Historical SourcePublic Domain
A Collection of the Newest Country Dances Performed in Scotland, written by Mr. David Rutherford — Caledonian Country Dances, published by John Johnson, Cheapside, London (c.1750)
Publisher: John Johnson, at the Harp and Crown, Opposite Bow Church, in Cheapside, London (fl. 1740-1763). Source: IMSLP scan (DATA/LIBRARY_OF_DANCE/ABBYY TXT/1750-Johnson-Caledonian_(IMSLP).txt, 30.5 KB OCR; heavy engraved-plate overlap in figure-body sections, dance-title heads only partially recoverable). CONTEXT: A Johnson-imprint competitor to John Walsh's 1748 Caledonian Country Dances (LOC-1748-WALSH-CALEDONIAN). Walsh's 1748 Caledonian volume established the London-market template for Scotch country-dance publication; Johnson's c.1750 Cheapside reissue/reworking positions him within the Walsh-successor publisher-competition cluster alongside Bremner (Edinburgh), Oswald (London), and later Randall (LOC-1771-RANDALL). Johnson's own country-dance annual series 1766+ (LOC-1766-JOHNSON) continues the franchise. STRUCTURE: Longways-for-as-many-as-will country-dance format; each dance consists of an engraved tune (treble + figured bass for harpsichord/violin/German flute/hautboy) plus 3-6 lines of figure-prose directly beneath the tune. Playford-lineage notation (cast off, cross over, lead down the middle, hands a-cross, set corners, right-hand and left, turn partner, back-to-back, allemande). OCR-RECOVERABLE DANCE HEADS (in Johnson 1750) overlapping the Walsh 1748 Caledonian roster: Stewards Rant, Down the Burn Davie, Fairly shot on her, Black as a Cole, Bonny Lass [take a Man], Hare in the Corn, Mac Fosset's farewell, Butter'd Peas, Hambletons Rant, Fiddle Faddle, Jack Latin, The Lass of Livingston, Border Reel (Barrier Reel OCR variant), Reel of Glames (Iio Reel OCR variant), Suiters of Selkerke (partial 'Suiter' OCR), Kick the World before me, Rosemary Lane, My ain kind Deary, Each Strain Once/Twice markers (notation convention, not dance titles). HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE: documents the mid-century Scotch-tune country-dance corpus in a NON-WALSH imprint — a Cheapside competitor to the Walsh-Catherine-Street imprint — bridging Walsh 1748 Caledonian and the Bremner 1757 / Edinburgh-Scottish-commercial-publishing tradition. ROSETTA-STONE VALUE: ~10-15 cross-syllabus Rosetta to existing H-REG-ECD Walsh-1748-Caledonian canonicals (H-REG-ECD-F1564..F1607); establishes that the Walsh 1748 Caledonian repertory was already circulating in competing London imprints within 2 years. Has_Step_Detail = Partial: figure-level longways prose is extractable at figure-sequence level for ~10 dances; the remaining ~20 engraved plates have plate-overlap OCR corruption; no step-level foot-position tables (consistent with the English country-dance notation convention of the period).Year: 1750Family: johnsonCatalog: local
Dance manual/reference by John Johnson, at the Harp and Crown, Opposite Bow Church, in Cheapside, London (fl. 1740-1763). Source: IMSLP scan (DATA/LIBRARY_OF_DANCE/ABBYY TXT/1750-Johnson-Caledonian_(IMSLP).txt, 30.5 KB OCR; heavy engraved-plate overlap in figure-body sections, dance-title heads only partially recoverable). CONTEXT: A Johnson-imprint competitor to John Walsh's 1748 Caledonian Country Dances (LOC-1748-WALSH-CALEDONIAN). Walsh's 1748 Caledonian volume established the London-market template for Scotch country-dance publication; Johnson's c.1750 Cheapside reissue/reworking positions him within the Walsh-successor publisher-competition cluster alongside Bremner (Edinburgh), Oswald (London), and later Randall (LOC-1771-RANDALL). Johnson's own country-dance annual series 1766+ (LOC-1766-JOHNSON) continues the franchise. STRUCTURE: Longways-for-as-many-as-will country-dance format; each dance consists of an engraved tune (treble + figured bass for harpsichord/violin/German flute/hautboy) plus 3-6 lines of figure-prose directly beneath the tune. Playford-lineage notation (cast off, cross over, lead down the middle, hands a-cross, set corners, right-hand and left, turn partner, back-to-back, allemande). OCR-RECOVERABLE DANCE HEADS (in Johnson 1750) overlapping the Walsh 1748 Caledonian roster: Stewards Rant, Down the Burn Davie, Fairly shot on her, Black as a Cole, Bonny Lass [take a Man], Hare in the Corn, Mac Fosset's farewell, Butter'd Peas, Hambletons Rant, Fiddle Faddle, Jack Latin, The Lass of Livingston, Border Reel (Barrier Reel OCR variant), Reel of Glames (Iio Reel OCR variant), Suiters of Selkerke (partial 'Suiter' OCR), Kick the World before me, Rosemary Lane, My ain kind Deary, Each Strain Once/Twice markers (notation convention, not dance titles). HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE: documents the mid-century Scotch-tune country-dance corpus in a NON-WALSH imprint — a Cheapside competitor to the Walsh-Catherine-Street imprint — bridging Walsh 1748 Caledonian and the Bremner 1757 / Edinburgh-Scottish-commercial-publishing tradition. ROSETTA-STONE VALUE: ~10-15 cross-syllabus Rosetta to existing H-REG-ECD Walsh-1748-Caledonian canonicals (H-REG-ECD-F1564..F1607); establishes that the Walsh 1748 Caledonian repertory was already circulating in competing London imprints within 2 years. Has_Step_Detail = Partial: figure-level longways prose is extractable at figure-sequence level for ~10 dances; the remaining ~20 engraved plates have plate-overlap OCR corruption; no step-level foot-position tables (consistent with the English country-dance notation convention of the period). (1750). Imported from local collection.