notes, with many additions, in his Select Scottish Songs, 1810. He begins the Preface thus:-'The following Remarks from the pen of Burns appeared in the publiIcation of The Reliques', which is untrue, for all the additions were written either by himself or by his friend in deception, Allan Cunningham. The notes in Cromek's Reliques (pp. 195–306) have had a free run of one hundred years. Nearly every published work of the Songs of Burns during that period contains more or less of the notes. Hogg and Motherwell, Cunningham, Chambers, Scott-Douglas, and Henley incorporated them bodily into their editions of the Works of Burns, as none of these editors had seen the Interleaved Museum, nor had means to correct them. While my Songs of Burns was going through the press I discovered the volumes with the MS. notes in the possession of Miss Oakshott, of Arundel Square, Barnsbury, London, who had inherited the library of a book collector, A. F. Nichols, for whom she was housekeeper for many years. Nichols had bought them about the year 1871 from Mr. John Salkeld, bookseller, London. He acquired them with other Burns volumes as a job lot, but discovered their value and catalogued the lot at £110. The Interleaved Museum was bought at Sotheby's auction on October 30, 1903, by Mr. Quaritch, Piccadilly, who has since sold them to Mr. George C. Thomas, of Philadelphia, in whose possession they now are. The previous history of the volumes is briefly this:After Riddell's death, in 1794, they passed to Mrs. Riddell, his wife, who removed to Edinburgh. She gave them to Miss Eliza Bayley, of Manchester, her niece, and while they were in her possession Cromek examined them. How she parted with them, and how they came to London, is not known. I was permitted by Miss Oakshott, in October, 1902, to take a complete copy of the Notes, with permission to use them, and while in the hands of the auctioneer I corrected my copy with the owner's authority. The printed proofs have been generously revised by the present owner of the volumes, and with his consent and on my responsibility these Notes of Burns are now published as a verbatim copy from the Interleaved Museum, with the sole object of putting on record what Burns is really responsible for writing. |