and Malicious Libel published by one Mr. James Man,’ 1754; and when the ‘Monthly Review’ in some measure supported Man, Ruddiman printed ‘Audi Alteram Partem, or a further Vindication of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman's edition of Buchanan's Works from the many gross and vile reproaches unjustly thrown upon it by Mr. James Man,’ 1756. Soon afterwards (19 Jan. 1757) Ruddiman died at Edinburgh, in his eighty-third year, and was buried in the Greyfriars churchyard. A tablet to his memory was erected in the New Greyfriars Church in 1806 by his relative, Dr. William Ruddiman. A catalogue of his library, which was sold at Edinburgh in February 1758, was compiled by Ruddiman under the title ‘Bibliotheca Romana,’ 1757. Two portraits of Ruddiman are in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; one is anonymous, and the other, perhaps a copy of the first, is by the Earl of Buchan. A portrait, engraved by Bartolozzi from a painting by De Nune, is given in Chalmers's ‘Life of Ruddiman.’
In 1756 Ruddiman had obtained a patent for the sole printing of his ‘Rudiments’ and ‘Latin Grammar.’ In 1758 Rivington published a pirated edition of the ‘Rudiments;’ but on being threatened with chancery proceedings, he handed over all the copies to Ruddiman's widow. The seventeenth edition (twenty thousand copies) was printed shortly before Mrs. Ruddiman's death in October 1769, and next year John Robertson of Edinburgh printed ten thousand copies, contending that the patent of 1756, for fourteen years, had expired. The trustees, who said they had a right at common law, brought an action against Robertson in 1771 (Information for John Mackenzie of Delvine, &c., trustees, 30 Nov. 1771). In his reply Robertson said that much of Ruddiman's work was taken from older writers without alteration.
Dr. Johnson directed that a copy of the ‘Rambler’ should be sent to Ruddiman, ‘of whom I hear that his learning is not his highest excellence.’ Boswell thought of writing a life of Ruddiman, and Johnson said, ‘I should take pleasure in helping you to do honour to him.’ In 1773 Boswell and Johnson visited Laurencekirk, and ‘respectfully remembered that excellent man and eminent scholar,’ Ruddiman, who had taught there.
Ruddiman was thrice married: first, in 1701, Barbara Scollay, daughter of a gentleman in the Orkneys (she died in 1710, and her two children, who survived her, died in infancy); secondly, in 1711, Janet (d. 1727), daughter of John Horsburgh, sheriff-clerk of Fifeshire (by her, who died in 1727, Ruddiman had a son Thomas Ruddiman, born on 4 Jan. 1714–1747, who became principal manager of the ‘Caledonian Mercury’ and was imprisoned in 1746 because of its advocacy of the Jacobite cause; his discharge was obtained by his father's friends, but he died on 9 Sept. 1747 from disease contracted in prison,) Ruddiman married, on 29 Sept. 1729, his third wife, Anne Smith, daughter of an Edinburgh woollendraper, who survived him.
[The best account of Ruddiman is contained in the very diffuse life published by George Chalmers in 1794. See also Scots Magazine, 1747 p. 455, 1757 p. 54, 1770 p. 458; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. vii. 280; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 622, 693, and Lit. Illustr. iv. 235–9; Boswell's Johnson; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen; Jervise's Epitaphs and Inscriptions in the North-East of Scotland, i. 11, 201, 289; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 532, 5th Rep. p. 627. A letter from Ruddiman to a bookseller to whom he had rendered literary assitance is in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 4317, No. 71.]
RUDGE, EDWARD (1763–1846), botanist and antiquary, born on 27 June 1763, was son of Edward Rudge, a merchant and alderman of Salisbury, who possessed a large portion of the abbey estate at Evesham. He matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 11 Oct. 1781, but took no degree. His attention was early turned to botany, through the influence of his uncle, Samuel Rudge (d. 1817), a retired barrister, who formed an herbarium, which passed to his nephew. His uncle's encouragement and the purchase of a fine series of plants from Guiana, collected by M. Martin, led Rudge to study the flora of that country, and to publish between 1805 and 1807 ‘Plantarum Guianæ rariorum icones et descriptiones hactenus ineditæ,’ fol. London.
Between 1811 and 1834 he conducted a series of excavations in those portions of the Evesham abbey estate under his control, and communicated the results to the Society of Antiquaries, who figured the ruins and relics discovered in their ‘Vetusta Monumenta,’ accompanied by a memoir from Rudge's son. ln 1842 he erected an octagon tower on the battlefield of Evesham, commemorative of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester.
Rudge was at an early period elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and was elected to the Linnean Society in 1802, and to the Royal Society in 1805. In 1829 he was sheriff of Worcestershire. He died at the Abbey Manor House, Evesham, on 3 Sept. 1846. He married twice. A genus of the botanical order Rubiaceæ was named Rudgea
