‘Observations on the Three First Volumes of the History of English Poetry in a Familiar Letter to the Author’, 1782

Joseph Ritson (1752–1803) was a combative and eccentric antiquary and a morose vegetarian, editor of important collections of popular poetry, and author of many works consulted with profit by students of the literary tradition, for example, ‘Bibliographia Poetica’ (1802). His censure of Warton's ‘History’ was based on his opinion that it was ‘a tolerable specimen of the numerous errors, falsities, and plagiarisms, of which he had been guilty in the course of his History’. For the benefit of those influenced by Warton's tolerant account of Marlowe's opinions, he reproduced, after the preface below, the ‘Note’ of Richard Baines (No. 4).