First edition, scarce, possibly the dedication copy though subsequently defaced, of this collection of poems by ‘The Berwickshire Ploughman’.

Hewit (1778–1850) had a briefly early career in the navy and army before becoming a poetical ploughman, publishing his first collection Poems on various subjects, Scots and English in 1798. A second collection Poems on various subjects, chiefly Scottish appeared in 1807, from which sixteen pieces are reprinted here; the other twenty-three poems are new and include some ‘Lines to Sir W. Scott’ and ‘… to Auld Reekie’.

The inscription would appear to read ‘George Baillie? Esq. … the gift of the author … July 24’ – the printed dedication was to Baillie, Vice-Lieutenant of Berwickshire, as ‘patron of these rustic lays’. Its later owner Peter Hogg seems to have had little interest in this provenance but great love for the book itself.

Edinburgh, NLS, and Bodley only in Library Hub.

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