Bidspirit auction | (MISHNAH). Pirkei Avoth. The Sentences

(MISHNAH). Pirkei Avoth. The Sentences and Proverbs of the Ancient Fathers… Called Abouth. First Edition in English.  With copyright autograph of translator on verso of title. Hebrew text with English translation and commentary by Abraham Tang.  pp. 44, 108. Ex-library. Stained, light wear. Needs rebinding. 12mo. Vinograd, London 68. London, (L. Alexander), 1772.     The translator, the English scholar Abraham Tang (d. 1792) was a grandson of the Dayan of Prague, Abraham Tausig Neu-Greschel. Like his grandfather, the Author signed his name with the Hebrew initials TN”G, and is thus generally known as Tang (see p. xlii of the introduction). Tang wrote a number of other works, all unpublished, and his manuscripts were until recently in London (see A. Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts …Jews’ College, London [i.e. the Beth Din Library], nos. 7 and 35). See also C. Roth, Essays…I. Brodie (1967) pp. 368-72; and S.B. Leperer in JHSE Transactions Vol. 24 (1974) pp. 82-88.     In addition to his Rabbinic knowledge, Tang was an enlightened scholar, well familiar with secular writings. He cites “a noble passage of my countryman, Milton” as an introduction to a comment by Maimonides (p. 24 of the present introduction). Tang was also a fine scribe and artist, and produced an illuminated Hagadah presently in the Jewish Museum, London. See R. D. Barnett, Catalogue of the Jewish Museum (1974) no. 638, pp. 124-5, plate C1.