| Description | Volume bound in morocco with gold decoration and lettering; spine missing and requires repair; lettered on front 'Notes on Scottish Ballads'; bears William Walker's signature and date 1884 on fly-leaf; the notes were commenced in 1884 but were added to and annotated in later years after the publication of 'The Bards of Bon-Accord' (1887), when William Walker was doing research for F.J. Child for 'English and Scottish Ballads' (1882-1898), working on his own 'Peter Buchan' (1915), and examining manuscripts of Gavin Greig and James Bruce Duncan; contains:
ff. 1-94
Notes on sources of 305 ballads [as printed in F.J. Child 'English and Scottish Ballads] with summaries or plots and comments on texts made by William Walker or Child; in brackets are notes added later indicating those which are included in Gavin Greig manuscripts
ff. 95-120
Not used.
ff. 121-127r
List of contents (with notes by William Walker) of four manuscript volumes of ballads collected by Peter Buchan formerly in the possession of David Scott, Peterhead, and sold on his behalf by William Walker to Harvard University Library.
ff. 127v-131
Notes by William Walker on contents of manuscripts by Peter Buchan, 'Secret Songs of Silence... 1832', the publication of which was objected to by Mr Gorson of Fyvie, but which also passed into the hands of David Scott and was sold to Harvard University.
ff. 132-153
Notes on Scottish ballads and songs in the Roxburghe, Bagford and other collections 'to be used in vindicating our Scottish traditional literature from the attacks of Ebsworth and Henley'; heavily annotated by William Walker, some of the later entries are made in pencil as additions to the original ones.
ff. 154-163
Not used.
ff. 164v-165v
References to ballads in Shakespeare.
ff. 166-174
Alphabetical list of broadside printers, publishers and book-sellers taken from 'Bib. Lind.' [Bibliotheca Lindesiana (1890) of Earl of Crawford] and 'Roxburghe Ballads' [ed. J.W. Ebsworth, 1877-81 and 1883-93].
ff. 175-177
Notes on contents, etc. of 'Orpheus Caledonius', ed. W. Thomson, (1725), with additions from second volume of 1733 edition.
ff. 177v-178
Notes on songs in 'D'Urfey's Pills' 1790-20, [T. D'Urfey, 'Pills to purge melancholy].
ff. 179v-180
Notes on copies of publications of 'Ballad Society' owned by William Walker
ff. 181-182
Notes on some of the contents P. Buchan, 'Scarce Ancient Ballads' (1819).
ff. 184-185
Miscellaneous notes on ballad collections and collectors, including David Herd (1732-1810). |