The Letters of Joseph Ritson, Volume II on Joseph Ritson

“Your narrative of the dying moments and last advice of poor Cumyng is really so ludicrous and so lamentable, that one does not know whether to laugh or cry. I hope you will take care that a piece of eloquence so interesting and important to society does not perish with its author. Suppose you were to draw it up as a communication for the next volume of "Transactions of the Antiquaries of Scotland," under the title of "Cumyngs Legacy, or a Dissertation upon." If you should happen to be at a loss from want of an acquaintance with the subject, Master Smellie will doubtless be ready to lend you any assistance in order to do honour to the memory of his departed friend. Or, perhaps, as you have it in contemplation to favour the public with some biographical anecdotes of the author, which I dare say will be much more entertaining, and just as important, as Boswells Life of Johnson, you might with great propriety enhance the value of the work by so curious an appendix. I am, however, really sorry to lose so worthy and respectable an acquaintance, whom I hoped to render a valuable correspondent. Apropos. Are my ancient spurs, &c. deposited in the archives of the Society? I have no great expectation from his library; though, I suppose, the heraldical books may make it an object.”

“Your observations on Godwins inaccuracies are well founded. I apprised him of all or most of them long ago; and can only attribute their retention to his obstinacy, or ignorance, I am, however, preparing another list for him. They say he is about another novel.”

“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. I do not, indeed, mean to say that he is so intentionally faithless as Ramsay; but I do say that his transcripts have been very inaccurate, that he has in numerous instances wilfully altered the original orthography, and not unfrequently misinterpreted the text of the MS. which I suspect he was occasionally unable to read.”

“I shall be glad if you will inform me who was the editor of Montrose's memoirs, published in 1756. I had understood him to be the late lord Hailes, which I now fancy a mistake, as his lordships character seems to savour too much of the virulency of whiggism for an admirer of Montrose.”

“I have been able to meet with no further intelligence about Sir Alexander Halket. He is said to be the author of Gilderoy, and I strongly suspect him to have had a principal hand in the forgery of Hardyknute, which is all that I know of him.”

“I suppose you will find citizen Hodgsons translation of the Systime executed in a very slovenly and inaccurate manner. The poor fellow is starving in Newgate, and I do not understand he is likely to receive much benefit by the sale of his work.”

“You appear to have seen Holcrofts pamphlet; which certainly displays much ability and goodwriting, but most of all the extreme vanity and self-importance of the author, which is equally ridiculous and disgusting. He thinks it impossible that any court or jury in the world could have resisted the force of his combined eloquence and philosophy; and actually told me that hewould gladly have given one of his hands for the opportunity of making his defence, which by the way would certainly have hanged him, however favourable his judges might have been beforehand.”

“Your friend Hutchinson has finished his history in a most slovenly, disgraceful, and even swindling manner. To compel his subscribers to take what they had on a formal application uniformly rejected, I mean the account of Allerton, Howdenshires and the North-Bishopric, was certainly a rascally and sharking trick, which one would not easily have suspected in a gentleman-author. You have occasionally observed, no doubt, what a confoundedly ignorant fellow he is: in looking over his Excursion to the lakes, and View of Northumberland, lately, I was perfectly astonished at the monstrous blunders I met with...Now do not you instantly perceive how abominably this blockhead has corrupted a parcel of names which every one but such an ass must have been perfectly acquainted with...”

“You will have heard, I presume, that Wintons Chronicle, by a Mr. Macpherson, is in great forwardness. It is to surpass, in point of correctness and typography, any thing that has hitherto appeared. But, I confess, the specimen I have seen betrayed symptoms of licentiousness and affectation which I can neither approve of nor account for.”

“You will do Mr. Malone great injustice if you suppose him to be in all respects what I may have endeavoured to represent him in some. In order that he may recover your more favourable opinion, let me recommend to your perusal, the discussion, in his prolegomena, intitled "Shakspeare, Ford and Jonson ;." and his "Dissertation on the three parts of King Henry the Sixth" (to which I am more indebted for an acquaintance with the manner of our great dramatic poet than to any thing I ever read).”

“I am sorry to say that Dr. Farmer has not been able to find the volume of tracts containing "Sir D. Lindsays Satire." He supposes it to have been lent to Mr. Malone, to whom Mr. Steevens has promised to make immediate application. But perhaps you have already learned that Pinkerton has lately published these satires from a (very incorrect) copy of the Hyndford MS. together with the various readings of the printed edition: published under the name of J. Nichols, for C. Dilly in the Poultry, 3 vols, crown 8vo. price 9s. He has had the impudence and dishonesty to insert in this collection a curious old MS. poem in my possession, of which a friend of his had some years since surreptitiously obtained a copy, and which on that friends application from him, I positively refused my leave to print.”

“Pinkerton seems busy in his intended history of Scotland; whether it is to be the same with that advertised under the name of Robert Heron, I cannot learn. His treatment of the " Celtic savages" is to be speedily resented in print by the Reverend John Lane Buchanan, nominal author of "Travels in the Western Hebrides," who seems in fact, to be as very a Celt as his antagonist could possibly wish for. I am sorry to find so good a cause in the hands of such an incompetent advocate.”

“Our friend Pinkerton, I am told, to complete the infamy of his character, has turned critical reviewer, a situation, of course, which admits neither truth nor honesty. He will therefore have the pleasure of thundering his own damnation upon the heads of others, among whom, I suppose, he will take care not to forget...J. Ritson”

“From the falsehood, impudence and scurrility of The Critical Review, I conclude that Pinkerton is one of its principal authors, and particularly the gentleman to whom I and my little publication are so much obliged. You will think me too revengeful when I wish he were compelled to subscribe his name to his criticisms. The Shakspeare papers, of which you have heard so much, and which I have carefully examined, are, I can assure you, a parcel of forgeries, studiously and ably calculated to deceive the public: the imposition being, in point of art and foresight, beyond any thing of the kind that has been witnessed since the days of Annius Viterbiensis...”

“I observe with pleasure, what Mr. Herd has remarked upon the confusion made by Pinkerton of the two Pennecuiks. He has, with equal ignorance, confounded the two Hamiltons (of Bangour and Gilbertfield). But, indeed, his blunders are venial when compared with the more criminal parts of his literary and moral character.”

“I am sorry to learn the death of poor Smellie, whose name reminds me of a whimsical anecdote. In the course of a conversation one evening at the Tripe-club (when I was last in Edinburgh,) upon the aversion which the people of Scotland had formerly borne to the family at present on the throne, Smellie remarked, as an equally strong and singular instance, that they had given the royal name, Geordie, to a sir-reverence [human feces]. Now, on looking casually over "The works of Captain Alex. Ratcliffe," printed in 1696, but apparently written some years before, I find that this illustrious name had been thus lamentably degraded before the present family was heard of; from which, of course, as a loyal subject, I am anxious to remove so dirty an imputation. The actual origin of this curious appellation it is now, perhaps, impossible to ascertain.”

“I inclose you a pamphlet lately published by Stewart (he does not deserve the name of citizen) which he represented to me as the first political production of the age. I mean of course to have no further acquaintance with him...”

“I called some days since at the White Bear, but was informed that citizen Bruin was out of town. Taking a walk however on Sunday evening to Bagnigge Wells I saw him entering one of the rooms, disguised, like a gentleman, in a new white coat and an umbrella in his hand, which made me the less forward to accost him, as I presume he is no longer "the individual John" than he wears a blue coat with a red cape. Indeed, I am so disgusted with his bigotted prejudices and absurd opinions, that the continuation of our acquaintance will be owing rather to ceremony than to esteem...”

“Stewart is just arrived from America, and as mad as ever. He now proposes a course of lectures upon mental capacity, or, in other words, to teach people to think; which he seems to flatter himself will be attended with success: I am of a different opinion.”

“Mr. Fraser Tytler, who promised me to look after it, is probably dissatisfied with the manner in which I have thought myself obliged to differ from his father; but which is no other, I believe, than he himself differed from Hume and Robertson. Magis amica Veritas was his motto, and is mine.”

“It will be difficult, however, if not impracticable to form a complete collection of David Williamses publications...You probably overrate the merit of the above… Godwin says he is never without an eye to self; and, in fact, a man of talents, who can puff Velnos vegetable sirop, and fawn upon the Prince of Wales, cannot be a very virtuous character. I have a notion, indeed, that he is a plausible parasite, and that it was as much by well-managed flattery as by profound politics he insinuated himself into the good graces of the citizeness Roland.”

“For my part, I abominate mendicancy of every description, and think it much more honourable in a distressed man to hang than to beg. Besides, citizen Yorke well knows, though you may not, that the London Corresponding Society is chiefly composed of poor mechanics who find it a sufficiently hard matter to support themselves and their families, setting aside several of their members who are languishing in penury, sickness and confinement, and whose wives and children are literally perishing for want. I would therefore recommend it to you to make no more applications of this sort. Citizen Yorke is said to be a man of some property, which he has been long enough in prison to derive assistance from; but he is also said to be a lover of money, and refused to join the Scotish Convention as a delegate from one of these societies because it either would not or could not advance him beforehand as much as he insisted on. To confess the truth, the more I see of these modern patriots and philosophers the less I like them. All of them disapproved of Geralds having recourse to the Scotish advocates, though it was but to argue what we call a point of law; and yet, when their own precious existence was supposed to be in danger, they were ready enough to court the means of defence which they had before so uniformly reprobated. Their constant cant is, the force and energy of mind, to which all opposition is to be ineffectual; but none of them, I say, has ever chosen to rely upon that irresistible power in his own case. I really think that Thelwall is the best of them, and yet I find myself pretty singular in my good opinion of him. His vindication, however, let his morals be what they may, is certainly a most able and argumentative performance; perfectly adapted to the occasion; and would, I think, if actually delivered, have been well received and had its due effect: which is a great deal more than I can say in favour of citizen Holcrofts, though it has much merit, no doubt, as a composition, and may be read with more advantage than it would have been heard. Let citizen Yorke, therefore, exert himself in his own defence; he can do that surely without a fee; or if he must have a solicitor and counsel, let him openly tell the court that he has not a shilling to hire them with. But by no means let him beg...”

“Mister Yorke (for a culprit in a black silk coat does not appear to deserve the title of citizen) is certainly a very extraordinary young man: I had no idea of his being but three and twenty. All the papers that I have seen give a very imperfect account of his trial, which I shall be glad to peruse at large. . . . The sentence, however, will be a mere flea-bite, some three or four years imprisonment with a trifling fine, and so far as one is capable of judging from present appearances, will never be executed.”