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HISTORY OF PRINTING.
1631, May 28. John Hunt, editor of the Examiner, sentenced to two years' imprisonmeDl and securities, for an alleged libel on the house of commons.
1821, June 1. J. T. Woollkb, editor of the Black Dwarf, sentenced by the court of king^s bench to fifteen months' imprisonment for at- tending a reform meeting at Birmingham, and to find sureties for his good behaviour, himself in £400, and two sureties in £200 each.
1821, June 16. Died, John BallaNtvne, a celebrated printer and bookseller, of Edinburgh. He was the son of a merchant at Kelso, where he was born and educated. In his youth he dis- played an extraordinary quickness of mind as betokened the general ability by which he was to be distinguished in after life. While still a young man liis mind was turned tt> literary con- cerns, by the establishment of a provincial news- paper, the KeUo Mail, which was begun by his elder brother James. The distinction acquired by bis brother in consequence of some improve- ments in printing, by wnich there issued from a Scottish provincial press a series of books rival- ing in elegance ana accurate taste the produc- tions of a Baskerville or a Bensley, caused the removal of both to Edinburgh about the begin- ning of the present century; but the active intel- lect of John Ballantyne was not to be confined to the dusky shades of the printing-house. He embarked largely in the bookselling trade, and subsequentiy in the profession of an uictioneer of works of art, libraries, ikc. The connection which he and his brother had established at Kelso with sir Walter Scott, whose Minstrelsy of the Seottitk Border,* 1800, was printed by them, continued in the more extensive scene, and, ac- cordingly, during the earlier and more interest- ing years of the career of the author of Waver- ley, John Ballantyne acted as the confidant of that mysterious writer, and managed all the business of the communication of his works to the public. Some of these works were published by John Ballantyne, who also issued two dif- ferent periodical works written chiefly by sir Walter Scott, entiUed respectively the Vitionary\ and the Sale Rooml of which the latter had a
- It Is generaUy allowed that a disposition to depart
(torn the polished and fonnal style of versification owed its rise, In no small measure, to the several collections which appeared during the eighteenth centory. A pane- ETrlcal criticism on the ballad of Chevj/ Chate, which Addison pobllsbed in the Spectator, is ulowed to have been the first instance of any specimen of that kind of poetry bring noticed with commendation by a scholarly writer. The Betigues of Dr. Percy, and the large collec- tions of Mr. Evans the bookseller, published in 1777, with the MinttreUy of Scott, had a very marked effect upon the forms and styles of poetry, being chiefly observable in the compositions of Coleridge, Sonthey, and Words- worth. But before that time there bad appeared several eminent poets, whose compositions betrayed that a break- ing np of the old style had already commenced.
t In this paper, Inserted in the Eiiniurgh Weekly Jmimai, sir Walter Scott endeavoured to prove the ab- surdity of the popular excitement In favour of a more extended kind of parliamentary representation. How- ever well intended, these papers were not by any means happy specimens of polltusl disquisition.
t A periodical after the manner of the Spectator, but was soon dropped for want of encouragement.
reference to Mr. Ballantyne's trade. It is also worthy of notice, that the large edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, which ap- peared under the name of Walter Scott as editor, and which we may presume to say, reflects no inconsiderable credit upon the Scottish press, was an enterprise undertaken at the sueaestion and risk of this spirited publisher. Mr. Ballan- tyne himself made one excursion into the field of letters; he was the author of a tolerably sprightiy novel, in two thin duodecimos, styled the Widoio't Lfodgingt, which reached a second edition, — and by which, he used to boast in a jocular manner— he made no less a sum than thirty pounds. It was not, however, as an author that Mr. Ballantyne chiefly shone — his foite was story-telling. As a 'conteur, he was allowed to be unrivalled by any known cotemporary, possessing an infinite fund of ludicrous and cha- racteristio anecdote, which he could set off with a humour endless in the variety of its shades and tones; he was entirely one of those beings who seemed to have been designed by nature for the task, now abrogated, of enlivening the formalities and alleviating the cares of a court; he was Yorick revived. After pursuing a labo- rious and successful business for several years, declining health obliged him to travel on the continent, and finally to retire to a seat in the neighbourhood of Melrose. He had been mar- ried, at an early age, to Miss Parker, a beautiiiil young lady, a relative of Dr. RutheHbrd, author of the the View of Ancient History, and other esteemed works. This union was not blessed with any children. In his Melrose rustication, he started the publication of a large and beau- tiful edition of the British Novelists,* as an easy occupation to divert the languor of illness, and fill up those vacancies in time which were apt to contrast with the former habits of busy life. The works of the various novelists were here amassed into large volumes, to which sir Walter Scott furnished biographical prefaces. But the trial was brief. While flattering himself with the hope that his frame was invigorated by change of air and exercise, death stepped in and relt the world of as joyous a spirit as ever brightened its sphere, at about the age of forty-five yean ; and it mav be with truth affirmed, Uiat of all the remarkable men, by whom this name in its various orthographical appearances has been borne, not the least worthy of notice is John Ballantyne, the printer, of Edinburgh.
1821, June 22. The Observer, Sunday news- paper, sold 61,500 double papers, containing as account of the coronation o£^ George IV • con- suming 133,000 fourpenny stamps, and produc- ing to the revenue upwards of £2,000.
1821,iV(w. 24. Thomas Robert Wbavee, printer, and Thomas Arrow^mith and Wil- liam Shackle, alleged proprietors of the Jokm Bull, sentenced by the court of king's bench —
• Completed by sir Walter Scott.
t George IV. was crowned in Westminster abbey, Joly IS, 1831, the expenses of wbich were j«^3g,OIIO, the king's dress alone coat j^34,000.
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