The first critical edition was prepared by Dr Jamieson and published in 1820.
Among his avowed antagonists in literary warfare the most distinguished were Malone and Steevens, the Shakespeare editors; Mathias, the author of the Pursuits of Literature; Dr Jamieson, the Scottish lexicographer; Pinkerton, the historian; Dr Irving, the biographer of the Scottish poets; and Dr Currie of Liverpool.
The derivation of the word "ragman" has never been satisfactorily explained, but various guesses as to its meaning and a list of examples of its use for legal instruments both in England and Scotland will be found in the preface to the Bannatyne Club's volume, and in Jamieson's Scottisk Dictionary, s.v.
After six years' theological study, Jamieson was licensed to preach in 1789 and became pastor of an Anti-burgher congregation in Forfar; and in 1797 he was called to the Anti-burgher church in Nicolson Street, Edinburgh.
See History of the Chapel Royal, Stirling (Grampian Club, 1882); Charters of Stirling (1884); John Jamieson, Bell the Cat (Stirling, 1902); The Battle of Stirling Bridge - the Kildean Myth (Stirling Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1905).