Джон Пинкертон: Жизнь и творчество шотландского антиквара и историка.

Scottish antiquarian

John Pinkerton (17 February 1758 – 10 March 1826) was a Scottish antiquarian, cartographer, author, numismatist, historian, and early advocate of Germanic racial supremacy theory. He was born in Edinburgh, as one of three sons to James Pinkerton and Mary (nee Heron or Bowie) Pinkerton. He lived in the neighbourhood of that city for some of his earliest childhood years, but later moved to Lanark. His studious youth brought him extensive knowledge of the Classics, and it is known that in his childhood years he enjoyed translating Roman authors such as Livy. He moved on to Edinburgh University, and after graduating, remained in the city to take up an apprenticeship in Law. However, his scholarly inclinations led him to abandon the legal profession after he began writing Elegy on Craigmillar Castle, first published in 1776.

In 1781, Pinkerton moved to London, where his full career as a writer began in earnest, publishing in the same year a volume of Rimes of no great merit, and Scottish Tragic Ballads. These were followed in 1782 by Two Dithyrambic Odes on Enthusiasm and Laughter, and by a series of Tales in Verse. Under the title of Select Scottish Ballads he reprinted in 1783 his tragic ballads, with a supplement comprising Ballads of the Comic Kind. Joseph Ritson pointed out in 1784 that the so called ancient ballads were some of them of modern date, and Pinkerton admitted that he was the author of the second part of Hardy Kanute and part author of some others. He published an Essay on Medals in 1784, and in 1785, under the pseudonym of "Robert Heron", his bold but eccentric Letters of Literature depreciating the classical authors of Greece and Rome. In 1786 he edited Ancient Scottish Poems from the manuscript collections of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington. It was succeeded in 1787 by a compilation, under the new pseudonym of "H. Bennet" entitled The Treasury of Wit, and by his first important historical work, the Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths, to which Gibbon acknowledged himself indebted. His edition of Barbour's Bruce and a Medallic History of England to the Revolution appeared in 1790; a collection of Scottish poems reprinted from scarce editions in 1792; and a series of biographical sketches, the Iconographia scotica, in the years 1795 to 1797. In 1797 he published a History of Scotland from the Accession of the House of Stuart to that of Mary (which includes an edition of The Dethe of the Kynge of Scotis). A new biographical collection, the Gallery of Eminent Persons of Scotland (1799), was succeeded after a short interval by a Modern Geography digested on a New Plan (1802; enlarged 1807).

Some of Pinkerton's collection of books and maps was sold at auction in London, by Leigh & Sotheby, on 7 January 1813 (and 6 following days); a copy of the catalogue is held at Cambridge University Library (shelfmark Munby. c.159(1)). About 1818 he left London for Paris, where he made his headquarters until his death on 10 March 1826. He spent his later years impoverished. His remaining publications were the Recollections of Paris in the years 1802–5 (1806); a very useful General Collection of Voyages and Travels (1808–1814); a New Modern Atlas (1808–1819); and his Petralogy (1811).

Ferguson, William, The Identity of the Scottish Nation: An Historic Quest, (Edinburgh, 1998), pp. 250–273. Patrick O'Flaherty: Scotland's pariah : the life and work of John Pinkerton, 1758 1826, Toronto [u. a.] : Univ. of Toronto Press, 2015,