Burd—Eight Vnedited Letters of Joseph Ritson 11 
burgh bookseller and antiquarian, with whom he had both 
private and professional dealings for many years. It was 
Laing who introduced him to Herd at the time when he was 
seeking assistance in collecting the material for his edition of 
Scotish Songs, and who furnished much material relative t© 
the poets of the North. 
The titles which stand at the head of this letter have evi¬ 
dently been taken from the bookseller’s catalogue, and it is 
impossible to trace them down with absolute certainty. Only 
one of the entire list appears in the catalogue of the sale of 
Kitson’s library, so that it would seem that his fear that most 
of them were already disposed of when he wrote, had been well 
founded. 
No. 104 Case 23) 
x435 Dissertatio 24) 
603 Tristan 25) 
808) 
809 [Halles 26 ) 
903 A proper project 27) 
X2413 Noble 28) 
X2619 Colville 29) 
5655 Sibbaldi 30) 
23 John Case, Angelical Guide, shewing men and women their lott or 
chance in this elementary life in IV books, London, 1697. 
2^ The British Museum catalogue lists 3 3 titles under Dissertatio and ante¬ 
dating this letter. The most of them deal with the church. 
25 Probably one of the versions of the Tristan saga: by Gast, Paris, 1520, 
1533; by Mangin, Lyon, 1577, Paris, 1586; or by Tressen, Paris, 1781, 1787. 
2® Ritson left annotated copies of Sir David Dalyrymple, Lord Hailes’ 
Annals of Scotland from Malcolm III to Robert I, and . . . from Robert I 
to the House of Stuart, Edinburgh. See also Letters, Vol. II, p. 47. 
2^ This perhaps alludes to one of the numerous “Projects” of the time. 
2s Either A Genealogical History of the Present Royal Families of Europe, 
London, 1781, or Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, 2 vols., 
London, 1784 and 1787, or both, by Mark Noble (1754-1827). Ritson was 
interested in royal genealogies and had himself published in 1778, Tables 
Shewing the Descent of the Crown of England. Furthermore, both editions 
of Noble’s second work had been severely criticised by Ritson’s friend, 
Richard Gough, in the preface to his Short Geneological View of the Family 
of Oliver Cromwell, London, 1785, and in the Gentleman’s Magazine, June, 
1787, p. 516. Rison had previously purchased Noble’s Two Dissertations on 
the Mint and Coins of the Episcopal Palatines of Durham, Birmingham, 1780. 
See Literary Anecdotes, Vol. VIII, p. 133, note. 
29 The Poetical Works of Robert Colvill, minor Scottish poet, appeared at 
London in 1789. 
39 Sir Robert Sibbald (1641-1712), chiefly noted for his History of Fife, 
wrote a great number of treatises on antiquarian subjects for the Royal 
Society. These were published in 1739 as A Collection of several Treatises 
in folio, concerning Scotlond, as it was of old, and also in later times. On 
July 30, 1793, Ritson wrote to Laing for a copy of Sibbald’s Works, which 
was to be purchased from the library of James Cumyng, late Secretary of 
the Society of Antiquaries of Edinburgh. See Letters, Vol, II, p. 19. 
