EIGHT UNEDITED LETTERS OF JOSEPH RITSON 
Henry A. Burd 
Joseph Kitson (1752-1803) was by profession a Conveyancer. 
Early in life he was apprenticed to a reputable practitioner of 
his native town, Stockton-npon-Tees. Late in 1775 he went 
up to London, entered an established office for five years, and 
afterwards set up for himself, taking chambers in Gray’s Inn, 
where he resided till his death. Conveyancing was, however, 
merely a bread-and-butter profession. Although he had a re¬ 
spectable clientage, he made no efforts to increase it. The 
half dozen volumes which he published in connection with his 
profession were primarily historical and antiquarian in nature, 
and were recognized by his contemporaries as authoritative. 
But his chief interest and his major work lay in another field. 
As a lad at Stockton Eitson read widely, especially in the 
older periods of English poetry. His reading, together with 
his friendship with Allan, Cunningham, Holcroft, and Shield, 
and his proximity to the famous antiquities of the north of 
England, gave a permanent direction to his interests. When 
he arrived in London, he possessed a deep interest in literary 
and topographical antiquities and had an uncommonly good 
foundation on which to build his studies. He pursued his 
researches in the famous libraries in and about the metropolis 
and soon began publishing the results. Eccentric habits of life 
early marked him off from his fellows, and a violence of 
language, coupled with idiosyncrasies of style and an insistence 
upon critical and editorial standards not then in the highest 
vogue, soon distinguished him as a writer. Posterity knows 
Ritson best, if not solely, for his collections of ballads and ro¬ 
mances, 1) and for the virulence and acidity of his attacks 
1 Especially English Songs, Scotish Songs, Robin Hood, andAncient Eng- 
leish Metrical Romancees. 
