Together with Most Instructive Remarks Thereon and Answers Thereto by that Accomplished Genius. And Now First Published by the Editor of the Academy for Grown Horsemen. Illustrated with Cuts by the Most Eminent Artists. First Collected Edition originally issued separately in 1785 and 1791, respectively, with the engravings in sepia only. Two works in one large quarto volume (12 7/8" x 9 3/4"; 315 x 250 mm). Hand colored frontispiece xxviii 36. eleven hand-coloured plates; [1 half-title] [printer's imprint] hand-coloured frontispiece xix [1 blank] 81 [blank] [1 directions to binder] [1 blank sixteen hand-coloured plates pp. With the original title label neatly mounted on a blank. Bound by Morrell (ca. 1950) in full crimson morocco. Triple gilt-ruled borders in gilt. The central panel ruled and lettered in gilt. Equestrian ornaments in gilt at rounded corners and foliate decoration in gilt. Five raised bands ruled in gilt. Three compartments lettered in gilt. Three compartments with foliate decorations and equestrian ornaments in gilt. Gilt ruled edges. Gilt tooled turn-ins. The title page to Academy is very slightly toned. An occasional smudge to margins, not affecting text or images. Else a wonderfully clean and elegantly bound copy. All are housed in a custom-made black cloth clamshell case. Fourth editions of Gambano's droll classics on horsemanship featuring Bunbury's humorous caricatures issued here as one volume with separate title pages and hand-coloured plates as called for the plates in prior editions typically in sepia only. A singulier ouvrage" (Brunet). "Gambado is said to have been Francis Grose compiler of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (Riely John C. Horace Walpole and the Second Hogarth' in 18th Century Studies Vol. 9 No. 1 Autumn 1975). In addition to his works on antiquities satiric essays and volumes on non-standard words and meanings, Francis Grose (1731-1791) wrote Rules for Drawing Caricaturas: with an Essay on Comic Painting (1788); "though only an indifferent draughtsman he mixed with professional and amateur artists and exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1767? 8 and at the Royal Academy in the nine years following" (Oxford Online DNB) - the frontispiece portrait of "Gambado" in The Academy unsigned (all other signed Bunbury) bears an uncanny resemblance to Grose: a "stocky corpulent figure which Grose himself caricatured (DNB)" perhaps here. The stipple engraved plates were designed by Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). "Bunbury owed much during his lifetime to the charm of genial nature and his position as a man of family and education. West flattered him, and Walpole enthusiastically compared him to Hogarth. He was the friend of Goldsmith Garrick and Reynolds and the favourite of the Duke and Duchess of York to whom, in 1787, he was appointed equerry. All this, coupled with the fact that he was seldom if ever personal and wholly abstained from political subjects, greatly aided his popularity with the printsellers and the public of his day and secured his admission as an honorary exhibitor to the walls of the Academy between 1780 and 1808 his works frequently appeared? [They] are not without a good deal of grotesque drollery of the rough-and-ready kind in vogue towards the end of the last century_that is to say drollery depending in a great measure for its laughable qualities upon absurd contrasts ludicrous distortions horseplay and personal misadventure." (DNB). "'The lovers of humor were inconsolable for the loss of Hogarth, but from his ashes, several sportive geniuses have sprung up, and the works of Bunbury [et al.] have entertained us' (Walker's Hibernian Magazine May 1790). Just at this time, one of these sportive geniuses' was at the height of his popularity. Bunbury was undoubtedly the most famous among the many amateur caricaturists who flourished during the second half of the eighteenth century. His talents for depicting humorous incidents of everyday life and manners established him as a master of the burlesque. His reputation in social caricature rivaled that of Thomas Rowlandson or James Gillray." (Op cit Riely p.28) Coloured plates in order: 1. Frontis. Geoffrey Gambado Esq. 2. The Mistaken Notion. 3. A Bit of Blood. 4. One way to stop your Horse. 5. How to ride genteel and agreeable down Hill. 6. How to lose your way. 7. How to turn any Horse, Mare, or Gelding. 8. How to stop your Horse at Pleasure. 9. How to be run away with. 10. How to pass a carriage. 11. How to ride a Horse upon three legs. 12. Hoe to ride up Hyde Park. Annals of Horsemanship. 13. Frontis. The Apotheosis of Geoffrey Gambado... 14. Mr. Gambado seeing the World in a Six Mile Tour so famed in History. 15. Doctor Cassock FRS. TPQ. Inventor of the noble puzzle for tumble-down Horses. 16. The Puzzle for Turk, Frenchman, or Christian. 17. How to make the most of a Horse. 18. How to make the least of him. 19. How to do things by halves. 20. Tricks upon Travellers. 21. Love and Wind. 22. Me & my Wife and Daughter. 23. How to make the Mare to Go. 24. How to prevent a Horse slipping his Girths. 25. How to ride without a bridle. 26. A Daisy Cutter with his Varieties. 27. The Tumbler, or its Affinities. 28. A Horse with a Nose. 29. How to travel upon two Legs in a Frost.