Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jamieson, Robert (1780?-1844)
JAMIESON, ROBERT (1780?–1844), antiquary and ballad collector, born about 1780, was a native of Morayshire, and was early appointed an assistant classical teacher at Macclesfield, Cheshire. There he designed a collection of Scottish ballads illustrative of character and manners, and he was engaged upon it for several years after 1800 both in England and while teaching in Riga. Writing to the ‘Scots Magazine’ in 1803 he announced the early completion of his work, mentioning at the same time his indebtedness to the friendship of Sir Walter Scott, whose ‘Border Minstrelsy’ omitted ‘much curious and valuable matter’ which he had collected (Border Minstrelsy, i. 81). He published in 1806 two volumes entitled ‘Popular Ballads and Songs, from Tradition, Manuscript, and scarce editions, with Translations of similar Pieces from the antient Danish Language and a few Originals by the Editor.’ Returning to Scotland in 1808 Jamieson became, through Scott's influence, assistant to the depute-clerk-register in the General Register House, Edinburgh, and he held the post for thirty-six years. He died in London, 24 Sept. 1844.
Scott, who held a high opinion of Jamieson, emphasized (ib. i. 82) his discovery of the undoubted kinship between Scandinavian and Scottish story, ‘a circumstance,’ he adds, ‘which no antiquary had hitherto so much as suspected.’ Like Scott's ‘Minstrelsy,’ Jamieson's ‘Ballads’ worthily preserve oral tradition, many of them being transcripts from recitations of an aged Mrs. Brown in Falkland, Fifeshire; they give spirited and instructive versions of northern ballads; they are annotated with scholarship and taste; and in the original section Jamieson's lyrics ‘The Quern Lilt’ and ‘My Wife's a winsome wee thing’ secure for him a place among minor Scottish singers. In addition to his ‘Popular Ballads’ Jamieson was, together with Henry Weber and Sir Walter Scott, responsible for the ‘Illustrations of Northern Antiquities’ (Edinburgh, 1814, roy. 4to), and in 1818 he prepared a new edition of Edward Burt's ‘Letters from the North’ (London, 1818, 2 vols. 8vo), to which Scott again contributed (Life, iv. 220).
[Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents; Rogers's Scottish Minstrel; J. Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland.]