BANNATYNE, GEORGE collector of Scottish poems, was a native of Newtyle, Forfarshire. He be came an Edinburgh merchant and was admitted a burgess in 1587. Some years earlier, in 1568, when the "pest" raged in the capital, he retired to his native county and amused himself by writing out copies of poems by 15th and early 16th century Scots poets. His work extended to Boo folio pages, divided into five parts. The ms. descended to his only daughter Janet, and later to her husband's family, the Foulises of Woodhall and Ravelston, near Edinburgh. From them it passed to the Advocates' Library (National Library of Scotland). This ms., known as the "Ban natyne Manuscript," constitutes with the "Asloan" and "Maitland Folio" mss. the chief repository of Middle Scots poetry, especially for the texts of the greater poets Henryson, Dunbar, Lyndsay, and Alexander Scott. Portions of it were reprinted (with modifications) by Allan Ramsay in his Ever Green (1724), and later, and more correctly, by Lord Hailes in his Ancient Scottish Poems (177o). The entire text was issued by the Hunterian club (1873-1902). The name of Bannatyne is perpetuated in the Bannatyne club (founded 1823), devoted to the publication of historical and literary material from Scottish sources.