Thomas Ruddiman, the editor of this work, was a printer, classical scholar, and a librarian. As a Scottish patriot, he was proud to print a new edition of Gavin Douglas’ Scots translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, and he also added an extensive glossary. Ruddiman’s most famous work was Rudiments of the Latin Tongue, of which fifteen editions were published during his lifetime. It went on to become the standard Latin grammar in schools for the rest of the eighteenth century. During his later time as keeper at the Advocates’ Library, Ruddiman more than doubled the library’s 9000 volumes. His successor as keeper was well-known philosopher David Hume.
Ruddiman was a Jacobite and an Episcopalian. He edited the work of George Buchanan, a Presbyterian who was critical toward the monarchy and the Catholic clergy. Because of their ideological differences, Ruddiman’s commentary on Buchanan’s text shows some thinly-veiled attempts to bring down his reputation. He received some pushback for this commentary, most notably from the Edinburgh professors who formed the “Society of the Scholars of Edinburgh, to vindicate that incomparably learned and pious author [Buchanan] from the calumy of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman,” and from James Man, who published A censure and examination of Mr Thomas Ruddiman's philological notes on the works of the great Buchanan. In response to the latter, Ruddiman wrote a book called Anticrisis, or, A Discussion of a Scurrilous and Malicious Libel.
This text, Grammaticae Latinae institutiones, Ruddiman attempts to make decisions on disputed grammatical features of the Latin language. Ruddiman’s research for this work required him to comb through over seventy Latin grammars. The text, written completely in Latin, is intended for the most learned classical scholars.
Bibliography:
G. A. Aitkin. (n.d.). Ruddiman, Thomas (1674–1757). In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/odnb/9780192683120.013.24249
Man, James. A censure and examination of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman’s philological notes on the works of the Great Buchanan. Edinburgh, 1753.
Ruddiman, Thomas. Anticrisis: Or, A Discussion of a Scurrilous and Malicious Libel. T. and W. Ruddiman, 1754.
Ruddiman, Thomas. The Rudiments of the Latin Tongue. Edinburgh, 1714.
Ruddiman, Thomas (1674–1757). (2010). In The Oxford Companion to the Book (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
Verhaart, F. (2020), 57-60. Classical learning in Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic, 1690-1750 : beyond the ancients and the moderns / Floris Verhaart. (First edition.). Oxford University Press.