Burd—Eight Unedited Letters of Joseph Ritson 
13 
be no great object, but to have it returned entire is what i should 
not like: so if you will answer for 50 i will send you 100, if 25, 
50, if 10, 20, if 5, 10, if none, not one, sat verhum. 36) 
I am much obliged to Mr. Brown, 37) & request whenever you 
meet him you will exert your eloquence in remembering my 
friendship & respect. I am much chagrined at the fate of my 
King Charles spurs, which were really curious, 38) as well as 
at the loss of Mr. Batons parcel. 39) Please to present my 
best compliments to that worthy man & say that i mean to have 
the pleasure of writing to him in a little time. I must give up, 
i find, all expectation of becoming acquainted with the old 
volume which has given all of us so much trouble. I sometimes 
think of addressing myself directly to the dean, but ‘‘the in¬ 
solence of office ’ ’ would most probably prevent him from paying 
any attention to my request. 40) 
Pray why have i never heard anything further of the Edin¬ 
burgh catalogue! 41) It would be of great use to me in a work 
i am now amused with; & which i mean to be a kind of a sort 
of a Scotish 42) library of historians & poets. 43) In this, 
««Despite this ultimatum, in March, 1794, Ritson sent Laing 50 copies of 
the work with the following directions as to their disposal: . . twelve 
you take yourself; five you will present, with the Editor’s compliments, to 
Mr. Fraser Tytler, Mr. Allan. Mr Brown, Mr. Baton, and Mr. Campbell— 
that Is one to each; the rest you will sell on my account,if you can.” See 
Letters, Vol. II, p. 47. 
Alexander Brown, librarian of the Advocates’ Library. See Letters, 
Vol. II, p. 21. 
8* * Ritson had sent his rare King Charles’ spurs to Cumyng as a gift to 
the Society. Upon Cumyng’s death, early in 1793, his entire library was 
purchased by Laing. After repeated inquiry Ritson learned that the spurs 
had been lost in transferring the property. See Letters, Vol. II, p. 21ff. 
«®To George Baton (1721-1807), Scottish bibliographer and antiquary, 
Ritson was greatly indebted for information concerning Scottish history 
and poetry. A small volume of Letters from Joseph Ritson, Esq., to Mr. 
George Paton was published in 1829 for private circulation. 
This refers to ‘an old volume of tracts’ which Tytler had withdrawn 
from the Advocate’s Library, and from which Ritson wished especially a 
transcript of the ‘‘six first lines of Robin Hood”. See Letters, Vol. II, pp. 
4, 21, and Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents, 3 vols., 
Edinburgh, 1873, Vol. I, pp. 505, 509. 
** Ritson suggested that Laing, who was noted for his catalogues, make a 
complete compilation of books published in Scotland, and offered his own 
ideas as to the best method of procedure. See Letters, Vol. ll, pp. 38, 48. 
*2 For Ritson’s spelling of ‘Scotish’ see my note in Notes and Queries, 
Ser. 11, Vol. XI, p. 306. 
«The MS. of this work, never published, was described in the Ritson 
sale catalogue as follows: “Bibliographia Scotica, Anecdotes Biographical 
and Literary of Scotish "Writers, Historians, and Boets, from the earliest 
accounts to the nineteenth century, in two parts, intended for publication”. 
It was intended to supplement Bibliographia Poetica: A Catalogue of Eng¬ 
lish Poets, of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth 
Centurys, with a short account of their works, London, 1802. 
