Note 11b — MR. LELAND ON THE GIPSIES. [11a]

I endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to get another reading of this book before saying that “no reference was made in it to mine.” I alluded, from memory, to my part of it. On examination I find that the only indirect reference to it is the following:—“Mr. Simson, in his History of the Gipsies [that is, in the Disquisition on the Gipsies] asserts that there is not a tinker or scissors-grinder in Great Britain that cannot talk this language; and my own experience agrees with his declaration, to this extent—that they all have some knowledge of it, or claim to have it, however slight it may be,” (p. 4). I did not express myself so absolutely as represented by Mr. Leland, who did not see fit to mention the double authorship of the book; the subject of which I took up from where it was left by Walter Simson. This double authorship may prove a little confusing to the reader when the book is alluded to.