EARL OF BUCHAN TO MR. PINKERTON. Dryburgh Abbey, Aug. 5th, 1790. I have written to M. de Cardonnel about the transcript you desire to be made from the book of Old Scotish poems in the Advocates' Library, in which, if any difficulty should be found, I shall intervene to have it done, and cause the copies to be sent under the cover of a member of Parliament. I remember to have seen the Memoirs of Lockhart at Glasgow, when I was engaged in the study of civil law and jurisprudence at that university, with Messrs. Millar and Smith, in the year 1760; and I have heard my uncle, Sir James Stuart Denham, speak of it as having been called in by the instigation of the late Mr. Lockhart, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, afterwards a Lord of Session, by the name of the Lord Covington, who, with others of his family, was a Jacobite and a foe to the principles which raised the ambassador to his station under Cromwell and the commonwealth of Britain. As soon as I received your letter, I wrote to my cousin, the present Sir James Stuart Denham, member of Parliament for the county of Lanark, begging he would procure me three copies of the book, one of which I shall send you as soon as I receive them; as I agree with you in thinking the book should be published, and wish it to receive such illustration as may be derived from the examination of the Paperoffice and other repositories at London, that may VOL. I. R contain his correspondence with Thurloe, and other ministers of state, which have not been accessible to the writer of the Memoirs in question. press. I shall obtain leave from the family to put the book into your hands, to receive your notes and illustrations, and to be at your disposal for the I propose, likewise, to send you a drawing of Lockhart's portrait from the picture by Sir Peter Lely, which is at Lee in Lanarkshire, the chief residence of the family. I have consulted Sir David Dalrymple about this business; and, when I have his opinion, I shall inform you of the result; and with respect to the poems in the Bannatyne manuscript &c., if I find that M. de Cardonnel is too much engaged to be able to follow out the extent of your queries, I shall take care to superintend this or any other transcripts you may wish to have made in the Advocates' Library, or any of our libraries in Scotland. It is my earnest desire to push vigorously forward the literature of Scotland, at a time when we have excited some taste for it among ourselves, and have in you so indefatigable and so excellent an editor, whose merit will be as much exaggerated hereafter as it is detracted from at pre sent. I suppose the Scots college at Paris, if the new government of France shall in the end be fully established, will either sell their effects, or cause their valuable manuscripts to be printed or sold to a bookseller. Gordon, their principal, is become old and indolent; but the house must cause some person of erudition and taste to be engaged to arrange the manuscripts, and superintend the printing of a catalogue, in which case, as you might carry on your work as well at Paris as at London, I should wish to recommend your assistance, if you have no objection to the performance of the task. There is a whole room full of old letters and papers that were placed in the college by Archbishop Bethune; and the collection of Lesly, Bishop of Ross, is in the same apartment, containing much information with respect to the ancient history of Scotland. To conclude-Use freely every aid that I can afford you in the prosecution of your researches: "Ask, and you shall receive: knock, and it shall be opened to you." I shall be happy to hear of the re-establishment of your health: I wish death to keep off such quarry. I could let him have plenty of gentlemen at a shilling a dozen, that would fill his maw much better than our historian. LORD HAILES TO MR. PINKERTON. Newhailes, Sept. 28th, 1790. This day I had the favor of your letter: I have no view of beginning where I left off in the History of Scotland. I have not made any collections worth mentioning as to Robert II. and III. Extracts from Froissart, and those very superficial, compose the chief part. Had I meant to write that part of the Scotish History, I should certainly have exerted myself to get the manuscript of Froissart, at Breslau in Silesia, inspected; for I imagine that more will be found respecting Scotland in it than in the printed copy. Any thing that I have as to the five James's and Queen Mary, will come in properly among my notes on their Acts of Parliament; a work which has been long under my hands, and which I am unwilling to lose sight of. I remember that Mr. Boswell told me, some years ago, that he meant to write the life of James IV. whether he made any progress in it, I know not. From your purpose of undertaking so large a work as that which you mention, I judge that you are resolved to let Mr. Whitaker alone: somebody told me that you intended to examine him. Mr. Tytler and he have dispersed all the birds of ill omen which hovered round the royal body. Accept my thanks for the civilities shown to me in your late book. MR. PINKERTON TO LORD HAILES. Kentish Town, near London, I was duly honored with your lordship's obliging answer to my last, to which I did not reply, because I was apprehensive of being troublesome ; but I am now induced to beg your lordship's opinion upon a very important department of our history, the old laws of Scotland. The statutes of Malcolm II. I give up with your lordship; and the Regiam Majestatem with Mr. Davidson. But some parts of the latter strike me as real ancient Scotish laws, preserved in that treatise; as for instance, lib. i. c. 16 to 20, which are clearly referred to in stat. Alex. c. 12, and lib. iv. c. 36, 38, 39, 40. The former part is ascribed to David I. by stat. Alex. c. 12; and the latter, from its intrinsic evidence, seems to contain some of the oldest laws. Skene mentions that, in some manuscripts, the latter chapters are titled, Leges inter Brettos et Scotos; and your lordship will remember, in your Annals an instrument of Edward I. is mentioned, referring to the laws inter Brettos et Scotos. Most of the other passages in the Regiam Majestatem not in Glanville, I suppose to be later laws, inserted when the Regiam Majestatem was really compiled under David II. I can discover no manuscript older than the fifteenth century, which is another argument for its not being more ancient than the fourteenth; and under James I. it is regarded as established law; so it hardly can be more modern than David II. But this is submitted to your lordship. In the Harleian Library is a good manuscript of the old Scotish laws, written about 1430; and it is believed as ancient as any extant. I have compared it carefully with Skene's edition, and find that your lordship is perfectly right in blaming Skene for gross errors, omissions, and interpolations. The statutes of Robert II. are not in this |