THE BALLANTYNE PRESS AND ITS FOUNDERS.
The Ballantyne Press and its Pounders. (Ballantyne, Hanson, and Co., Edinburgh.)—James Ballantyne, born at Kelso in 1772, became in 1796 tho editor and manager of the Kelso Mail, still, we are glad to say, a flourishing newspaper. In 1799 Walter Scott, a school friend of Ballantyne, came to Kelso in the course of a ballad hunt, and suggested that the type employed for the Mail might be utilised during the week. The suggestion was adopted, and twelve copies of some ballads, chiefly of Scott's writing, were printed. (A copy was sold in 1894 at a very moderato price, though enriched with Thomas Campbell's auto- graph.) In 1801 the "Memoirs of Joseph Boruwlaski" (a Polish dwarf) were published, and in tho following year the first two volumes of "Border Minstrelsy." The printing was much admired, and brought about the removal of the Press to Edinburgh in 1800. After some migrations it found a home in "Paul's Work," near the foot of Leith Wynd, and there it remained till, expansion on the spot being prevented by the neighbourhood of the North British Railway, it was removed in 1870 to the Newington district. One of the earliest productions of the Press in its new abode was the third volume of " Border Minstrelsy." Sir Walter Scott was the Jupiter Indigos of the place. His works, first the poems and then the novels, made it famous ; and it was he who brought about the great trouble which overtook it. It is true that unremunerativo books were published by it, but it was largely at his recommendation. It is true also that John Ballantyne had no head for business. But it was the land-hunger of the great writer that was the real cause. Lockhart, who made a cruel attack on the Ballantyno brothers, finally acknowledged as much. This is an interesting book, well illustrated, and printed in a style that becomes its origin.
Previous page
