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Select Scotish Songs [sic]

Primary artist: Weir, Walter · 1740-1818Papermaker: Whatman, James, the younger · 1741-1798Papermaker: Van GelderPrintmaker: Beugo, John · 1759-1841Publisher: Foulis, Andrew · 1755-1829Printmaker: Allan, David · 1744-1796

Select Scotish Songs [sic]

The book is printed on a mixture of watermarked Van Gelder and Whatman 1794 laid papers, though not for any of the plates which are on plain…

The book is printed on a mixture of watermarked Van Gelder and Whatman 1794 laid papers, though not for any of the plates which are on plain paper.
The frontis is an oval image but the top edge is trimmed by what appears to be the embossed traces of an earlier defaced inscription [Alexander Campbell/ ……./] having been erased from the plate before it was printed here. [Probably relating to either Odes & Miscellaneous Poems by a Student of Medicine at the Unversity of Edinburgh, [Alexander Campbell 1764-1824], London, 1796 OR Campbell’s An Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland From the Beginning of the Thirteenth Century Down to the Present Time….. A Foulis, Edinburgh, 1798, illus with engravings by D Allan.]
The plates [?minus the frontis] were reissued by Foulis the same year [1799] in his volume Sangs of the Lowlands of Scotland, carefully compared with the original Editions, and Embellished with Characteristic Designs Composed and Engraved by the late David Allan Esq Historical Painter. (vide photocopy of copy in NLS supplied by Helen Smailes, NGS)
See also RSA 1994.205 Album of Original Designs for Scottish Songs by David Allan for Geo. Thomson. Amongst the 62 original drawings the following relate directly to plates in the present volume though all are inscribed in pencil in a later hand “not etched”;
No.37 Barbara Allan cf. Plate 5; No.41 Get up and bar the Door cf. Plate 2; No.51 Robt Bruce cf. Plate 8; No.52 Widow are ye Waking? cf Plate 2; No.58 Sheriffmuir cf Plate 7; No.62 cf Plate 1; whilst No.40 is a companion to the scene depicted in Plate 4.