The life of Thomas Ruddiman, A. M. The Keeper, for almost Fifty Years, of the library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. To which are subjoined new anecdotes of Buchanan. By George Chalmers, F. R. S. S. A.

Community breakdown

Bars show the community-aggregated score per category. Rate this book to contribute.

8vo. f. [1] (blank), pp. [6], 467, [3], f. [1] (plates). Signatures: [A]² χ1 B-2A⁸ 2B⁸(2B6+2χ1) 2C-2G⁸ 2H². Contains an engraved portrait and 2 facsimiles (1 folded). The tailpiece is the engraved bookplate of Thomas Ruddiman. In English, with some Latin. First edition. Contains extracts, printed for the first time, of the five forged ‘English Mercuries’ of 1588, allegedly the earliest of all printed newspapers. These had come to the British Museum with the Thomas Birch papers in 1766, but the Hardwicke MSS, which followed in 1794, showed them to be a jeu d’esprit by Philip Yorke, second earl of Hardwicke. Chalmers’s is the first (credulous) description of the ‘Mercuries:’ his claim (pp. 106-108), that ‘mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth, and the prudence of Burleigh, for the first news-paper,’ was echoed in numerous reference books until 1839. Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.