the Revolution he quietly performed his professional duties, taking no part in politics, although he possessed the faculty of ingratiating himself with those in authority. In 1815 he was appointed by the King Keeper of Greek MSS. (...) Without being a great Greek scholar, Gail was a man of unwearied industry, whose whole life was devoted to his favourite studies, and he deserves every credit for having rescued Greek from the neglect into which it had fallen during the troublous times in which he lived'. (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911, vol. 11, p. 387) His most valuable work were his French translations and his editions of Greek authors. He published also editions of Thucydides and Herodotus)