this depressing diet he adhered, in the face of much ridicule, until death, and it was doubtless in part responsible for the moroseness of temper which characterised his later years. At Stockton he formed, however, some warm friendships with men of literary or artistic tastes, who included Shield, the musical composer, and the writers Thomas Holcroft, John Cunningham, and Joseph Reed. He also came to know George Allan [q. v.] of Darlington and Robert Surtees [q. v.], who encouraged his antiquarian proclivities. In 1773 he made an archæological tour in Scotland, and acquired an antipathy to Scotsmen. During the same period he journeyed on foot to London with ‘a couple of shirts in his pocket.’
In 1775 he settled in London as managing clerk to Messrs. Masterman & Lloyd, conveyancers, of Gray's Inn. In 1780 he began business as a conveyancer on his own account, and took first-floor chambers in Gray's Inn, which he occupied for the rest of his days. In May 1784 he was appointed high bailiff of the liberty of the Savoy, and he received a patent of the post for life in 1786. He was much interested in the history of the office, and printed in 1789 ‘Digest of the Proceedings of the Court Leet of the Manor and Liberty of the Savoy from 1682.’ At Easter 1784 he had entered himself as a student of Gray's Inn, and he was called to the bar five years later. He paid frequent visits to Stockton, and maintained an affectionate correspondence with his family and friends there. In July 1785 he took his nephew Joseph Frank to live with him with a view to educating him for his own profession, and, probably for his benefit, published ‘The Spartan Manual or Tablet of Morality’ (1785), a collection of unexceptionable moral precepts. In 1791 he proved his devotion to his profession by publishing two valuable tracts on ‘the Office of Constable’ (2nd edit. 1815) and ‘the Jurisdiction of the Court Leet’ (2nd edit. 1809; 3rd edit. 1816).
Meanwhile Ritson zealously studied English literature and history, and especially ballad poetry. He was a regular reader at the British Museum. In October 1779 he paid a first visit to the Bodleian Library, and in July 1782 he spent some weeks at Cambridge, where he made Dr. Farmer's acquaintance. His studious habits confirmed his wayward and eccentric temper, and his passion for minute accuracy often degenerated into pedantry. He soon adopted an original and erratic mode of spelling, in which it is difficult to detect any scientific system (cf. Letters, i. 203–5). It was apparently intended to rest on a phonetic basis, but is chiefly characterised by a duplication of the letter ‘e’ at the close of words, as in ‘ageës,’ ‘romanceës,’ ‘writeërs.’ Pall Mall became ‘Pel Mel,’ Mr. ‘mister,’ and capital ‘I's’ were disallowed. In 1778 Ritson avowed himself a confirmed Jacobite, and privately printed as a broadside elaborate tables showing the descent of the crown of England in the Stuart line. In 1780 he is said to have edited a second edition of the scurrilous ‘Odes of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.’ In 1781 he issued at Newcastle ‘The Stockton Jubilee, or Shakespeare in all his Glory,’ an unwarrantable satire on the chief inhabitants of his native town. In 1782 he entered on more serious work, and published ‘Observations on the three first volumes of the “History of English Poetry,”’ in the form of an anonymous ‘familiar letter to the author,’ Thomas Warton. Although he convicted Warton of many errors, especially in his interpretation of early English, his disregard of the decencies of literary controversy roused a storm of resentment (cf. Brydges, Restituta, iv. 137). A controversy followed in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine;’ in this he took part, but showed no sign of repentance. When Warton's death was announced in 1790, he expressed, however, some remorse for his lack of ‘reverence’ (Letters, i. 169). With similar virulence he assailed in 1783 Johnson's and Steevens's edition of Shakespeare of 1778 in ‘Remarks Critical and Illustrative on the Text of the last Edition of Shakespeare.’ Ritson displayed a thorough knowledge of his theme, but his corrections were made with offensive assurance and were often of trifling value (cf. St. James's Chronicle, 1783). He seems to have once met Dr. Johnson, whom, as an editor, he now accused of ‘pride of place.’ To give more convincing proof of Steevens's shortcomings, he projected an edition of Shakespeare on his own account, but he printed only two sheets of the ‘Comedy of Errors’ in 1787, and thenceforth contented himself with extensively annotating Johnson's and Steevens's edition for his private satisfaction. But he characteristically pursued with adverse criticism all Steevens's editorial successors. Isaac Reed [q. v.] in his edition of Shakespeare of 1785 treated him, he complained, with marked disrespect (Letters, i. 105–8); and when the ‘Critical Review’ commended Reed's work, he scornfully attacked it in ‘The Quip Modest’ (1788). He extended an equally captious reception to Malone's edition of 1790, in a tract entitled ‘Cursory Criticisms’ ‘addressed to the monthly and critical reviewers’ in 1792. Malone replied in a letter to Dr. Farmer. In 1795 Ritson summarily detected
