The gentle shepherd, a Scotch pastoral ... Attempted in English by Margaret Turner

London: printed for the author, by T. Bensley; and sold by G. Nicol, Bookseller to His Majesty, in Pall-Mall; and by Mrs. Turner, No. 56, Upper Horton Street, Portland Road, 1790. First edition of this translation, 8vo, pp. viii, xi (subscriber list), [2], 103, 103 (English and Scottish text parallel on facing pages), [1], 6, [2] errata; original blue paper-covered boards, cream paper shelfback, manuscript title on spine; small paper shelf label at the foot of the spine; lightly rubbed, spine a little darkened, else very good. With the contemporary ownership signature of "Tweeddale" on title page - Marquis of Tweedale appears in the subscriber list. Ramsay (truncated) (1686-1758), not to be confused with the portrait artist of the same name - his son - was by turns a wig-maker, poet, bookseller, publisher, editor, and playwright. He was an vocal promoter of Scots poetry and poets. His own chief composition was The Gentle Sheperd, first printed in 1725, a work that attained great popularity but went for many years without being translated into English. In her preface, Margaret Turner makes clear "it is a great disadvantage to this beautiful poem that it is written in the old rustic dialect of Scotland, which, in a short time, will probably be entirely obsolete, and not intelligible." Lowndes indicates that there were two English versions that preceded this one, one by Cornelius Vanderstop in 1777, and one by W. Ward in 1785. Given the fact that "Tweeddale" appears on the title page, the fact that John, Charles, and James Hay are listed among the book's subscribers, and the fact that members of the Hay family had for many years been marquises of Tweedale, there is a very strong likelihood that this is a subscriber's copy. (Inventory #: 66979)