Author: [TYTLER (William)]:
Title: Poetical Remains of James the First, King of Scotland. [AND] Dissertation on the Scottish Music.
Description: Edinburgh: Printed for J. and E. Balfour, 1783. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 228 x 140 mms., pp. [viii], 246, original boards (slightly soiled), uncut, paper spine; no leaves beofre title-page, front joint a little tender, but a good to very good copy, with the 20th century bookplate of Mr. William Maomath on the front paste-down end-paper, and the inscription of the top margin of the title-page, "J. S. Godden (bought Edinburgh Festival 1947)." Tytler (1711 - 1792) is well-known to historians and scholars for his first book, An Inquiry, Historical and Critical, into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots (1760). In this work, he publishes for the first time the text of "The Kingis Quair" from a manuscript rediscovered in the Bodleian Library in about 1783, to which he was alerted by Thomas Percy. Of equal, if not greater interest, is the "Dissertation on the Scottish Music," pp. 195 - 246, which makes an attempt to trace the history of music performance and composition in Scotland. A member and director of the Edinburgh Musical Society (founded 1728); he was himself a harpsichordist and flautist.

Keywords: poetry music prose Scottish Enlightenment


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