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The Caledonian Muse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Among the collected letters of Ritson, the first mention to be found of the volume the fortunes of which we shall follow is under date of March 5, 1794, where Ritson writes to Paton of Edinburgh:
The impression of another little volume, of which I believe I showed you a fragment, entitled The Caledonian Muse, which had engaged my attention for a great many years, and was at last got nearly ready for publication, has been lately destroyed by a fire in the printers house; so that I neither possess, nor can procure, one single complete copy. Sic transit gloria mundi!
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1931
References
1 George Paton (1721–1807), of the Custom House, and friend of Scottish antiquaries.
2 The Printing-office of Archibald Hamilton, Falcon Court, Fleet Street, according to J. Frank's note, in Ritson's Letters, 1833, vol. ii. 48.
3 Letters ii. 45. On the same day he writes to William Laing, the Edinburgh bookseller: “The impression of my Caledonian Muse, which had engaged the attention of so many years, and was just ready for publication, has been lately destroyed by a fire which broke out in the printers (sic) house; so that I have not, nor can I procure a single copy. I am of course meditating a trip to Scotland, to re-collect materials for a new edition.” (Letters ii 48.)
4 Joseph Ritson, by H. A. Burd 1916, p. 140.
5 The English Anthology, 1793. i. Advt. p. i. The word subsequent may be a slip for previous, as also publication for compilation.
6 Not in all. Different issues of Ritson's Scotish Songs, 1794, have not hitherto been noticed.
7 On i. p. xxx, it is “See ... The Caledonian Muse (when published.)”; on p. xxxvi the reference is ampler. Christ's Kirk, he there says, “is rather a poem than a song, and has been accordingly printed as such in a collection which ought to have, (sic) made its appearance many years ago.” The footnote to this remark: “Caledonian Muse, printed for J. Johnson, St. Pauls Church-yard, in 1785. This poem has been erroneously ascribed to James I. See an essay on the true author, in the publication refered (sic) to.”
8 Burd quotes this passage, but inadvertently telescopes it with the letter to Laing, quoted above.
9 Burd's Rilson, p. 139.
10 Ibid., p. 140.
11 The copies of the Muse printed in 1785 and published in 1821 contain three poems printed from Lord Hailes's Ancient Scottish Poems, 1770. But Ritson wrote to Paton in 1793: “You must cease to consider Lord Hailes as a most faithful publisher; as I who have collated many of his articles with the Bannatyne MS. know the contrary to my cost.” (Letters ii, 2).
12 Burd, op. cit., p. 140.
13 See Triphook's letter quoted below.
14 Ritson's A Select Collection of English Songs, 2nd ed. by T. Park, 1813, i. xciv. The statement is a footnote to Park's misleading remark that the Caledonian Muse “was intended for publication in the year 1785, but owing to a part of the impression having suffered at the printing-house by accident of fire, it did not appear.”
15 Burd, p. 140.
16 Mr. Perry's library has been since dispersed by sale.
17 For the following reasons: (a) Internal evidence shows that the letter was addressed to a Scottish bookseller; (b) Of Scottish booksellers having knowledge of Ritson's work, W. Laing and Constable, both of whom had had dealings with him, are the most likely; (c) Constable possessed more knowledge of this particular work than Triphook's letter implies in his correspondent—as will later appear; (d) The letter was found in D. Laing's copy of the Muse. The date of the letter Burd puts tentatively as 1816, but it must have been written later than August 17, 1819 as it is evidently a reply to a letter of that date by D. Laing. See Note below, p. 1220.
18 I think there can be no doubt that Burd has misread the MS. here, and that Triphook wrote not 2 but (Q). In The Caledonian Muse as published by Triphook in 1821, the last sheet in the volume is in 8$deg half-sheets (the rest 16$deg half-sheets) with the signature Q, and on those pages the same rules for printing and s are not observed as in the rest of the volume. (The same difference holds of one other leaf, *131–*132.) This tallies with the description of the volume in the Laing library sale (“with title and last sheet printed by Triphook added”) to be quoted later entire. This clears up the chief difficulty in Triphook's letter, making it clear that it is not necessary to suppose that Ritson began to print Select Scottish Poems with Johnson, or that Triphook printed sheet two without having seen sheet one.
19 To be considered hereafter. (Burd prints no close to the parenthesis.)
20 Haslewood had already assembled and published some little ballad collections by Ritson in 1810, as Northern Garlands.
21 British Bibliographer, iii, 302. Burd quotes inaccurately and gives an incorrect reference.
22 The “rather long life,” however, to which Triphook refers in his letter, was no doubt Haslewood's compilation, published in 1824 as “Some Account of the Life and Publications of Joseph Ritson”: it is actually a rather short bibliographical account of Ritson's career.
23 A note in Douce's copy, in the Bodleian Library, of Ritson's Select Collection of English Song, says of this “shade,” which is there bound in as a frontispiece: “Taken by Mrs. Park, and a very good profile of Ritson. F. D.” This, and various transmogrified versions of the well-known caricature by Sayre, are the only likenesses of Ritson which are known to remain.
24 No complete description of this volume need be here appended, as the book is not too rare. It may be noticed, however, that there is an irregularity in the pagination, which, owing to the late insertion by Ritson of Blair's Grave, runs 158, *133–*158, 159 etc. It appears, by the use on leaf *131–*132 of a different initial s, that Triphook also printed that leaf. The volume lacks the introductory matter, which doubtless contained Ritson's Essay on the author of Christ's Kirk (James V, according to the text), and begins at sig. B.
25 Ancient Scottish Poems, 1770.
26 All these statements rest upon evidence to be given later.
27 Letters II, 212–15. Dated 1801, no month.
28 By, I believe, one of the Bewicks, who illustrated also his Ancient Popular Poetry, 1791, and Robin Hood, 1795.
29 These consisted of four vignettes by Stothard, engraved by Heath: three of them are in the 1821 Caledonian Muse.
30 That is to say, all of Part iii.
31 This was Huchown's Susan, which Ritson transcribed for the volume from the Vernon MS. in Bodley's Library.
32 This is the characteristic kind of procedure which kept many of Ritson's works for years in the press, and which must have driven his publishers frantic.
33 Extracts from two others are given in T. Constable's Archibald Constable and His Literary Correspondents, 1873, i, 498 ff.
34 The letter is given in full in David Laing, A Memoir, by G. Goudie, Edinb. 1913, p. 292, from which I quote.
35 Re-edited in 1885 by John Small. My page references are to this edition.
36 Actually, perhaps, “similar in size,” but the new work was to be a duodecimo book, whereas the Scotish Songs was in sixes.
37 Laing's Select Remains, 1885, p. 170.
38 Op. cit., p. 220.
39 This was used in the 1821 Muse at this point.
40 Laing., op. cit., p. 368.
41 Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads, 1829, ii, 134.
42 This material is not in the Constable volume.
43 Since he edited Ritson's letters in 1833, giving the Constable letter, they must have communicated before that date.
44 Besides Ancient Songs and Ballads, Frank edited five posthumous works of Ritson.
45 Sale Catalogue, p. 202. The Yale copy notes that this item was bought by Ouvry for £15 guineas.
46 Bought by Ouvry for £7.2.6.
47 Inquiry failed to elicit information as to whether these two works were still in Mr. Perry's possession. But his library has been sold. (See note 16, above.)
48 Burd, p. 139.
49 Archibald Constable and His Literary Correspondents, 1873, i, 498 ff.
50 Letters ii, 248.
51 Given, the text proves, from the Vernon MS.
52 Over against this is an MS. copy in Ritson's hand and his direction, “Revise with copy.”
53 Not in the Muse as published.
54 MS. transcripts of these three poems are bound in at their appointed places.
55 An MS. note indicates dissatisfaction with the necessity of giving the poem from Ramsay, on account of failure to find a better earlier text. It is added that the tune to which “The Banks of Helicon” and “The Cherry and The Slae” appear to have been originally sung “is still known in Wales by the name of Glyn Helicon and, as a curiosity, is added at the end of the volume.”
56 Bk iii. ll. 1387–1886.
57 The deletions marked on what was originally printed leave ll. 1–16, 41–105, 118–435, 617–655, 691–1019, 1024–1069.
58 i. ll. 1–536, 573–644.
59 Bk iii. ll. 517–632.
60 Canto iii. ll. 1–16900$frac12, 370–918.
61 No text is given, but an MS. note at the end of Falconer says that the vignette on that page is to come “at the end (after Beattie).” An extract from caput iii of Patrick Gordon's Bruce was, also, originally intended for this third part, but has been deleted.
62 Pp. 84 and 85, seemingly, are intended to be transposed. That would cause the “Lines on The Death of Charles” to be attributed to Lord Gordon. But they are by Montrose and were so originally attributed. Perhaps it was Ritson's intention to insert here another poem by Montrose. Then the attribution, “By the Same,” would be regular.
63 At p. 238, renumbered 237, the repagination stops. But with the opening of Part iii on p. 219, renumbered 212, begins a new pagination for a possible vol. ii, which would run to 120 pp.
64 Three parts 1706-1709-1711.
65 Scottish Vernacular Literature, (1910), p. 399.
66 Witness the insertion (Part iii, pp. 62–64) of that relic of unbuttoned scholasticism, the “Catalogus Librorum in Bibliotheca Buterensi.” The reference is to a notable drinking college named for the landlord, Peter Butter, in whose precincts, “at the End of Errol's-Gate,” the worthies used to convene. From the list of “Books in lesser Quarto,” we may be permitted to extract one entry as a sample: “Petronius Pynteus de Philosophicis Bibendi Legibus, in usum praesentis Principalis Georgii Leith, 12 Vol.”—a present help to others besides the thirsty Leith. But this is scarcely poetry.
67 ... “as a Test of the Undertaker's Care to please his Reader as much as he can, this first Essay is chiefly composed of such Poems as have been formerly Printed most Uncorrectly, in all respects, but are now copied from the most Correct Manuscripts that could be procured of them.”
68 Pp. ix–x of Vol. i, edition of 1761.
69 E.g. Mallet's, or Malloch's, Edwin and Emma.
70 Yet it cannot be denied that that cause was the only one which moved the Scot to poetry for almost two hundred years.
71 The Choice Collection was already nearly a century old, The Ever Green did not pretend to bring its specimens beyond the Sixteenth century, “being a Collection of Scots Poems Wrote by the Ingenious before 1600.” Lord Hailes's collection, of 1770, was confined to the Bannatyne MS. (compiled c.1568). Pinkerton's volumes in 1786, did for the Maitland collection much the same thing as Hailes's for the Bannatyne. Such other collections as the century saw either, like the Foulis volume of 1748, were confined to a few poems, or, like the Ruddiman collection of 1766, were a remixture of Watson and Ramsay, or, like Percy's Reliques and Ellis's Specimens, sallied only occasionally across the border. It was only in 1802 that J. Sibbald's badly edited “Chronicle of Scottish Poetry; from the Thirteenth Century to the Union of the Crowns,” 4 vols., sm. 4to, usurped much of Ritson's territory.
72 Presidential Address delivered before the Modern Humanities Research Association, 1922, p. 5.